'Grantchester' Recap: Season 10 Episode 3

Grantchester airs Sundays at 8:00 pm on WTTW is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes and other seasons. 
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Alphy is preparing to host Meg at the vicarage for a second date, and his friends are all eagerly helping: Mrs. C is making sure his dinner is edible, while Geordie is offering advice such as having flowers for the table. Alphy is not planning on having his friends interrupt the date, however – but Mrs. C quickly does so. There’s a vicar trying to get into the locked church with his “niece.”

It’s David Lane, who nearly took over Grantchester’s church from Alphy last year. He’s with a woman named Joan who he tells Mrs. C is his niece – but she’s actually a stripper, and needs sanctuary. David begs Alphy for help, and Alphy reluctantly lets him and Joan stay at the vicarage, even though Meg knows David and dislikes him. Another stripper, Kitty, soon arrives, followed by Geordie and Stanley, the doorman and bartender of the strip club where Joan and Kitty work. So much for a quiet date night.

All of this kerfuffle is because the owner of the strip club is dead. She slumped over in the middle of Joan’s act. No one touched her, so everyone thought she had simply had one too many drinks – but she was dead. The cashbox next to her is empty, even though it should have plenty of money in it. There’s a bloody mark on the back of her neck.

David “ministers” to the strippers, helping them with their “artistry,” and is a frequent guest at the club. It’s all very tasteful, he insists. He took Joan with him after the madam’s death and told Kitty that they’d be at the church. So when Geordie and Larry arrived at the club, Kitty managed to slip away on a bike. Geordie followed her, with Stanley in the back seat, and ended up at the vicarage.

Leonard’s also there, having arrived with a flask in tow to find comfort in Alphy: Leonard and Daniel just argued over Daniel’s prolonged visit with his estranged parents. Leonard is intrigued by the crowd and so stays. As everyone digs into the food meant for Alphy and Meg, she tries to leave, but Alphy convinces her to wait it out. Soon she and Leonard are rapt, while Mrs. C is aghast.

Geordie starts questioning the strip club employees. Joan says that the madam was horrible to Stanley, and many of the customers didn’t like her either. But she never forced Joan or Kitty to sleep with the patrons, at least, and she gave Stanley a job when no one else would – he’s barely literate, although David has been helping him learn to read.

There was only one way in and out of the club, but no one saw anyone touch the madam. A rival club owner recently argued with the madam over both complaints of drunken men outside the madam’s club as well as her dancers – Kitty was dancing at both clubs. Kitty had lots of admirers, including David, who followed her around. Kitty calls him sweet but weird.

David has been alone in the office during this interrogation – and now Alphy and Geordie hear him trying to start Alphy’s car and flee. They stop him and bring him back inside. David admits that he’s a “sinner” with “impure thoughts” but he tries not to act on them – so he goes to the strip club and helps the girls and Stanley out in benign ways in the hope that it will keep him from indulging in sex.

Geordie has become convinced that David killed the madam for Kitty, because the madam was upset that Kitty was dancing at another club. Geordie calls for a car to bring everyone to the police station.

But in the meantime, Leonard has decided to reenact the scene of the death while waiting for the car. While Leonard gathers props, Geordie asks him when he knew was gay. Geordie is worried about his son David, whom he found wearing a dress and later mimicking an actor playing a flamboyant woman on TV. Leonard says that he probably knew as a child – and that his parents probably knew, too, given his father’s evident disappointment with Leonard from an early age.

Leonard has taken to drinking more and more heavily since he learned that his father died. He manages to down plenty of glasses at the vicarage. Mrs. C notices and asks Alphy if it seems like Leonard is tipsy all the time, but Alphy dismisses it.

The reenactment of madam’s death takes place. Alphy realizes that the stab wound on the back of the madam’s neck would have been underneath her collar when she was sitting up – and her collar wasn’t ripped. She was stabbed after she slumped over. Everyone left the club when she slumped (except another man who was passed out), but Joan returned to grab her clothes.

Geordie questions Joan at the police station once everyone has been transported there. He finds the money from the madam’s cashbox in her coat. She admits to taking the money when she went back inside for her clothes, thinking that the madam was dead. But the madam opened her eyes, startling Joan, who lashed out with the high heel she was carrying, leaving the stab wound in the madam and blood on the heel. Joan regrets it.

But the autopsy shows the wound was superficial – something else killed the madam. When Geordie calls Alphy from the police station with this news, Meg tells Alphy to go with Geordie back to the club to investigate, even though she and Alphy have only just finally regained their solitude at the vicarage – Alphy has helped a drunken Leonard to sleep on the couch. Meg says she might wait around for Alphy.

Geordie sniffs the glass that fell from the madam’s hand when she collapsed and realizes it had been filled with laudanum. And there have been complaints about men getting so drunk at the club that they woke up remembering nothing outside, minus all the cash they had. There’s a bottle of laudanum at Stanley’s station at the door.

The madam was drugging customers flush with cash and then robbing them. She would direct Stanley to give patrons with full wallets a VIP ticket that allotted them free drinks and a chat with the girls, and then he would drug their drink. Once they passed out, the madam would take their money and leave them on the street.

She had directed Stanley to pull this trick on David – but David was always kind to Stanley, helping him learn to read, while the madam mistreated Stanley as well as Kitty and Joan. So he decided to kill the madam by overdosing her on laudanum. He admits to this, and asks Geordie to spare Kitty and Joan any punishment – they deserve happiness.

When Alphy returns to the vicarage, Meg is still there, cleaning up. A taxi arrives for her – but she pauses to kiss Alphy and confirm that she would like to go on another date. Alphy goes to check on Leonard, who is slumbering on the couch and got sick earlier, according to Meg. Alphy notices a nearly empty bottle by Leonard’s side.