The Series' Women Take Center Stage As 'Grantchester' Season 9 Continues

Grantchester may be a series that has evolved into an ensemble piece, but it's always been a show predominantly about men. It has its share of entertaining female characters: vicarage caretaker Mrs. C, Geordie's wife Cathy, and police secretary Miss Scott; however, the show's primary focus has always revolved around the police detective and the vicar at its center. Whether solving crimes or building a friendship, almost every episode of the series focuses on that specific male bond. Though there are plenty of secondary plots to enjoy, they all very definitively take a back seat to whatever's going on with Geordie and some combination of Sydney/Will/Alphy.... until now.

Like the episode where Geordie and Leonard teamed up in Season 4, this week's episode's change of focus is due to Grantchester Season 9 currently existing in the liminal space between figuring out what the Alphy Kotteram era is supposed to be and how he and Geordie will relate to one another. Much like that one-off Season 4 episode, this week's end result is one of the show's most exciting installments in years. It is its first genuine female-forward episode, an hour that puts the series' women front and center and frames its central mystery around uniquely feminist themes.

Moreover, the episode succeeds because it effortlessly builds on character beats and emotional arcs that have been bubbling underneath the series' surface for a long time. From Cathy's own experiences with predatory men in the workplace to her increasingly fraught relationship with her eldest daughter as the pair navigate the realities of growing up, this is an hour whose dramatic tension is driven by the lived realities of the women at its center.