'Trespasses' Recap: Episode 3

Trespasses airs Sundays at 9:00 pm and is available to stream via the PBS app. Recap the previous episode.
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Just as Michael is not above jealousy, nor is Cushla: she looks up his address and drives by, watching him interact with a woman, presumably his wife, through the window. 

She goes to the art opening of Michael’s friend Penny alone, and is surprised that Michael is not there. When he does finally arrive, he immediately gets into an argument with Victor, who’s upset that Michael is no longer just defending young Catholic agitators in court but has now taken on a case against Northern Ireland’s police force. Even Michael’s more amenable friends are shocked. Penny warns Cushla that she is putting herself in danger by having an affair with Michael – he’s a controversial public figure, appearing on the TV news.

Back at Michael’s love nest, Cushla asks him if his life would be easier without her. He says she’s made his life better, and gives her keys to the flat so she can come anytime. As she leaves, she sees a man smoking outside his car. He gets in and drives away as she goes to her own car. 

Cushla notes it without too much worry – until she sees Michael’s reaction when Constable Peters comes into Eamonn’s bar and flirts with Cushla. Tell me if he comes in again, Michael demands of Cushla.

Cushla reconciles with Betty McGeown at first communion, when Davey pulls her over to take a photo of his family. Gina takes the opportunity to give Davey some cash, while Cushla tells Betty that the school principal, not Cushla, reported the McGeowns to social services. Tommy tells Cushla with a puffed-out chest that he’s now working with his cousins, having left school.

At another party at Michael’s friends’ house, Cushla bonds with Mrs. Coyle, who does housework for Michael and his friends. Her son has been accused by the police of being an IRA agent, and Michael promises to help him, even though he has refused to recognize the court, as many IRA sympathizers do. The next day, Cushla pages through Coyle’s case files while Michael is in another room and gets a firsthand glimpse of bruised bodies. When she leaves Michael, he says he will be incommunicado for a while.

At Eamonn’s bar, a group of soldiers is somber. The one who harassed Cushla has died in a bombing.

Gerry is curious who Cushla is dating, but she won’t tell him. She does agree to go to a wedding with him. It gets moved to a leisure center last-minute because the hotel that was supposed to host it got fire-bombed. Soldiers barge in midway through to scan the room with weapons before leaving. A known IRA associate talks to Gerry, who panics and asks Cushla to leave with him. He warns her that the man was asking questions about Cushla’s romantic life. 

Cushla asks Gerry to drop her off at Michael’s flat, and Gerry warns her that this kind of secrecy always blows up. 

When Cushla takes a taxi home the next morning after a night alone in the flat, she’s startled to see Constable Peters on the street, and avoids answering his probing questions. She’s saved by her always curious neighbor, who is a sergeant – it’s him that Peters is on the street to see.

Cushla promised her mom Gina a fancy lunch at a hotel if she didn’t get drunk while Cushla was at the wedding – the forest of bottles Cushla found hidden around the house remain on the table as a reminder to Gina of how bad her alcoholism is. Now the pair heads off for the meal and are embarrassed to see Eamonn and his family there celebrating his mother-in-law’s birthday. Gina and Cushla were not invited. Gina rejects their half-hearted offer to join them, then rushes through her own meal. As she’s leaving, she sees someone she knows and makes a point of saying hi in front of Eamonn and his family.

It’s Michael, with his own family: wife and son. Cushla is introduced to them. 

She refuses to answer the phone at home. She goes for a furious late-night drive and spots Gerry meeting a man by the docks.

During school, Gerry notices that Cushla is upset and asks her to come to France with him and his friends for the summer. She tells him her affair is over. He walks away when she questions him about his nighttime meeting, however.

Cushla takes the phone at home off the hook so it can’t ring anymore, and tells Gina she’ll be home every evening from now on; she won’t be working at the bar either. But Gina puts the phone back on the hook, and pleads with Cushla to talk to her suitor so he’ll stop calling.

So she goes to Michael’s flat. She thought he had been unavailable recently because of work, but instead he was spending time with his family. He apologizes and says that his wife is depressed, so badly that she has been in the hospital recently for electroshock therapy. Cushla realizes that this is why she has been able to see Michael so much. 

Michael says he can’t leave his wife because she can’t live on her own and he can’t ask his son to watch her – and it’s all Michael’s fault. He got her pregnant while she was in law school, and her postpartum depression never went away, only worsening over the years. Cushla asks Michael how many affairs he has had.

Three, he answers – but Cushla is different. He loves her, he says with tears on his face. And he will never lie to her again. He also doesn’t expect her to give up her life for him, since continuing to see him would necessitate that, as he can’t leave his wife. But she doesn’t want to stop seeing him. They can go on long weekend trips together.

Cushla happily returns to working at the bar. There, Michael tells her he loves her out in the open (making sure others can’t hear, of course) and asks her to bring more of her possessions to his flat.

Things are also looking up with the McGeowns: Betty invites Cushla in for tea when she drops Davey off one day. Tommy has moved out of the house. 

Planning to spend the weekend with Michael, Cushla goes home for clothes but can’t find Gina. She calls Eamonn and hears that Gina is at the bar and needs to be taken home. When Cushla arrives, she asks what’s wrong. Gina tells her that Michael was shot dead that morning.