Grantchester (2014) s08e04

“Grantchester” toes an interesting line with religion and religiosity. It avoids it. Yes, the show’s full of religious imagery, complete with beautifully lighted sequences where Tom Brittney gives a lovely sermon and it’s never about being shitty; it’s always about how God’s actually all for the gays and so forth. Because, besides Brittney and Al Weaver, all of the characters on the show are functionally atheists. Even the extremely religious Tessa Peake-Jones. She doesn’t believe the way Brittney and Weaver believe.

It comes out this episode big time with Brittney. Turns out he lied to Charlotte Ritchie last episode, and he’s not okay; he’s not getting better—even worse, we find out God doesn’t talk to him anymore. Now, no spoilers, but we will find out some things about how God speaks to Brittney. Good tortured expression acting from Brittney; if writer Helen Black wasn’t trying to make a certain point, however… well, it’s concerning. Or is it just going to be about the de-faithing of England. Or it’s just a story arc and not a big deal.

God abandoning Brittney is a story arc because they need to get Brittney moping. “Grantchester” was infamously about a mopey vicar who got drunk, listened to jazz, and bedded many, many women while mooning over some shallow girl. Brittney isn’t that mopey vicar. He doesn’t have the mope down, not as an actor, not as a character. When Brittney mopes, it feels like he’s overstepping—“Grantchester”’s supposed to be an ensemble now, and his moping is getting in the way. Also, he’s not being self-destructive; he’s just moping.

He’s not even listening to jazz.

Good mystery this episode. One of Weaver’s halfway house residents turns up dead. Santo Tripodi plays the victim. Halfway house troublemaker Narinder Samra is a too-obvious suspect. “Grantchester” has been letting Samra simmer nicely in the background for a couple episodes, and it really pays off here–Samra’s phenomenal. See, even though the town wants the halfway house gone, when Brittney and Robson Green start investigating, they learn these men mostly just lost their way after a war. So it’s a very personal case.

And let’s not forget Peake-Jones’s husband, Nick Brimble, is paying for the halfway house, which Weaver started after deciding he didn’t want to run his cafe (which Brimble also paid for), leaving boyfriend Oliver Dimsdale to run the cafe and be a photographer. Weaver’s got a tough arc this episode. They leave it open, too, so hopefully, we’ll get some more material for Weaver and Dimsdale before the season’s done.

There are only two more episodes, so if it’s not a subplot by now, it won’t be a subplot.

It also seems like Ritchie won’t figure in prominently, which is too bad. Especially since Brittney’s just moping instead.

Anyway.

Good supporting performances from all the suspects—David Rubin as the guy with a locked room alibi, George Brockbanks as an old collar of Green’s, Jessie Bedrossian as the one female resident in the house, who might be causing love triangles. It’s a really good mystery–definitely the best of the season, with a great finale.

And Simone Lahbib’s still around. She joined last episode as Weaver’s maid, who now gets into competitions with Peake-Jones, which is hilarious. It gives Brimble a little more to do than usual. He’s still mostly an accessory, but he gets to keep pace with an amped-up Peake-Jones.

Outside the ending, which just foretells more sad Brittney… it’s a stellar episode. Director Rob Evans and writer Anita Vettesse cook up a model “Grantchester.”

Grantchester (2014) s08e03

Al Weaver directed this episode, which I think is the first time one of the show’s stars has directed an episode. Weaver’s got a little to do on screen—he’s worried about Tom Brittney, who’s moping after hitting the guy with his motorcycle, but it’s all okay. I mean, okay in the sense Brittney’s not getting charged. The guy’s dead. The season’s A plot is vicar Brittney killed some guy by total accident, but also a complicated total accident.

Brittney feels terrible about it. And he doesn’t want to talk to Weaver or anyone else about it. He wants to talk to God about it. But he’s too busy with the case—and his friends interfering. In addition to Weaver worrying about him, there’s Kacey Ainsworth, whose concern brings Brittney and Robson Green into the mystery plot. Ainsworth takes Brittney out for a nice day at a college museum, with Green tagging along. First, there are some coeds—not at that college, because it’s the men’s college, no girls even on campus if they can help it—who are protesting in various states of undress about double standards regarding the female form in art and actuality.

Their demonstration coincides with the famous painting everyone’s there to see going missing. Then, later on, when Bradley Hall is on the scene investigating, he discovers a body. So now it’s a murder.

The episode then toggles between this far-reaching investigation—it’s all about how men, regardless of class, are shitty to women, but men of higher class can also be shitty to men of lower class. It’s the British way, after all.

Meanwhile, Brittney’s getting sick of the interfering—Tessa Peake-Jones also gets some of his ire, leading to a fun moment between Peake-Jones and Weaver. It’ll all come to a head—multiple times—as he gets angrier and angrier.

Ainsworth and Green have some detached family crisis—he’s probably losing his job, and she just got called in to see her boss, who doesn’t like her. Then Oliver Dimsdale convinces Weaver to hire a maid—Simone Lahbib—to improve conditions around the halfway house.

It’s a balanced episode, though little kid Isaac Highams is missing when he shouldn’t be.

And Melissa Johns gets quite a bit to do with the female protestors. The show tries to acknowledge she’s aware the cops are problematic, but then she still plays the game. “Grantchester”’s really not afraid to make their characters unlikable at times—see Brittney’s loud, angry power mope in this episode.

Thanks to the intricate plotting and Weaver’s solid direction, the episode goes off without a hitch.

Grantchester (2014) s07e06

Something’s obviously going on when this season finale’s murder mystery is about halfway through the episode. The mystery’s sequel to a previous episode this season; a copycat killing has happened, only Robson Green didn’t give out some of the details, so it can’t be a copycat. The plotting is trope-y but not the details. There’s still some real personality to it.

There’s also a Christian fundamentalist psycho killer (run, run, run away) on a show about a vicarage. It works better than the last time the show dealt with problematic godliness (a homophobic Black curate from a British colony). It’s also exceptionally terrifying because there’s one of the Grantchester flock out to off the unsuspecting vicar. I don’t think. Considering Tom Brittney’s once again a failed Grantchester vicar this episode—he gets blotto, smokes cigarettes, but doesn’t listen to jazz because he knows he can’t handle that life—it’s nice he gets to do something for the first time in the series.

While the entire second half of the episode, which includes a fast-forward epilogue, is about closing “Grantchester” down enough if it doesn’t get another season, there are also some shoehorned-in threads while the murder mystery’s still happening. Tessa Peake-Jones gets her season-long cancer plot resolved, with, unfortunately, some very middling writing for her. The show skipped important parts of her story since the last time she got a subplot, and they don’t make up for it here. It’s the season finale, and it’s outstanding business, so let’s get it resolved, however abruptly.

It’s a particular bummer for Peake-Jones and Al Weaver’s relationship, one of the season’s early focuses. During this episode’s first act, he’s oddly disconnected from her plot, which makes sense pragmatically—he’s got an entirely new subplot this episode to finish off his season and, potentially, his character—but not in terms of narrative.

Weaver’s new plot is caring for the unhoused people in town, an arc he kind of started a few episodes ago, but they never did anything with until now. Thanks to Weaver, an amusingly overwhelmed Oliver Dimsdale, and a lovely Nick Brimble, it works out okay, but it’s still a rush job.

Green’s got the truncated mystery plot, little bit of action, little bit of family comedy. It’s not a lot (though he gets some good material in the epilogue), especially if it ends up being the last episode.

Brittney’s non-murder mystery-related plot involves apologizing to Charlotte Ritchie for being a shitty suitor as she prepares to leave forever. Ritchie gets a couple adorable scenes with son Isaac Highams, who’s appropriately wiser than the adults when needed. Ritchie has a good half episode, though the resolution’s a little contrived before the epilogue.

The epilogue does bring back Brittney’s family, who went unmentioned this season even though last season had set step-sister Emily Patrick as some kind of recurring character. Maybe they just couldn’t get the whole supporting cast together because of Covid-19.

It’s a nice finish to the season, with some very sturdy acting from Green throughout. Thanks to Christian serial killers and fast-forward epilogues, Brittney gets an easier character development arc than the last episode implied. Still, he’s definitely come into his own as a new kind of Grantchester vicar.

Especially if they get another season. It’ll be too bad if they don’t, but it’s also a very nice conclusion and setup. No playing chicken here.

Oh, and besides an actual “Sidney” name-drop at one point, there’s also a lovely, old school Grantchester river montage (to help the fast forward along). It’s a very “Grantchester” finish.

Grantchester (2014) s07e04

The mystery plot is particularly good in this episode. And it's all about the vicarage. Maybe the location was busy for the first two episodes of this season; they're very much back to services, with Tom Brittney giving a couple sermons. He's also potentially hiring a new curate (Tom Glenister, briefly returning from last episode). Brittney takes Glenister to visit Al Weaver, which is just set up for Tessa Peake-Jones's subplot. She still hasn't told anyone but Weaver about her cancer diagnosis.

"Grantchester"'s got alternating C plots this season: there's Peake-Jones and cancer, then Robson Green and Kacey Ainsworth's marital woes. This episode starts with Peake-Jones as the main subplot, switches over to Green and Ainsworth, then is back to Peake-Jones for the finish.

It balances out nicely—with some great acting from Peake-Jones and Nick Brimble (as her husband)—because the Green and Ainsworth subplot echoes in the main mystery plot.

The victim this episode is the husband of one of the church ladies, who Brittney thought he knew well, only to discover they've all got secrets from him. Except for Oliver Dimsdale (Weaver's beau), the lone dude in the group. Louiza Patikas plays the controlling leader of the group, with Lauren Douglin and Sophie Fletcher as her chief sidekicks; Alaïs Lawson is the youngest, a French girl who Patikas micromanages the most.

Brittney thinks he knows all of them, only for the murder to reveal he's completely unaware of what's going on with his parish. Green's even surprised at how out of touch Brittney is with the goings-on amongst his most needful "customers." Though at this point, there's no longer mention of Brittney not hanging around the station to help Green with investigations; Green's new boss doesn't put in an appearance this episode (or last), and junior officer Bradley Hall is back to hanging on Green's every potential compliment.

The mystery reveals things about the victim, the victim's wife, and the three other women in the church group; lots to unravel, lots of well-acted drama. Patikas proves a deeper character than implied initially, and she's terrific. The murder arc ends up far more haunting than it originally seems like it'll turn out.

It also ties into the Green and Ainsworth subplot. Brittney and Charlotte Ritchie are convinced all Green and Ainsworth need is a nice night out and set them up, unknowingly, on a double date. Ritchie realizes Brittney sometimes defaults to vicar behavior when things go wrong and right for certain attendees, making him less than sincere when he needs to be. Unfortunately, the episode leaves that development hanging for next time, instead toggling back over to Peake-Jones's. It's an okay move (the Peake-Jones subplot does take precedent), but they seem to be dragging out Brittney and Ritchie's flirty friendship.

Even with the frayed subplots, it's another good episode. Though it's only a six-episode season this time, so they're nearing the finish, and almost everything outstanding is very outstanding.

Grantchester (2014) s07e01

There are some significant changes in “Grantchester” at the start of this season; some are continuations of last season’s subplots, others are not. New curate Ahmed Elhaj is gone already, getting a brief mention from Tessa Peake-Jones somewhere in the first five minutes, then nothing. Actually, vicar Tom Brittney doesn’t do any Church of England work this episode, though he does come into his own as the Grantchester vicar. He’s done with flirtations with comely reporters and odd relationships with his stepsister; he’s moving into pure Sidney Chambers territory and picking up ladies at jazz clubs.

Ladies who turn out to be engaged.

It’s kind of amazing Robson Green doesn’t comment on the behavior. Maybe Peake-Jones will someday. It’s like they gave Brittney a James Norton script.

The episode starts with Green and Brittney hitting a new jazz club and Brittney dancing with mystery woman Ellora Torchia. Green goes to work instead, where overqualified secretary Melissa Johns mentions a commotion for Green to remember later on once the murder investigation kicks off. Green’s living in the vicarage with Brittney, still separated from his wife, Kacey Ainsworth.

The most entertaining character development is Al Weaver, the former curate who got outed and jailed last season; thanks to Nick Brimble (Peake-Jones’s well-enough-to-do husband), Weaver’s now got a cafe. And he’s a beat poet. After a season of Weaver suffering trauma after trauma, the episode opens with the promise of beat shenanigans and then delivers them later on, and it’s delightful.

Weaver’s subplot about the cafe opening has Peake-Jones helping him decorate; she’s not thrilled with his interior decorating, and the feeling’s mutual. It’s the nicest subplot, whereas Green and Brittney’s personal life subplots have no easy resolutions. Not an episode in any way.

Green wants to make grand gestures to win Ainsworth back, while Ainsworth just wants him to help out with the kids a little. Since their separation, it appears Brittney’s doing some heavy lifting on Green’s Saturdays with the brood, which he appreciates but doesn’t learn from. And then the inevitably complicated identity of Brittney’s mystery woman complicates things for both him and Green.

Plus, Green’s got a new boss, Michael D. Xavier, who’s convinced Green’s been holding back dipshit copper Bradley Hall and wants to give Hall more to do. Also, Xavier doesn’t want Brittney hanging around the station doing copper work.

The mystery this episode involves a dead drifter (Philip Buck) who turns up on the estate of two spinster sisters (Anna Wilson-Jones and Emma Cunniffe). Even though Brittney doesn’t do any work at the church, he uses Wilson-Jones and Cunniffe’s parishioner status to stay involved in the case.

Outside Green being a little too obtuse about his marital problems (maybe not for 1960 or whatever, but definitely given Green’s character development over the series), it’s a rock solid opener for the season. The mystery’s good—very British—the guest cast’s good (Wilson-Jones bonds nicely with Brittney, while Cunniffe and Green are green thumbs), and it’s really nice to not see Weaver traumatized every other scene, historically accurate or not.

Grantchester (2014) s06e08

So, “Grantchester” has already been renewed for season seven, which might be the first time ever “Grantchester” hasn’t given the impression of being a bubble show. At the beginning, I think it was Robson Green who wasn’t sure about signing up for a new ongoing; then it would’ve been James Norton, but apparently, Green’s over it, and they got another season before this one premiered.

Because some big things go unresolved and unaddressed this episode. They make swings at moving certain story elements along, but then others they just pass ahead or just use to cliffhang. Big, ginned up cliffhanger this episode. The lackadaisical attitudes of the last few episodes all of a sudden make a lot more sense.

There is some capital-A acting from Green, who completes his arc with war “buddy” Shaun Dooley. Green drops all the truth bombs on Brittney—the unspoken things between Dooley and Green everyone has been asking about since Dooley’s first appearance—and the show finds an unexpected potential avenue amid the regular ones. Who knows if it’ll play any better, but it’s some character development, which isn’t there for pretty much anyone else.

Everything with Brittney is on hold; even when Kacey Ainsworth calls him on not actually being a good vicar to Green, it doesn’t lead to anything; it’s just Ainsworth moving some of the pieces into position for later. There’s a tiny bit with Brittney and new curate Ahmed Elhaj, but it’s mostly a retraction for Elhaj. Turns out he’s got to be more likable if they’re getting another series.

And then Al Weaver and Oliver Dimsdale can wait for then too.

The case involves a singer—Michelle Greenidge—with an abusive husband, Tristan Gemmill. It ends up being a far more compelling mystery than it seems, even if John Jackson’s script falls apart during the finish. It’s like Jackson had a good mystery but didn’t know how to write anything around it, not for the case or suspects, not for the regular cast members either. Maybe it’s a Rona episode. It’ll be too bad when things can’t get a rubber stamp for being Rona episodes.

There are good moments, particularly for Green, Brittney, Weaver, and Dooley, but it’s too rushed, even if they are getting another season. And they’re making broad strokes to cover all the unfinished threads.

Some absolutely fantastic little moments for Nick Brimble and Tessa Peake-Jones too.

It’s going to be a longer wait for next season than usual.

Grantchester (2014) s06e07

This season of “Grantchester” has been very much about helplessness and hopelessness. It’s even worse watching it from the present, knowing the U.K. didn’t “legalize” homosexuality until 1967 for consenting adults over age twenty-one. So the central conflict of this season cannot have a cheerful ending. But after this episode, a hopeful one seems possible.

After avoiding Al Weaver’s experiences in jail, this episode’s mostly about them. Even when it’s not about them—war pal Shaun Dooley proves a continued bad influence on Robson Green, including Green lying to wife Kacey Ainsworth about hanging out with him. She disapproves of the relationship, not Dooley. The jail plotline factors in. Green and Tom Brittney are investigating a case in jail, including inmates in solitary confinement, which pushes Green further into his bad memories of a Burmese prison camp.

Green working through his PTSD, specifically how he drinks to avoid working through it, has been one of the season’s other subplots. His alcoholism has again become a problem, one he won’t let anyone help with. Even with the hopeful, less helpless ending, it’s hard to imagine how they’re going to get Green to a good place in two episodes for the season finale. But “Grantchester”’s definitely doing a fine job with the character development arcs running underneath the weekly murder mysteries.

And after the last episode setting new curate Ahmed Elhaj up to be a shitty person, this episode turns him into the straight man for the jokes. Brittney’s trying to be nicer to him even though home doesn’t feel like home without Weaver. So there are some awkward, genial scenes for them. Then there’s also Emily Patrick—Brittney’s step-sister—crashing at the vicarage and doing whatever she can to make Elhaj feel awkward.

The Patrick subplot feels entirely shoehorned in and even then truncated like they cut some material from the subplot. At one point, Brittney’s saying she can’t move in. In the next, she’s already there.

The episode mystery’s particularly effective because it involves Weaver’s fellow inmates, most of whom are apparently just gay men being persecuted by the government, then tormented by guards and prison administrators. Hence why it all feels so hopeless.

There’s some excellent character development from Weaver, who’s superb. He doesn’t actually get a lot to do—the development’s presumably setup–but what he gets, he excels with. Excellent work from Green and Ainsworth too. The season’s plot threads are working out exquisitely. Save the Patrick subplot, but that one’s at least funny now and no longer cringe-inducing.

Daisy Coulam’s script and Jermain Julien’s direction are also outstanding. It’s a very strong episode.

Grantchester (2014) s06e05

Half this episode may be setting up for a regular villain—at least semi-regular villain—arc for the rest of the season. “Grantchester” doesn’t do Moriarties. Or, if they do, I’ve forgotten all of them. But the potential return nemesis isn’t important—not even to Robson Green, who has to sort of shrug it off—because it’s Al Weaver’s trial for gross indecency. The episode, written by show creator Daisy Coulam, with Jermain Julien directing, does a lovely job. It’s absolutely devastating stuff, but it’s also lovely to see how Weaver’s gotten to fully realize this character and his growth.

Especially since there are finally scenes for Tessa Peake-Jones to have the hard conversations she’s been avoiding for seasons on end. The episode starts with Kacey Ainsworth having organized several other progressive people (all women) to support Weaver. She’s trying to get Peake-Jones to come along but doesn’t have much success. Worse, Peake-Jones is against husband Nick Brimble standing up to testify for Weaver as a character witness. Brimble doesn’t get a lot of heavy lifting to do on “Grantchester” and doesn’t here either, but he does a splendid job with what he gets, and it carries through the entire episode. There are great arcs for everyone—except Green, who’s got a weird confidence in the legal system to be empathetic to gay people.

But it’s Weaver, Peake-Jones, and Tom Brittney’s episode. They’ve got to navigate through time period constraints and overcoming personal prejudices constraints and just plain shitty realities constraints. At moments it’s nearly aspirational. Weaver has some particularly accomplished scenes, though there’s the caveat the scenes witness him experiencing trauma. It’s all either heartbreaking or rending. And it’s done superbly well.

Julien goes all out on directing the mystery plot, which has Green and Brittney trying to figure out what’s up with a hinky bank robbery. The guy—Tyger Drew-Honey—seems off, so does the guy who gets robbed (Phill Langhorne). Thrown into the mix of the day is Green’s old Army chum Shaun Dooley showing up to represent someone at the station. Then shitbag copper Bradley Hall toggling from being gleeful at the idea of Weaver’s trial and desperately flirting with actual cool lady Melissa Johns. It’s not even a question of her doing better; it’s a question of her not dating pond scum. Fingers crossed it’s not a future subplot.

The mystery’s fine, but it’s busy work to distract—literally since Green has to do copper stuff and not go sit in support of Weaver—and then it’s all a setup for, presumably, a returning villain. At least it looks great, and Green’s arc is good. Brittney’s just along for the ride, though he does have the “eureka” moment to solve it all. Albeit thanks to Weaver.

It’s a great episode. Weaver’s season arc is anguishing stuff, and they handle it just right.

Grantchester (2014) s06e04

Despite having a frustratingly bland main plot, this episode of “Grantchester” also has some of the best material I can remember ever being on the show.

The episode picks up an indeterminate period from the previous; Al Weaver is awaiting his trial for “gross indecency” and spending his days—presumably unable to perform duties as curate—in his room getting drunk on vodka and listening to jazz. No one comments it’s like having James Norton back, but it’d have been amazing if someone did. I was actually waiting for it, but then it turns out Weaver’s a nasty drunk who’s mean to everyone, including Tessa Peake-Jones and Oliver Dimsdale. The episode will end up being about Weaver and Dimsdale and being a gay couple in fifties England, and it’s phenomenal stuff. It more than makes up for the clunky A-plot.

And while the A-plot is clunky—in the course of an investigation, Robson Green finds something out about Tom Brittney’s wealthy kid upbringing, and it seemingly breaks their friendship. The majority of the episode takes place one evening in the police station, where dipshit copper Bradley Hall hauls in some drunk U.S. airmen, and then there’s a mysterious death, and none of the airmen will give statements. Brittney’s only at the station because his step-sister, Emily Patrick, has been arrested for dine-and-dashing; they’d usually let a rich girl go, but she apparently knicked a valuable; only she won’t agree to a search, so she’s just hanging around Green’s office, verbally abusing the working class.

Including new office girl Melissa Johns, who’s been around since the second episode of the season and has been likable enough, but now she gets a bunch to do, and she’s excellent.

The rift between Brittney and Green doesn’t lead to any good acting together—it’s too sudden, too contrived, too forced into the restricted confines—but it does give Green, independently, some material. Brittney and Patrick, however, do get some good scenes together, with Patrick sort of establishing herself as a decent supporting “Grantchester” character by the end of the episode. Hopefully, she won’t be too regular. She’s rather unpleasant.

Another problem with the mystery plot, besides the sort of hackneyed story, is the acting. Ben Wiggins has a bunch to do as the American officer who bonds with fellow vet Green, only Wiggins isn’t any good. It’s vaguely rude to call him out for his Brit-playing-Yank abilities considering Corey Johnson, who is American, is also bad playing an American. But the other U.S. servicemen—particularly Victor Alli, who’s a Black man in a white man’s airforce stationed in a different white man’s country—are good. And they’re British actors. So whatever’s wrong with Wiggins, it’s not his inability to cross the pond in his performance. And with him being so milquetoast, the whole plot crumbles.

It doesn’t matter, of course, because everything at the station is just busywork between Weaver and Dimsdale scenes. The acting from Dimsdale is particularly phenomenal.

Louise Ironside’s got the script credit—British shows I think really do just credit the actual writer—and while her mystery isn’t great, her narrative construction and character drama are aces. And it’s not her fault they miscast.

The great stuff here is enough to make for a genuinely spectacular episode… even accounting for the gross missteps in casting and plotting.

Grantchester (2014) s06e03

This episode succeeds in ratcheting up Al Weaver’s arc to an almost intolerable point. The cliffhanger is less shocking than the last couple of episodes. Despite being abbreviated, it actually relieves some stress in its rush. Things go from bad to worse, as a boulder of fifties bigotry strikes almost everyone in the main cast. Including people outside the vicarage like Kacey Ainsworth, who finds herself again at an impasse with Robson Green on his apparent two-facedness with the “gross indecency” law. They’re basically couples friends with Weaver and Oliver Dimsdale now, after all. There’s some profound subtext in the dialogue about Green and Ainsworth’s marriage, mainly how he can negotiate being a police officer when he doesn’t believe in the laws. It’s a nice character development scene and informs Green’s frustration with Tom Brittney later on.

Because it’s going to be up to Brittney to either lie for Weaver or exonerate him through lying. Everyone else has been in for questioning, including Tessa Peake-Jones, who has her own arc about the investigation and comes out a lot more sympathetic than initially implied. Green’s dipshit cop sidekick, Bradley Hall, is really gung ho to prosecute Weaver—and out Dimsdale too if he can—and there’s only so much Green can do to steer the interviews out of Hall’s grasp. It’s going to be up to Brittney. The episode reminds the audience every five to ten minutes.

So then the murder plot—it feels almost strange to call it the A plot, though this one does take up more of the episode because the B plot figures into both it and the Weaver plot. The murder plot involves the local town council election; tragically widowed Rebecca Front against scheming bigot entrepreneur Will Hislop (who’s so villainous he should worry about getting typecast). Front’s husband was on the town council for years and then suddenly killed himself. Front’s trying to get his chair. Hislop and cousin Orlando Wells are out to take it back for the right kind of Briton.

There’s a bit about Front as an assertive woman in the fifties, but it ends up overshadowed thanks to her pal, Jonathan Aris. Aris is a novelist in town to help her in her mourning and maybe research a new book. His interests intersect with Brittney and Green’s, so he’s around a lot. Front’s around at the beginning of the episode, but then a lot less. There are more than a few scenes where she’s used as scenery, figuratively passed between characters to get a reaction. Richard Cookson’s got the script credit; there are some really thin stretches of the plot, particularly with the murder mystery. All of the attention goes to Weaver’s arc, which Brittney unwittingly drags into the political story.

Lots of good acting. Weaver, Peake-Jones, Brittney gets in a couple terrific scenes. Gary Beadle’s back as the bigot Archdeacon. Aris could be better. There’s just something insubstantial about his performance like he and Front don’t really click as good friends; plus, he always seems like he’s going to rip off his mustache for a Scooby-Doo reveal.

But who cares about the mystery arc when the character drama stuff is so much better. “Grantchester”’s relentless this season.