'Grantchester' Recap: Season 8 Episode 6

Grantchester is available to stream. Recap the previous episode and other seasons. 
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Will has left Grantchester and responsibility behind to court oblivion, and he finds it in a bloody fight outside a pub in a small village. He rouses in the street to a kindly policeman named MacKenzie, who brings him to the station and lets him sleep on a bench. Mac, as he is known, confiscates the pills to which Will has become addicted.

Back in Grantchester, Geordie has searched everywhere for Will—and now Bonnie and Ernie have returned home to the vicarage to find Will missing.

Leonard is also being left behind. Keith, the last remaining resident of his halfway home, has reconnected with his son and is planning to leave the home because Leonard has finally made him feel like he is worth something and he’s ready to move back into the world. Daniel overhears the end of Keith’s conversation and tells Leonard that he, too, is worth something to the world. Nevertheless, Daniel is moving for a while to London, where he has been offered gallery space. He leaves some of his photos with Leonard.

Leonard then receives a less welcome visitor: Larry, who has been ordered by Elliot to bring in anyone from Leonard’s halfway home for questioning in a theft. Elliot orders Larry to put Leonard in a cell, even though he clearly has nothing to do with the theft, and slaps Leonard when he is insouciant. Even Larry is startled and disagrees with Elliot’s orders.

Geordie wants to stay to help Leonard, but has received a call from Mac about Will—Mac had searched Will’s things while he was washing blood off his face and learned his address and name, then phoned the Grantchester police station. Geordie sets off to retrieve Will.

But the vicar refuses to go with Geordie when he arrives, and Geordie reaches the end of his patience. He angrily admonishes Will that his family deserves better before storming out for a cigarette. As Mac reassures Geordie, a farmhand runs up, telling Mac that there might be trouble at the Wilson home. They always come out to the fields, and they haven’t today.

The Wilsons have custody of their niece Sadie and nephew Jacob, both of whom are currently at the police station. Mac has caught Jacob stealing chocolate again, but he’s fond of the boy and paid for the chocolate himself rather than telling Jacob’s uncle. Mac also shared sandwiches with the kids, who were curious about Will and surprised to learn that such a battered addict is a vicar.

Mac and Geordie rush to the Wilson home and find Jacob and Sadie’s aunt and uncle both dead on the floor. There’s ink on the uncle’s left finger even though he was right-handed, and lots of unpaid bills—including some that reveal a bloody print the size of a child’s foot. The farmhand says that he saw Jacob and Sadie leave the house earlier in a rush, as if they were running away from something.

Back at the police station, Jacob has brandished a bloody knife at Will and ordered him to drive him and Sadie away. Mac and Geordie see the car speeding away and follow, suspecting that the kids are going to Cromer, where their parents died in a car crash.

When the car runs out of gas, Will and the kids go and sit in the forest. Will notices a bruise on Jacob’s neck. When Geordie and Mac arrive, Jacob lets them bring him back to the station.

Sadie admits that her aunt hits Jacob—including for stealing chocolate, which Jacob only took because Sadie was hungry—and also abuses their uncle. That morning, her aunt and uncle were fighting, so Jacob took Sadie outside and told her to cover her ears. He went inside, and when he came back out there was no more shouting and he told her to run.

With Jacob’s guilt seemingly established, Will finally agrees to go home with Geordie. Before they pull away, Mac brings Will his Bible, which he forgot inside the station. Inside it is a folded piece of paper, put there by Jacob: a confession from Jacob’s uncle that he snapped under his wife’s abuse and stabbed her before turning the knife on himself. He had cut his right hand attacking his wife, and so had to write with his left—hence the ink. Jacob found the corpses and took his uncle’s confession to protect his memory. He then brought Sadie to Mac but couldn’t bring himself to tell Mac what happened.

Will assures Jacob that the deaths are not his fault, even though the boy blames himself. And Geordie suggests to Mac that Mac and his wife adopt Jacob and Sadie.

As Geordie and Will drive back to Grantchester, Will asks Geordie to get rid of his pills for him—he doesn’t want them anymore. They reach the vicarage and find a brood of puppies on the doorstep—and some angry women inside. Bonnie turns Mrs. C and Cathy away from berating Will to have her own word with him, hitting him before hugging him. She thinks he’s going to leave her—she has convinced herself that he doesn’t want her or their coming baby. He says he will never leave her again—and good thing, too, as the baby is truly coming. Everyone rushes off to the hospital.

The nurse sends them all away—only the mother can be in the delivery room. But Will insists on staying with Bonnie through the whole thing.

Jack hands out cigars to the adults, including Leonard and Daniel. Larry has released Leonard from the police cell, countermanding Elliot’s orders because he knows the imprisonment is unjustifiable. Leonard then looked at the photos Daniel left for him and saw the love for his subjects—Leonard’s residents and Leonard himself—and ran to Daniel’s home to tell him that he will change for Daniel, because Daniel is his everything. Daniel also decided that he can’t live without Leonard, and that he won’t go to London because it would mean going without Leonard.

Bonnie gives birth to a son, whom Will brings out to everyone, Geordie first of all. Ernie suggests James as a name, and Bonnie and Will agree to it, with Will adding the middle name George in honor of Geordie.  

Later, Leonard apologizes to Will for his cruel words. Mrs. C takes charge of the Keating children as a new nanny now that Cathy has been promoted. And Leonard hires Keith to work at the halfway house as more residents arrive. Larry is on hand to greet them, too.

Larry has begun living up to Geordie’s example, so Geordie tells him his mother would be proud of him. Geordie, packing up for his retirement, also gives Larry a gift from his office: a needlepoint about doing the right thing.

But the retirement is not to be. Elliot has been reported for excessive force against Leonard and is being transferred, so the top brass have refused to allow Geordie to retire. Who reported Elliot? Larry, of all people.