He’s newly married, with a baby on the way and a stepson who adores him. But Tom Brittney’s crime-solving vicar, Will Davenport, goes down his darkest path yet on the 1960-set eighth season of Grantchester, PBS’s unassuming and irresistible British mystery-drama. (Season 8 premieres July 9.) After inadvertently causing a devastating accident (no spoilers here!), Will cannot absolve himself of his overwhelming sense of guilt and sinks into isolation.
“I think because of Will’s inherent nature and his upbringing — being made to feel everything was his fault — he’s always been a very self-flagellating person,” Brittney says. “So even though it’s not his fault, it doesn’t trump the voices in his head telling him he’s a bad person.”
That isolation is magnified when his loving, very pregnant wife, Bonnie (Charlotte Ritchie), whom he wed unexpectedly in last year’s finale, temporarily leaves Grantchester to help out her parents. Of course, Will still has the companionship of his best friend, police detective Geordie Keating (Robson Green), who’s feeling pressure to retire, and the pair have plenty of killings to solve. But even after Will begins popping some potent pills — a “way of escaping,” the actor explains, on which he grows increasingly reliant — he laments, “It’s been so long since I heard [God], I feel unworthy of being a vicar.”
Will isn’t the only soul in crisis in the Cambridgeshire village. Former curate Leonard Finch (Al Weaver), who had his license revoked and was imprisoned for being gay, has struggled to find a similarly fulfilling vocation. With his café now gone, he takes on an even riskier venture: running a halfway house to help newly released convicts reenter society.
“Leonard needs purpose, he needs to use God in a different way,” explains series creator and executive producer Daisy Coulam. “What’s great is he’s become such a strong character. He was closeted and afraid of being found out, and now he’s becoming more and more himself.”
All this drama is balanced by some lighter moments. In Episode 3, Geordie arrests a topless female protester on what was supposed to be his day off. And the premiere has Will revving up his motorcycle for a charity race. Even though Brittney, who got his license for the role, had a stunt double, he admits he tried “to put him out of a job and ride as much as I could in that race scene.”
Grantchester is certainly winning the endurance race. With the retirement of Endeavour, it’s now the longest-running show on Masterpiece’s current roster. Brittney credits the writing. “It never feels soapy or ridiculous,” he says. “It’s a show about murder, it’s a show about death, but with these wonderful people who we love and care about.”
Coulam, whose grandfather was a vicar, attributes the series’ popularity to its being about the human condition as much as a whodunit. “It’s a religious show, but without being too religious,” she says. “At its heart, it’s about families and about the good in people. However dark we take it, we always want to leave our audience with a bit of hope.”
Grantchester, Season Premiere, Sunday, July 9, 9/8c, PBS (check local listings at pbs.org)
