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Grantchester

Oh dear, our darling dishy vicar has finally crossed the sexual rubicon. No, Sidney (James Norton) did not lose his virginity. (He’s had sex before on the show, you guys.) He schtupped Amanda (Morven Christie).
Last night’s episode of Grantchester opens with the two locked in a blissful post-coital embrace that soon turns to more…uh…nookie. Finally hooking up with Amanda has put a spring in Sidney’s step, but it’s also cast a shadow on his sermons. He rails against temptation, which draws a philosophical argument from Amanda about the nature of love and sex. It’s cute. Almost too cute.

What could tear these lovers asunder? Guy? The Archdeacon? A lightning bolt from the sky? How about the ire of the Freemasons? (Sort of. You know, if you track the order of events in the episode. Just saying.)
In an odd twist, Grantchester Season 3 has introduced a “big bad” to the series. Earlier in the season, we learned that an unsavory character was skating through life with the help of the Masons. This week, that mysterious guild of mysterious men have stepped in to hamper an actual murder investigation. The murder mystery at the heart of this week’s episode wasn’t exactly complicated. It was actually pretty straightforward. A young single mother named Josephine was having a fling with her rich, well-to-do boss’s son. The two go out on a joy ride and she falls off the motorbike. Instead of helping, the boss man decides to stage her accident as a fall in the office and leaves her for dead. Ironically she wakes during the initial investigation and stays alive long enough to offer up a clue. The mystery was less of a whodunnit? and more of a whyaretheseMasonscoveringitup?
It all comes to a head at a fancy charity ball. The police superintendent is in town and everyone – including Sidney, Amanda, Geordie, Geordie’s wife Cathy, and Geordie’s mistress Margaret — is dressed to the nines. The superintendent shocks Geordie by announcing that Phil is the new sergeant. It makes no sense until Geordie catches that both men have Mason rings. He then realizes that the reason they can’t bring Josephine’s killer to justice is because the boss is also a Mason. It’s a conspiracy! It’s enough to make Geordie erupt upon Phil. However, that’s a problem because Phil knows about Geordie and Margaret’s affair and chooses this moment to tell a despondent Cathy.

Later, Amanda asks Sidney if he knew about Geordie’s infidelity. His non-answer is enough of an answer. Amanda is aghast. Ironically, it’s not the fact that he’s a vicar that upsets her. It’s that he acts so “holier than thou.” Their romp riddles him with guilt, but he turned a blind eye to Geordie’s extramarital affair with Margaret. She’s furious that Sidney can be such a hypocrite and it’s the “hypocrite” charge that does Sidney in and affects him throughout the rest of the episode.
It doesn’t help that Sidney’s usual tutting moral compass, Mrs. Maguire (Tessa Peake-Jones), is busy dealing with her own quandary. Her long-lost “chancer” of a husband Ronnie has come back into her life. We know something’s amiss in their relationship the moment she drops her precious peaches in the street! Oh no! The peaches!

Sidney pleads Ronnie’s case to Mrs. Maguire. Ronnie’s story is that he’s been wandering around since the war, unable to face her again. Now he’s dying of lung cancer and wants to rekindle their romance. Ronnie’s return gives us a different side of Mrs. Maguire. It turns out that in her youth, the stern-faced shrew was a laughing, light-hearted gal who loved collecting seed pods. Mrs. Maguire entertains the idea of reconciling with Ronnie – much to her gentleman friend Jack’s chagrin – and in the end she is burned by him. He steals all of her cash, jewelry, and savings and runs off into the night. Sidney suggests divorcing him, but she won’t break a vow she made in front of God. Only Leonard seems to be able to offer her some small human comfort.
And poor Leonard! After last week’s episode, it seemed like he and Hilary were headed for awkwardly married bliss. Two things throw this plan into chaos. Daniel Marlowe returns. The photographer pops up at the vicarage thinking he’s shooting Hilary and Sidney’s engagement photos. The ensuing photo shoot is full of lingering glances and painful tremors.

Later, things go even more awry when Leonard and Hilary babysit Geordie’s brood. Hilary uses the family setting to finally have “the sex talk” with Leonard. Please note this is different than the sex talk you had with your parents when you were hitting puberty. This is the “HAVE YOU EVEN HAD SEX?” talk that all young couples in tightly buttoned cardigan sweater sets must have. She’s is relieved they are both virgins and it’s sweet, but he protests that it’s crude and unnatural. Hilary and Leonard break up and she says, “I think there’s something not quite right with you.” Sidney comes home to discover a note and poor dear Leonard attempting suicide.

Leonard cries, “I can’t even do it right!” So, lovely Leonard survives the day, but Sidney makes him swear not to do it again. After Leonard goes full Buster Bluth and cries, “I’m an abomination!“, Sidney tells his friend, “You can only be who you are, Leonard. You can’t fight who you are.” It doesn’t seem to help that much.
Finally, Sidney confronts the Archdeacon. The two have an intense debate about the nature of sin and their place in the church. Sidney says that the clergy is the problem. By projecting a false image of moral perfection, they are making it impossible for the laymen to come to grips with their sins. The Archdeacon doesn’t like the idea that a vicar is waging war on the church he serves and instructs Sidney to pray. Sidney says he has prayed and that God isn’t answering his prayers.
The final scene of the episode gives us Sidney defiantly taking off his collar and robes. He leaves the vicarage in plainclothes, strutting away like he’s in a Burberry ad. Sidney has left the church! (For now.)