'Professor T' Recap: Season 2 Episode 2

Professor T airs Sundays at 7:00 pm and is available to stream via the PBS app and wttw.com. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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Professor T has appendicitis. He collapsed while lecturing and was rushed to the hospital, where he is very uncomfortable, both with the prospect of germs and the infantilizing nurse. (She’s not a fan of him either.) She turns on the TV in his room and there happens to be a police press conference on. Christina is announcing the murder of William Tidswell and his second wife, Jean. William’s son with his deceased first wife, Robert, is there, as is his girlfriend, Candice. She’s so distraught she has to be taken out of the room. 

Professor T learns from the nurse that Robert’s stepsister—Jean’s daughter Stephanie—is a patient at the same hospital as him. She was found crying in a corner in the house where she lived with her parents, and hasn’t spoken a word. 

The murder was staged in a highly specific manner: both victims were shot once in the head at a table, their hands tied behind their backs and a mask covering their face while Mozart played. A safe in the house is open and empty. 

Edward and Genevieve Lansing were killed in the exact same manner fifteen years ago. Christina and Rabbit worked the case, and Tidswell was the prosecuting barrister who sent Danny Gedge to prison for thirty years. Gedge had spent a bunch of money from the Lansings after their death, and was seen on camera entering the shop where the masks were bought. 

But now the detectives fear that the wrong person was sent to jail, and that the initial killer is still out there. The details of the Mozart and ropes were not released to the public. 

Another theory is that Gedge has masterminded the murder in order to make it seem like he has always been innocent in the Lansing murder. He has a parole hearing coming up, so he could get out of prison if doubt was cast on his conviction. His cellmate of four years was recently released—perhaps Gedge hired him. Gedge tells Christina he has always been innocent when she visits, and he warns her to watch her back once he’s released.

Gedge’s cellmate was deported to Canada a month ago, so he can’t have been hired by Gedge to kill the Tidswells.

Dan needs money, and is offered a chance at some by Calvin, an old friend from police training with whom he has recently reconnected. Calvin has been making money on the side working private security, something not exactly permitted, and offers to put in a good word for Dan, but Dan refuses.

Lisa and Dan run into Professor T’s secretary Mrs. Snares at the hospital, where they’re trying to get Stephanie to talk, and Lisa hands Snares the Tidswell case file to help distract Professor T from the misery of being in the hospital. Snares also has food, a robe, and more comforts for the professor. 

He then calls Lisa to discuss the case, and learns that the autopsy revealed stage four cancer in Jean. Stephanie used to be a good student, but her grades dropped around the time of the cancer diagnosis. 

The professor believes that Christina put away the right person in the Lansing case, and advises Lisa to talk to Gedge’s ex-wife. She initially supported his alibi, but then didn’t testify at trial—perhaps she learned something that incriminated him. 

Professor T is right. Gedge’s ex-wife found a receipt for the masks paid for with Gedge’s credit card in the pocket of the suit he was to wear to trial. She has kept it all these years. This coup proving Gedge is guilty convinces Christina to allow Professor T to officially consult on the case.

He has already visited Stephanie at the hospital, finding her asleep and hiding behind a curtain when he heard Robert outside with Candice. Candice had to leave the room because she said the smell of disinfectant made her sick. Robert then promised Stephanie that they would be together soon, once everything blew over—thus confirming Professor T’s nurse’s suspicion that Robert has eyes for Stephanie, not his actual girlfriend. 

The nurse also noted that Candice looks remarkably like Robert’s late mother. When Professor T is again lurking near Stephanie’s room, he runs into her aunt, who has heard of the professor and is happy to answer questions. She says that Tidswell seemed to still be in love with his first wife, who died in a car crash: he kept her clothes in his closet. Jean was Tidswell’s secretary for a decade, and knew what she was getting into when she married him, but she was a single mother who needed security for herself and Stephanie. 

The autopsy reveals that Jean died about an hour after her husband.

Robert tells the detectives that he thinks Jean knew about his romance with Stephanie. His father found out when Robert left his phone out. Tidswell kicked Robert out of the house, and Robert started dating Candice to convince his father that he was over Stephanie.

Robert did not know that Candice is pregnant, as Professor T has guessed from her sickness in the hospital. That’s because the child is not his: it’s his father’s, who thought Candice looked like his late first wife. Stephanie’s grades didn’t drop because of her mother’s cancer diagnosis; Jean was waiting to tell Stephanie until after her exams. They dropped because Stephanie saw Tidswell and Candice together in a car while she was running on a country road. The affair is why Candice was so inordinately upset by Tidswell’s death.

Tidswell wanted to change his will to make Candice and her baby the main beneficiaries, cutting Robert and Stephanie out. Jean found out, having learned about the affair from Stephanie, and shot her husband, staging it to be like the Lansing murders, about which she knew the details from being his secretary. She had already cleared the safe; she just needed Stephanie to hide the gun and tie her hands after she killed herself, since she was dying of cancer anyway, so that the police would suspect the murders were tied to the Lansing case. It was the only way to protect Stephanie and Robert’s future.

Stephanie tried to convince her otherwise, and Jean told her she could call the police. But Jean shot herself before Stephanie could, so she went through with the plan.

The professor is let out of the hospital early for his belated good behavior, and he compliments the once-antagonistic nurse on her approach to a difficult job. His mother believes Professor T’s appendicitis was caused by his decision to enter therapy, which she thinks is an attempt to impress his ex-fiancée Christina.

Christina tells the professor she admires his decision, asking if it is for her. He tells her he has to do it for himself, and they stop holding hands—until he adds that he needs to learn to find happiness in making other people happy. Their pinkies touch.

There’s no cure for Lisa’s father’s dementia, which leads him to the police station to ask for her. Dan steps in to help, taking her father off Lisa’s hands for a bit. Lisa smiles.