‘Grantchester’ Goes to ‘Dark Places’ in Season 6, But There’s ‘Some Hope’

Grantchester Season 6
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Kudos/ITV/Masterpiece/PBS

Enjoy the Dirty Dancing–inspired holiday that vicar Will Davenport (Tom Brittney), Detective Inspector Geordie Keating (Robson Green), and the gang go on in the Grantchester premiere, because the fun of couples “having a snooze” in their cabins (wink-wink) and Will canoodling by the water won’t last long.

Two storylines take Season 6 of the Masterpiece Mystery! to “dark places,” says creator Daisy Coulam, beginning when gay curate Leonard Finch’s (Al Weaver) loving private life — a crime in 1958 England — is exposed.

Grantchester Season 6 Robson Green Tom Brittney

(Credit: Colin Hutton (C) Kudos/ITV/MASTERPIECE/PBS)

“Will and Geordie see somebody suffer because the law is not always just,” Coulam says, adding that the scandal impacts every character. “But there is some hope at the end.”

The second half of the eight-episode season doubles down on that theme — the cost of facing the truth — with World War II prisoner of war Geordie confronting the painful past he’s suppressed. The arc tests his relationships with Will and with wife Cathy (Kacey Ainsworth), culminating in a case that reunites him with a fellow POW (Shaun Dooley).

“Will Geordie cross the line to save his friend?” Coulam teases. Bonus: We finally learn what Geordie keeps in the brim of that hat he’s rarely without.

Grantchester, Season 6 Premiere, Sunday, October 3, 9/8c, PBS (check local listings at pbs.org)

This is an excerpt from TV Guide Magazine’s 2021 Returning Favorites issue. For more inside scoop on the new fall TV season, pick up the issue, on newsstands now.