‘Grantchester’s Final Season Premiere Introduces the Family
'Grantchester' introduces Alphy’s mum, Mira, in the Season 11 premiere. She isn’t impressed.
It was perhaps a little too much to hope that Grantchester would pick back up literally the moment Season 10 ended, with Alphy standing in front of the door to the house where his mother may still reside. However, it was slightly disconcerting for the cold open to start with Alphy saying a prayer over a dying person’s bed, only for that to turn out to be a dream he’s recounting to Geordie.
(Don’t worry, it soon becomes clear that Alphy’s mother, Mira [Nimmi Harasgama], is alive and well and coming to Grantchester to meet everyone, a thing Alphy declares he is not nervous about while acting very nervous about it.)
Grantchester apparently spent money on royalties again for the final season – it’s been a minute since the series dropped a Buddy Holly track in the opening scene. In this case, it’s a deliberate choice, because Alphy and Geordie are pulling into an “American Drive-In,” sponsored by local businessman Bert Mills (Ian Kelsey), complete with Betty the Waitress (Nina Grey) on roller skates, sporting a godawful approximation of a southern accent and a boyfriend, Freddie (Ben Galvin), who can’t keep his hands to himself. (Very American!)
For a second, it seems like we already have our victim, as Jack and Mrs. C come running up with the local paper declaring Mills died that morning. However, the man himself pulls in next to Alphy, accompanied by his wife, Miriam (Sara Stewart). Alphy is friends with both – apparently, he worked with them to create this event, which is raising money for Leonard’s halfway house.
Geordie offers to look into why the paper printed a story declaring him dead, but Mills laughs it off. Betty rolls up to direct Bert and Miriam to their seats with only a small amount of sexual harassment from the former, but she gives as good as she gets, cooing over Miriam’s ruby ring and declaring Freddie needs to buy her one too. Despite her husband’s protests that the article is nothing, Miriam asks Alphy to look into it.
Cathy arrives late, due to a store emergency involving money – Mrs. C is clearly grumpy that they aren’t making a profit yet, and both husbands bemoan themselves as CeCe’s widowers. Leonard is forcing Daniel to double-date with Larry and Jennifer, which is uncomfortable for everyone involved. (Larry apparently has regressed to being homophobic between seasons?) The series has a lot of fun with the drive-in serving American hot dogs and Mrs. C’s utter horror at them, and at the very sexy movie. It’s a good ten minutes before we finally get to the action, as there’s a fistfight with someone behind the screen, and then Mills turns up dead in the back of his car, bleeding out from multiple tiny stab wounds to the neck, with Freddie driving. Freddie swears he didn’t realize Mills was dead in the back of the car until he started driving.
Geordie and Alphy head to the paper to see who had a man’s obituary printed the day before he died. The paper’s editor, Gregory Parsons (Paul Thornley), was the man who stumbled out from behind the screen after the fight. He claims Mills wrote the obit and paid to run it, and denies having anything to do with his death, despite having written multiple articles accusing him of defrauding customers. Miriam tells them to talk to the family accountant, Mr. Switch (Daniel Lapaine), who can vouch for both Mills and the business being above board. Switch does, in fact, vouch for the man and provides a letter Mills supposedly wrote, pointing the finger at Parsons.
If this feels like everyone is protesting too much, it only gets weirder as, upon further questioning, Parson bluntly confesses. Geordie and Alphy shrug and take him in, only for Larry to tell them that Freddie, still in the holding cell, also confessed. Of course, neither of them did it; however, they were the ones fighting behind the screen, over Parsons apparently sleeping with Miriam. (Mills was already dead by that point.)
But enough about the murder that everyone wants to claim they did, and will probably be solved by a brainwave inspired by the part of the episode we actually came for: meeting Alphy’s mother, who arrives just in time to hear him give the sermon. The group is desperate to impress, so of course, they’re all microaggressively racist, because, bless its little heart, Grantchester tries to remember this is the 1960s sometimes.
After a genuinely terrible lunch at the vicarage, which Mira finally flees after one too many ugly questions from Mrs. C, Alphy has the heart-to-heart with his mum they’ve apparently been avoiding since they first met. Mira is utterly bewildered that he son became a priest, nor is she keen on the people he’s surrounded by. (“It’s all so very... white.”) Alphy admits he wasn’t too keen on them either, at first. But he’s so earnest when he tells her that he believes he’s been sent here for a reason, and you can see her relent, at least a little. The harder part for him is that she left him in a Christian place – he thought she wanted him to be a priest. In reality, she chose it because no one there knew her or the boy who ran when she told him she was pregnant. She hoped they would be racist enough to send him to an Indian family to raise, rather than keep him. It’s an honest motive, if a sad one.
Speaking of honesty, Miriam was just saying to Alphy, on her way into church, that she and Bert had cheated on each other a lot and had never been honest about anything. However, it’s not the conversation that gives Alphy the brainwave – it’s seeing his mother’s hat pin on the table, which would be perfect for making the many tiny puncture wounds on Mill’s neck. Parsons believes Miriam did it (hence his confession) because she was leaving Mills for him. However, the article Mills placed was actually a 40th anniversary love letter to Miriam (Parsons replaced it with the death notice out of jealousy).
They weren’t getting divorced, just getting their rocks off with other people. It was Mill’s affair partner, Betty, who took the jealousy a step further when she realized the ruby ring Miriam was wearing was a 40th-anniversary present. Hence, Freddie’s frantic confession – he realized she tricked him into fighting with Parsons as a distraction while she stabbed him to death.
One good thing comes out of all this, and that’s Geordie meeting Mr. Switch, who is now looking for new clients, and whose arrival immediately settles Mrs. C and Cathy’s constant fights over money. Also, despite the terrible lunch, Mira wants to visit again; hopefully, she and Alphy can build a relationship over the rest of the season.
Grantchester Season 11 continues with new episodes on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on most PBS stations, the PBS app, and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel, and will air and stream weekly through the beginning of August. All eight episodes will be available as a binge for members on PBS Passport on premiere day.
Seasons 1 through 10 are all available to stream via PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel. As always, check your local streaming service/listings.
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