'Trespasses' Recap: Episode 2

Trespasses airs Sundays at 9:00 pm and is available to stream via the PBS app. Recap the previous episode.
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For a brief period, the chaos of a violent and divided Northern Ireland fades away, as Cushla enjoys blissful visits to Michael’s flat in Belfast. Even his changing of the subject when she asks who the Joanne Butler inscribed in his Gaelic dictionary is doesn’t dim her pleasure.

Her happiness makes it easy to continue to help the McGeown family, whose Catholic father can no longer work after being brutally beaten for marrying a Protestant. Cushla drives Davey to school and requests free meals for the family from the principal, who tells her she’s doing too much for them. She also shames a staunch loyalist who frequents her brother’s pub into giving the McGeowns a bag of chocolate Easter eggs for free, given what happened to Davey’s father.

Betty McGeown asks Cushla to speak to her eldest son, Tommy, who has decided to stop attending school and is spending more and more time with his cousins, whom Betty fears will get him into trouble – or worse. Cushla urges Tommy to at least sit for his exams, but he says he has to start working since his dad can’t anymore.

Cushla is less close to her brother’s family than the McGeowns, in large part because her mother Gina is cruel to Eamonn’s wife Marian, in particular. Cushla is irked when Michael calls during a family Easter meal and Gina tells Eamonn that Cushla has been staying out all night with her new beau, whom Cushla has told Gina is her kindhearted colleague, Gerry. When Eamonn and Marian announce that they’re pregnant with a third child, Gina is insulted and hurt that they’re only telling her now, five months into the pregnancy. 

Most of Cushla’s relatives blanched at her attempt to zhuzh up the Easter meal by rubbing garlic on the lamb, so she takes the leftovers to McGeowns, who devour them. She also brings a copy of Jude the Obscure for Tommy.

Eamonn disapproves of Cushla’s charity; he tells her not to talk about it at the pub, where he desperately tries to keep the peace despite a mixed clientele. Michael comes in and gets surly when Cushla tells him she can’t see him that night; she’s going to the movies with Gerry. When Gerry himself arrives, he saves Cushla by pretending to Eamonn that he was the one who called during Easter. Eamonn takes a liking to Gerry, while Michael cold-shoulders both him and Cushla. Michael eventually admits to her, embarrassed, that he’s jealous, but she won’t hear of it: he’s the one who’s married and can barely make time for her. He gives her his flat’s phone number.

When Michael is on the radio talking about his work defending young Catholic rabble rousers, Gina mentions the gossip she’s heard about his wife, Joanne Butler, at the hair salon. No wonder Joanne is a drunk and shut-in; Michael has lots of affairs.

Cushla demands to see Michael immediately. She asks about his wife and womanizing; he offers a weak excuse. She storms away and is seen crying by her nosy neighbor.

Some time later, after Gina has noted that Cushla is no longer receiving calls but is also eagerly staying near the phone, that same neighbor comments that Cushla has perked up and a young man is waiting for her at home. Cushla is returning from having sex with Michael on the side of the road after he finally called made up with her. She told her mom that she was going to see Gerry, and now quickly explains that there was a mix-up. 

But the man waiting is not Gerry but Tommy. He loved the novel and is returning it, seemingly eager to spend time with Cushla – until she again encourages him to stick with school.

She’s not having the easiest time there: a boy brings in a newspaper clipping about a “soldier doll,” a woman who is publicly tarred and shamed for sleeping with the “enemy,” that is, Protestants. And at a school dance, Cushla draws the eye of a policeman, Constable Peters.

The sectarian violence and disputes continually seep into everyday life. At another meeting of Michael’s friends to learn Gaelic, Michael and Victor argue over the people Michael defends in court. Penny desperately redirects the conversation, but Victor pointedly turns his attention to Cushla, the Catholic in the room.

She later wishes she had stood up to Victor, but Michael excuses his behavior, explaining that Victor was one of the first journalists on the scene on Bloody Friday; the horror has stuck with him. Michael asks Cushla to spend a weekend with him in Dublin, away from the violence and struggle, but Cushla refuses: she won’t pretend to be his wife.

Things continue to go south when Betty McGeown tells Cushla to stay away from her house. A social worker has visited, and Betty worries that they’ll take her kids away – and that Cushla sent them. Cushla confronts her principal, who says that Cushla told him Betty was struggling and needed free meals. He and Cushla nearly come to blows.

Gina is kind to Cushla when she explains what happened, and takes care of her daughter for once, instead of vice versa. When Michael calls, Cushla tells him she can’t see him; her day has been difficult. He convinces her to come to his flat and cares for her himself. As they both lament the sectarianism, she tells him they should spend a weekend in Dublin.

There, they get to be a couple in public. At a jazz club, he tells her he loves her; smiling, she says she’ll reciprocate another time. She buys a missal for Davey and a prayer for protection for Michael before they end their weekend of bliss.

She’s quickly thrust back into reality. Cushla returns home to find Gina sitting in a filled bath, clothed, with a wound on her head, lamenting that Cushla left her alone. After tending to her mother, Cushla scours the house for Gina’s hidden bottles of gin, even finding one in the toilet tank. She calls Eamonn as she looks at the forest of bottles, but he says he can’t do anything to help; he’s busy with the pub. 

So Cushla again heads to Michael for comfort. As they have sex in his flat, they hear noise outside. He looks out the windows – he hasn’t drawn the curtains – and sees a nondescript car reverse away. He’s used to police cars passing to let him know they’re watching him; this is something else. Something more worrisome.