Beyond Paradise season 3 episode 1 recap: Humphrey says 'sexy time' and disturbs Martha's mum!

DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) and DS Esther Williams (Zahra Ahmadi) are walking up a steep single-track road, with grassy verges on either side. There is a police car behind them downhill, along with various uniformed officers. In the foreground of the picture is a unidentifiable woman in a navy suit, viewed from behind and from the torso down, with her hands on her hips.
(Image credit: BBC/Red Planet Pictures)

Welcome to Beyond Paradise season 3! Season two concluded with the hotly-anticipated wedding of DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) and Martha Lloyd (Sally Bretton) not actually going ahead, after Martha's mum Anne (Barbara Flynn) got carried away with the plans, and Humphrey and Martha decided to wait until they could have the more low-key ceremony that they really wanted.

As we return to the picturesque Devon town of Shipton Abbott, there's a lot going on: Martha's got new premises, a familiar face returns, and in a very fun Paraverse-style nod to iconic Scandi drama The Bridge, the team find themselves having to co-operate with their Cornish counterparts.

Read on to find out what happened in Beyond Paradise season 3 episode 1...

We open on a beautiful Devon sunset, with a faintly mournful song playing as Arthur Donalan (Outnumbered's Hugh Dennis) places a call to the police to report that he had an argument with his partner, who then drove off after drinking heavily. Sure enough, we then see a car being driven erratically down the road at night, smashing through a fence, and into a field. Later, we see Arthur calling the police back, trying to get an update on his earlier call, insisting that he's very worried about his partner.

Dawn breaks, and Arthur wakes up in an armchair at 6am. Meanwhile, some distance away, a dog walker finds the car floating in a river.

Elsewhere, DI Humphrey Goodman is getting ready for work, and finds a pair of handcuffs in a drawer. (Steady on! This is a family show.) He heads downstairs to the kitchen, where he shows them off to Martha Lloyd with great amusement, saying he must have brought them down from the Met. (And he's only just finding them now? Someone needs to send in Stacey Solomon and the gang.) Humphrey says that he should probably hand the cuffs in to the station... or they could keep them for "sexy times".

Martha laughs at the very idea of this, and Anne Lloyd (Barbara Flynn) appears behind him to say that she imagines they'd be rather restrictive. She says she's taking some things to the charity shop, and she'll come to help Martha with her removals after that. As a parting shot, she asks Humphrey to never say "sexy time" in her presence again, and I think that's a stance we can all support. Martha suggests to Humphrey that they postpone any romantic plans until tomorrow, as she has a new café to open. She gives him a kiss and heads off, still giggling.

Meanwhile, the police are cordoning off the area near where the car was found, and a body has been pulled from the water. Uniformed officers arrive at the house of Angela Palmer (Doc Martin's Angela Curran) to break the bad news.

Zoe WIlliams (Melina Sinadinou) stands in the new premises of Ten Mile Kitchen, which are mostly covered in canvas, holding on to her phone, which is in a sky-blue plastic case.

Zoe (Melina Sinadinou) turns up to get the new Ten Mile Kitchen up and running (Image credit: BBC/Red Planet Pictures)

In the heart of Shipton Abbott, DS Esther Williams (Zahra Ahmadi) arrives at the new premises of Ten Mile Kitchen, which are still very much a work in progress. She finds Martha and asks how it's going, and Martha says she's surrounded by boxes, doesn't know where anything is, and is at risk of being pecked to death by flocks of seagulls. Esther spots her daughter Zoe Williams (Melina Sinadinou) working, which she isn't supposed to be since it's a college day. Zoe says that she switched her days so she can help Martha with the move, and Esther says it's fine as long as she doesn't fall behind on her work. Esther says she was hoping for a coffee, but Martha admits she doesn't know where the coffee machine is, let alone the beans or the milk. Esther's phone rings, with someone clearly alerting her to the latest case.

At the police station, Humphrey is explaining to Margo Martins (Felicity Montagu) — and the rest of us — that Martha moved Ten Mile Kitchen from its previous location because the new one is in the centre of town, and also because she was having trouble with the previous landlord. He says he offered to help with the move, but Martha insisted that he came to work instead; all of this happens while he's trying to open a jammed drawer and ends up snapping the handle clean off, which suggests that Martha was entirely right to decline his offer of assistance.

Meanwhile, PC Kelby Hartford (Dylan Llewellyn) is wondering how many sheep you can get in a Mini — apparently this isn't the set-up for a joke, but a line of investigation because some sheep were stolen from O'Brien's farm last night, but the only camera in the vicinity was a speed camera on the A380, and the only car it caught last night was a Mini. Margo gets off the phone with Esther, who's just been telling her that she'd had a call from the central hub about a body found in the river. Humphrey asks why the call didn't come directly to the station; Margo doesn't know.

Humphrey arrives at the crime scene where Esther is just finishing up with the forensic team. She gets Humphrey up to speed: the car is registered to 36-year-old Niall Palmer, who lives about two-and-a-half miles away, and he was reported missing last night by his partner: Arthur Donalan. It looks as though he missed the bend, crashed through the gate and went down the bank, straight into the river.

Esther says she's asked for a toxicology test to confirm if he was drunk behind the wheel. Humphrey notices that Niall is wearing a fitness tracker on his wrist, so they remove and bag it. Esther says there's bruising on Niall's upper body, but that's not unusual for a car accident, and that the cause of death seems to be drowning. Humphrey notices that Niall is wearing odd socks (one saying "Wednesday", the other "Tuesday"), and then a man comes over and attempts to remove Niall. Humphrey asks Esther if she gave permission for the body to be moved, and Esther — with an "oh, just you wait" look on her face — says that she didn't, but another detective did.

Humphrey and Esther head up to the bridge where Esther introduces him to DI Jacob Tremayne (DI Ray's Steve Oram) and DS Fenella Foster (Changing Ends star Gabby Best) from Polmarron station. Jacob and Fenella introduce themselves in somewhat patchy Spanish, so we know from the outset they're going to be a handful (Fenella explains they're studying Spanish together). Humphrey asks why they are moving the body before probable cause has been established, and Jacob says he thinks it's an accident as there's no evidence to the contrary. Humphrey says he'd like to preserve the scene a little longer just to make sure. Jacob informs Humphrey that it doesn't matter what Humphrey wants, because it's not his case — it's his and Fenella's.

DI Jacob Tremayne (Steve Oram) and DS Fenella Foster (Gabby Best) stand on gravel with a sunflower-themed bench and a large hedge behind them. Jacob has his hands in his pockets, while Fenella's are clasped in front of her waist. Both are wearing dark-coloured suits - he has a salmon-coloured shirt underneath his with an open neck and no tie, and she has an ivory-coloured top under hers.

DI Jacob Tremayne (Steve Oram) and DS Fenella Foster (Gabby Best) stake a claim for the case (Image credit: BBC/Red Planet Pictures)

Chief Superintendent Charlie Woods (Jade Harrison) arrives and explains the problem: the bridge spans the River Tamar, which marks the border between Devon and Cornwall. Niall lived in Cornwall, but his body was discovered in Devon, so the jurisdiction of the case is unclear. Humphrey says that all politics aside, someone died on their patch, so he would like to find out what happened. CS Woods agrees, and says she will clear things with her Cornish counterpart, suggesting that Humphrey has a sit down with Jacob to work out the parameters of his investigation. CS Woods also has a word of caution for him: Arthur Donelan is a local councillor, tipped to be the next mayor, and sits on the police committee. In other words: he's not a man you want to get on the wrong side of.

Jacob and Fenella go to speak to Arthur, who explains that he and Niall had dinner, followed by drinks in the garden, and then they started arguing about something — he can't even remember what now. He claims that Niall grabbed the car keys and stormed off, despite Arthur's attempts to stop him. Arthur says he called the police because Niall shouldn't have been behind the wheel, and he was worried he would kill himself or someone else — sighing, he says that he takes no solace from being right about that. Jacob and Fenella have no further questions for him, and apologise for taking up his time. Arthur's very understanding, and says that they're just doing their job. Jacob butters him up with a bit of golf chat (Arthur and the Chief Superintendent at Polmarron belong to the same club, it seems), and they take their leave.

Back at the crime scene, Esther takes a call from Fenella, who says that Jacob wants to hold a "case conference" at Polmarron station. Humphrey is all set to agree, but Esther warns him that this is a power play: Jacob is trying to establish seniority, and if they go to his station for the meeting, he'll have the upper hand. ("It's classic willy-waving.") She suggests a counter-attack: they tell Jacob and Fenella to come to them, knowing they'll never agree to that, and then they agree a neutral meeting place. Humphrey agrees, so Esther gets back on the call and pitches the idea to Fenella in her very best phone voice.

Meanwhile, Angela has turned up at the police station in floods of tears, where she's consoled by her old friend Margo. (Being known and trusted by seemingly everyone in Shipton Abbott is definitely Margo's superpower.) When Humphrey and Esther get back, Margo explains to them that Angela — who's Niall's mum — won't leave until she's spoken to whoever's in charge.

Humphrey and Esther go into the interview room to speak to her, and Angela tells them that she spoke to Niall yesterday, when he called her to ask to bring his washing home. Humphrey asks if he was particular about his clothes, and Angela says he wouldn't let anyone else iron his shirts. Humphrey asks about his socks, and Angela says he was particular about those too — they had to be folded just right. Esther asks what Angela wanted to talk about, and Angela says that the police told her it was an accident, that Niall had been drinking and driving. However, she insists he would never do that: Niall's friend Will died in a head-on collision with a drunk driver four years ago, and the two of them were incredibly close. Ever since then, Niall's been a vocal anti-drink driving advocate, even going so far as to confiscate people's car keys in the pub. She doesn't believe for a second that Niall would have got behind the wheel if he was drunk — so whoever says that he did is either wrong, or lying.

Afterwards, Humphrey and Esther reflect on what Angela said. They both agree that what she said was very convincing, but Esther points out that Niall had just had a blazing row with his boyfriend, and he might not have been thinking clearly. Humphrey, meanwhile, is still hung up on the fact that Niall — who we now know to have been a fastidious dresser — was wearing odd socks when he died. Humphrey remembers the speeding Mini that Kelby saw on the CCTV last night, and asks him to call up an image. Esther fires up Niall's fitness monitor and notices some interesting activity — the final reading showed his heart rate as normal, and then it went off the scale.

She and Humphrey agree that it would fit with someone losing control of the car, and then Esther spots a notification saying the tracker was removed at 1:06 am. Since Niall was still wearing it when they found his body, they assume that the tracker stopped being able to track Niall's heartbeat and assumed he'd taken it off, whereas in fact he'd died. So they think they've got a confirmed time of death: 1:06 am. Kelby calls up the CCTV footage — it's a little grainy, but it definitely looks like Niall driving. The picture was captured at 1:29 am, doing 58mph in a 40mph limit. Arthur made his first call to the emergency services at 1:25 am, so that ties in with the time that the image was taken — but if Niall's heart stopped at 1:06 am, how could he have been driving his car over 20 minutes later?

Niall Palmer (Nathan Whatton), pictured in a room with blue-tinted lights. There are balloons behind him and a happy birthday banner attached to one of the walls. He is wearing an open-necked shirt and looks unhappy.

Niall Palmer (Nathan Whatton) is found dead on the border between Devon and Cornwall. (Image credit: BBC/Red Planet Pictures)

Over at Ten Mile Kitchen, Anne is wiping down tables when Jacob and Fenella arrive for the case conference. Zoe rushes in, having been briefed by Martha that they were coming, and lets slip that Humphrey's fiancée owns the café. Jacob orders two white coffees (or rather "café con leches") and asks if they have any donuts. Zoe says they don't, but she can sort out some scones.

As they sit down, Jacob recognises that they've been hoodwinked into meeting in a non-neutral area. Humphrey and Esther arrive, and Humphrey makes his request: he'd like access to evidence and witnesses, and to re-interview Arthur Donalan. Martha brings over a tray with scones, two white coffees, a latte and a glass of milk. She apologises for the general state of the place and explains that they aren't actually open yet. (Fenella clocks this as another example of them having been tricked.) As Humphrey and Jacob continue to discuss access requests, what plays out underneath is arguably the funniest scene in the whole episode: accompanied by Wild West standoff-type music, Fenella and Esther stare at each other as they cut into their scones. A dish of jam and cream sits on the table in front of them.

They both pounce, as Esther lays a thick layer of cream on hers first, while Fenella spread jam on hers. Esther tops her cream with jam, and Fenella tops her jam with cream. They carry all of this out in utter silence and with the implication that it could spill over into outright violence at any second. (Honestly, how Zahra Ahmadi and Gabby Best got through this scene without laughing, I have no idea, but props to both of them.)

As the showdown music dies down, we return to Jacob and Humphrey, who are now getting to the meat of the matter: who's actually in charge? To the clear surprise of Esther and Fenella, Humphrey says he doesn't mind, and that he's happy for Jacob to lead if that's what he wants. Jacob asks what the catch is, and Humphrey assures him there isn't one — he'll even report back anything he finds. Jacob and Fenella stand up to leave, and Fenella stares right at Esther while grabbing her scone off the plate to take with her. (Tee hee hee.)

After they go, Esther asks Humphrey why he put Jacob in charge, and Humphrey reveals his masterplan: a self-important type like Jacob will be so busy "being in charge" that he'll likely leave them alone long enough to find out what happened to Niall. As they head to their car, Jacob tasks Fenella with keeping a close eye on Humphrey and Esther because he doesn't trust Humphrey. He says that if Humphrey finds out something that he didn't, it will make him look bad.

Humphrey and Esther call on Arthur in the hope of asking him a few more questions; having already spoken to Jacob and Fenella, he's not particularly keen on going over it all again, but Humphrey and Esther are persistent. It's clear that Arthur has taken against them already. Reluctantly, Arthur goes over his account again: they had dinner and drinks, and since it was a nice night they then moved outside. Noticing the crime fiction on Arthur's shelves, Humphrey says, "I see you like your detectives?" Arthur replies, very pointedly: "Some." He says that his favourites are Sherlock Holmes, Maigret and Philip Marlowe, which Humphrey notes is an eclectic mix.

Humphrey asks what he and Niall argued about, and Arthur says he can't recall. Humphrey is sceptical that Arthur would have no recollection of what he and his partner were arguing about the night his partner died, and Arthur says that Niall would stay over occasionally, so he left some clothes at Arthur's place; Arthur moved them, and it escalated from there into something more heated and personal. He confirms that he saw Niall get into the car, shortly before he called the emergency services at 1:25 am. Humphrey asks if he was aware of Niall's views on drink-driving, and Arthur says he was, "but he was off his face, it hardly seemed like the time to remind him." Humphrey counters that it would have been the perfect time to remind him, surely? Arthur responds to this by passive-aggressively suggesting he place a call to Chief Superintendent Woods to ask why he's being interrogated.

As they leave, Humphrey tells Esther that he thinks Arthur is lying. Esther says that he was the one who made the call to the emergency services and they saw Niall in the car alone on CCTV, which makes a pretty watertight alibi for Arthur. Humphrey agrees, but something still doesn't add up for him: Niall wearing odd socks, and the fact that his fitness tracker stopped at 1:06 am. He adds that he read a Philip Marlowe novel when he was at university, about a series of murders that were made to look like accidents — so what if it gave Arthur an idea? Meanwhile, Jacob and Fenella are watching from a distance from their car, and conversing in mangled Spanish. Thankfully, there are subtitles: "Why is the clock in the house?" "They speak to man with their eyes."

Humphrey returns to Ten Mile Kitchen, which is now up and running. Martha tells him that she's heard from their social worker, Hannah: there's a little girl who needs foster care, and no one else is available to look after her. They'd need to be available to take her in later this week. The two of them weigh up the prospect: Martha points out they hardly see each other as it is, but Humphrey thinks they can still make time for each other and say yes to fostering the girl.

He suggests they have a date night that evening and get reacquainted. Humphrey and Esther head out with coffees, and Zoe comes over to tell Martha that they're getting loads of the regulars from the old place. Just as they're celebrating the successful move, there's a crash and a yelp from the kitchen: they rush in, and Anne is clutching her shoulder. She says that she was feeling a bit light-headed and her legs suddenly gave way, but promises that it wasn't a fall. She says that she skipped breakfast, and that's always a mistake. Martha offers to go and make her some food, while Zoe goes to get her a chair. As Martha goes to pick up a croissant for her mother, we hear a voice saying "hello, stranger" — it's none other than Archie Hughes (Jamie Bamber), smiling a little hesitantly.

(Quick season one recap for anyone who needs it: Archie and Martha grew up together, they were childhood sweethearts before going their separate ways, when Martha and Humphrey moved back to Shipton Abbott, Archie bought into Martha's café because she needed an investor, but he still had feelings for Martha and attempted to kiss her, she made it clear she didn't feel that way about him, he backed off and eventually left town, and Martha bought him out of the café. All up to speed? Good!)

Archie Hughes (Jamie Bamber) stands behind the counter at his winery, wearing a suit and with his arms folded. There are six bottles on the counter in front of him and countless more on the shelves behind him, as well as a large display roll-up banner advertising Shipton Abbott Valley Reserve's new white wine

Archie Hughes (Jamie Bamber) is back...but why? (Image credit: BBC/Red Planet Pictures)

Esther and Humphrey return to the police station with coffees for Margo and Kelby, and Margo says she's had Jacob on the phone asking where his report is. She adds that they've had the lab results back, courtesy of Marge Atkins, Margo's counterpart at Polmarron station: cause of death has been confirmed as drowning, and Niall's blood alcohol levels were two to three times over the driving limit.

There was water in his lungs showing traces of legionella. Esther thinks this isn't surprising, given the sort of things that get dumped in rivers these days — so if Niall was drunk and drowned in the river, doesn't that prove it was an accident? Humphrey still has questions, primarily sock-based, and wants to resolve them before closing the case — and also manages to accidentally cuff himself to a desk lamp while he's going over things. Kelby's on his way out to speak to the farmer about the stolen sheep when he runs into CS Woods on the way out. As ever, he's completely tongue-tied in her presence and it all gets rather awkward.

As Kelby beats a hasty retreat and Esther and Margo are trying to free Humphrey from the lamp, CS Woods informs them that she's had a very angry phone call from Arthur Donelan, stating that Humphrey's manner was "accusatory and at times downright rude". She asks Humphrey if he has any evidence whatsoever that Niall Palmer is anything other than the victim of a tragic accident, and Humphrey admits that he doesn't. He also has no evidence to suggest that Arthur Donelan was responsible for Niall Palmer's death. CS Woods points out that DI Tremayne is happy to close the case as an accident, and that Humphrey has managed to get on the wrong side of the Cornish police team, as well as upsetting a local councillor to the extent that he is considering an official complaint. She asks if he has a single credible reason why he thinks it wasn't an accident, and Humphrey briefly considers saying "socks" before thinking better of it, so CS Woods suggest he wrap up the case promptly. She gives him until the end of the day to tie up any remaining loose ends, but no later.

Jacob and Fenella are sat in their car, and Jacob is crowing to his boss about how he's thoroughly investigated the case but the Shipton Abbott police are just making themselves look stupid. He ends the call and he and Fenella immediately proceed to stick their tongues down each other's throats. (Apparently they're studying French as well as Spanish.)

Back at Ten Mile Kitchen, Archie offers to drive Anne home as it's on his way. It turns out that Archie did have an agenda when he turned up there, but possibly not the one you might think: he's got 40 potential new clients coming for a major event and he's been let down by his caterers. Martha tells him that she doesn't have time to make the necessary arrangements, and besides: she has plans with Humphrey tonight. Archie assures her that Humphrey will understand, and he'll make it up to them both.

Over at the police station, Esther has been doing some research into Niall's friends, and discovers that he had a pal called Paul Cresswell who was no fan of Arthur. When Esther spoke to Paul on the phone, he described Arthur as controlling, manipulative and a bully — and he thought that Niall had finally had enough of him and was going to tell him he wanted to take a break. Humphrey wonders if that's what they were really arguing about, and Esther says she finds it a lot more convincing than Arthur's "moved some clothes" story. She's found a video on Paul's social media of a surprise party that he threw for Niall's birthday: Arthur was lurking in the background rather awkwardly while Niall had a good time with his friends. Martha arrives and breaks the news to Humphrey that she needs to cancel their date, explaining that Archie has just returned from travelling, and needs her to cater his wine launch.

Humphrey admits he's disappointed because he was looking forward to their date, but he knows Martha was always going to say yes to helping out a friend in need because she's a kind person. Martha suggests they reschedule their date night, and adds that Humphrey's invited to the wine launch if he wants to come.

Meanwhile, Margo has just taken a call from the speed camera team, who have confirmed that the camera was recently recalibrated and its clock was accurate. So this means that there's still a discrepancy between Niall's fitness monitor registering his heart stopping at 1:06 am and him being captured driving a car 20 minutes later. Humphrey wonders if they've been wrong in their assumption that the tracker showed Niall's heart stopping at 1:06 am — maybe he really did just take the tracker off. He remembers seeing a hot tub in Arthur's garden...

Arthur Donalan (Hugh Dennis) is pictured standing slightly behind a set of double doors, only one of which is open. He is lit mostly from behin and looks a little bit sinister. The doors have "Fire door: keep shut" stickers on them.

What is Arthur Donalan (Hugh Dennis) hiding? (Image credit: BBC/Red Planet Pictures)

Humphrey and Esther are sat in the car outside Arthur's house, and Esther cautions Humphrey that it might not be a great idea to speak to Arthur again, given the warning they got from CS Woods earlier. Humphrey insists that he'll be polite and gets out of the car. Arthur is exiting the house in his running gear, and isn't in a mood to hang around, so Humphrey ends up having to run alongside (well, slightly behind) him as Esther follows slowly in the car. Humphrey asks Arthur if Niall took the fitness tracker off to get into the hot tub, and Arthur says he didn't notice. Humphrey says the tracker stopped at 1:06 am, and Arthur didn't call to report Niall driving off until 1:25 am, so he must have been with Niall when he took it off. Arthur says he has no idea, and he fails to see why any of this matters. Humphrey attempts to continue the interrogation, but Arthur is much fitter than him and speeds off, leaving a very out-of-breath Humphrey behind.

Back at the police station, it's 5.50 pm and Esther reminds Humphrey he only has 10 minutes before they have to drop the case. They both agree that Arthur's clearly lying, but Esther points out they don't have any evidence to prove it. Kelby returns and explains that the sheep theft has been solved: somebody went through the gate on the public footpath and the gate hadn't closed properly, so the sheep go through that and out into a nearby field. He says it took nearly an hour to round them up. But what Kelby doesn't understand is who would have been out walking in the middle of the night to leave the gate open in the first place?

This is what finally clicks everything into place for Humphrey, who leaps to his feet and yells "Legionella!" (Well, it makes a change from "eureka!", I guess?) He asks Margo to hand him the toxicology report, and confirms that it found traces of Legionella in Niall's lungs. He didn't think anything of it at the time, because as Esther rightly pointed out, there's all sorts of nasty things in the rivers these days. But Legionella is also something you'd find in standing water in somewhere like a tank... or a hot tub. He checks the figures, and the amount of Legionella found in Niall's lungs is too high for a river, but not for a hot tub. So if that's the water in Niall's lungs, was that the water that killed him? But if so, how did they see him on CCTV driving away?

Here's what really happened: Niall and Arthur were in the hot tub together when they started arguing. It got physical, and Arthur held Niall under the water — causing his heart to race as he fought for his life, and then Niall's heart stopped at 1:06 am. It's unclear whether Arthur actually intended to kill him or whether he simply got carried away in the heat of the moment, but he was distraught when he realised what he'd done, and then realised he needed to act quickly to cover his tracks.

He got Niall's dead body dressed, not realising that he'd put him in odd socks. Worried that he'd be seen disposing of the body — or that people might suspect Niall didn't leave of his own accord — he called the police and reported that he'd seen Niall getting into the car drunk. He then looked for the masks of Niall's face that his friends had used at his surprise birthday party (which were just about visible in the blurry video footage earlier), then got into Niall's car with the body. A short distance away from the speed camera, Arthur pulled over and put the mask on, then deliberately sped up and weaved all over the road so that it would be picked up by the speed camera, looking like a drunk Niall was behind the wheel.

After veering off the road and into the field, he stopped and got out. Because Niall had drowned, Arthur knew his body would need to be found in water, so he put Niall's corpse into the driving seat, wedged the accelerator down and took the handbrake off, letting the car drive itself into the river with Niall inside. He then ran home — which he could do quickly since he was a runner and physically fit — and took a shortcut across the fields, inadvertently leaving the gate open and letting the sheep out. Then when he got home, he called the police again to reinforce his alibi.

Esther suggests that they go to arrest Arthur, but Humphrey has a better idea and calls Polmarron station to tell Jacob what happened — because they've got plans for the evening, and the arresting officer will have to spend three hours filling out the paperwork. Thus, it's not Humphrey and Esther who attend Arthur Donelan's arrest but Jacob and Fenella, who lament in Spanish: "It's good that the sausage goes to town." "My arms are long and tasty." (Is it wrong that I hope we see those two again? They have the making of great recurring antagonists. Plus, I really want to meet Marge Atkins and see if she's anything like the way Margo described her.) Meanwhile, Humphrey and Esther get the much better job of going to see Angela Palmer and telling her the truth about her son's death.

Over at Archie's winery, the launch seems to be going well, and a much-recovered Anne is schmoozing with Chief Superintendent Woods. Humphrey and the team arrive, and Archie greets him warmly. Humphrey says to Archie that the last time they saw each other, they were scrapping on the seafront and playfully mock-punches him — except, being Humphrey, he accidentally connects with Archie's nose. It looks like there's no serious damage to Archie's handsome face, and he sportingly admits he probably deserved that for ruining their date night (amongst other things, I'd say). Meanwhile, Kelby is getting a drink from the bar when he sees CS Woods talking to Anne and Margo, saying "come over and join us!" He's about to head over when he realises she was talking to the man standing behind him, who very much seems to be CS Wood's partner. Aw, poor Kelby. (Although... probably best he learns this lesson now. It would never have worked, Kelby! Even if she'd been romantically interested in you, she's your boss and it would have been an abuse of power! Most workplaces have rules in place to specifically forbid that kind of relationship! The HR investigation would have gone on for months!)

Archie Hughes (Jamie Bamber) is striding purposefully toward the camera while Martha Lloyd (Sally Bretton) and DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) are following close behind, looking a little confused. Party guests can be seen behind them, wearing light summer clothing and socially mingling.

Archie has a surprise for Martha (Sally Bretton) and Humphrey (Kris Marshall) (Image credit: BBC/Red Planet Pictures)

Archie goes over to Esther and tells her that Zoe is doing an amazing job, and Esther admits that she's very proud of her. Archie tells Esther that he's been off travelling to clear his head a bit, adding that he doesn't think he's seen Esther off duty before and there's "quite a difference". Esther: "Is that a posh boy's way of saying that I scrub up well?" Archie admits that it is, and she takes it as a compliment. He offers to get her another drink, and there's a definite frisson of something between them. This could be interesting!

Archie leads Humphrey and Martha away from the launch and into a separate building, where he's laid out a romantic table for two so that they can have what remains of their date night after all. They're both rather touched — especially, as Martha points out, given that Humphrey punched Archie a few moments ago. They're just sitting down when Hannah Owen (Amalia Vitale), the social worker, rings. Next thing we know, Humphrey and Esther are back at home with Hannah, who's getting Rosie (Bella Rei Blue Stevenson) settled in. Hannah apologises for the fact that it's earlier than they were expecting, but explains that Rosie's mum has been re-arrested and is back on remand, so it was an emergency. Martha assures her that they will be fine, and Hannah warns them that Rosie has had a rough time and may need some time to settle in, but tells Humphrey and Martha that they are exactly what Rosie needs right now. Hannah leaves, and Humphrey and Martha join hands as they regard their new foster daughter.

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Steven Perkins
Staff Writer for TV & Satellite Week, TV Times, What's On TV and whattowatch.com

Steven Perkins is a Staff Writer for TV & Satellite Week, TV Times, What's On TV and whattowatch.com, who has been writing about TV professionally since 2008. He was previously the TV Editor for Inside Soap before taking up his current role in 2020. He loves everything from gritty dramas to docusoaps about airports and thinks about the Eurovision Song Contest all year round.

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