'Bookish' Recap: Episode 3

Bookish airs Sundays at 9:00 pm on WTTW is available to stream on the PBS app and wttw.com. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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The movie Lovelorn in London is filming outside Book’s, with the book store unaltered and Trottie’s wallpaper store turned into a cake shop, at least from the exterior. Interiors will be filmed at Ladyhurst Studios, but the whole crew is filming street scenes in the actual lane. Stewart Howard stars as a book store owner who falls in love with the girl next door, his real-life fiancée Sandra Dare.

The film is written and directed by Jesse Mackendrick, whom Nora recognizes: he spent the summer living on the lane, seemingly taking notes on how to run a book store for the movie before returning to his wealthy family.

During a break in filming, Trottie chats with two extras who are obsessed with the star Stewart Howard – they signed up for the film to be near him. One of them, Barbara Markham, suddenly starts twitching and falls to the ground. She’s dead. 

Filming is shut down.

Stewart and Sandra are relaxing in Gabriel’s room, which has been commandeered as a dressing room. Sandra is older and worries that Lovelorn in London might not be successful, especially since she is aging. She’s also upset by the presence of prying journalist Nerina Bean, who’s on set looking for a story. 

As they talk, the gofer Billy brings them a box of chocolates – fans know that Sandra loves them and so often send them, even though she never eats them. As Stewart raises one to his mouth, Gabriel and Bliss rush in and yell at him not to eat it.

They have gone through the dead Barbara’s purse and found some expensive chocolates that she presumably wouldn’t have been able to afford, meaning she probably pilfered them from the stash sent to the stars. And the chocolates have tiny holes in them, suggesting that they have been tampered with. Given her symptoms, Barbara was probably poisoned by strychnine injected into the chocolates.

Stewart fires Billy, who is mistreated by nearly everyone on set, for almost giving him poisoned chocolates. The police suspect someone was targeting Sandra, since the chocolates are typically for her.

As the filming crew packs up, Sandra grants an interview to Nerina, telling her about her and Stewart’s exclusive new three-picture deal. Nerina reveals that she has learned a secret about Sandra that would startle fans by revealing Sandra’s real age: she starred in a silent movie under a different name. Sandra quickly deflects and tells Nerina that someone is trying to poison her, despite the police’s request to keep the threat quiet.

Business can resume at Book’s, with Gabriel supplying a return customer with a disparaging husband not only the sequel she is looking for but also Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, which he thinks might speak to her oppressive marriage. Meanwhile, Trottie sends Jack to fetch her bag from her room. While there, he notices a photo of a man sitting at a piano and recognizes the man from a photo of his father that he keeps with him.

Trottie has asked Gabriel when they will tell Jack the truth, but Gabriel wants Jack to settle in first.

Barbara’s friend who was also an extra tells the detectives that she and Barbara met through the film magazine Picturegoer and bonded over their love of Stewart Howard. She admits that they took chocolates from the pile sent by fans.

The note included with the poisoned chocolates fell out, but Gabriel finds it where Dog has hidden it. It’s a love note addressed to Stewart warning him to break off his engagement.

Stewart’s engagement isn’t all that real anyway, as he reveals to Gabriel and Jack when they visit him at a popular restaurant and reveal that he was the target of the poisoning, not Sandra. The two stars were lovers at one point, and the engagement is a convenient boost to fandom. And Sandra helped Stewart break into the movie business.

Gabriel and Jack also guess that Stewart has been in prison when he starts to eat with a spoon instead of a fork – Jack himself was in prison, too, after all. Stewart admits that he tried to rob a bank when he was young but has hidden that fact from the press. He bonds with Jack, and Gabriel tells him to take Jack as an assistant to replace Billy for the time being. Stewart agrees, and also invites the Books to visit the studios, where filming is continuing even now with Sandra. She’s struggling to complete a take, and asks for a break for a cigarette.

Gabriel believes someone on set tried to kill Stewart, as the box of poisoned chocolates didn’t have a postage envelope like the other fan gifts. It must have been placed there rather than mailed.

Gabriel himself narrowly avoided prison for homosexuality. He was rescued by Trottie, whom he knew from childhood, who told the police that they were engaged in order to save him. Stewart has picked up on the Books’ unusual marriage, but Jack hasn’t.

The next morning, Jack searches their room and finds a marriage certificate between Trottie and Eric Percival Banks – apparently she was married once before. 

He then sets off with Gabriel in Stewart’s car to Ladyhurst Studios. As Stewart gives them a tour, they spot a dead body at the bottom of some stairs. It’s Nerina Bean, dressed as the postman extra from Lovelorn in London. There are some letters smeared on her hand.