How Alphy Will Be Geordie’s ‘Bridge’ to Understanding Son David

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Grantchester Season 10 Episode 3.]

Robson Green‘s Geordie Keating can solve just about any crime, but he’s not letting himself solve the mystery of why he can’t be more understanding with his son in Grantchester Season 10. Episode 3 aired on Sunday, June 29, on PBS, and it showed another cold moment from the father that frightened his young son, David (Carter-Jae O’Neil), after he walked in on him wearing a dress in Episode 2. That first encounter resulted in the Detective Inspector yelling at his son for wearing the dress and dancing around their living room (“You’re not a bloody girl!” he snapped at the child who ran away in response). Episode 3 revealed the TV show that may have piqued David’s interest in experimenting with clothing. Geordie’s struggle to understand his son will continue to be a major theme this season, and Rishi Nair tells TV Insider that Alphy Kottaram will be a “bridge” to understanding in this regard — one who’s more equipped to help with this specific scenario than Grantchester‘s past vicars for one key reason, according to Nair.

Cathy Keating (Kacey Ainsworth) was watching a comedy show with her daughters and son in Grantchester Season 10 Episode 3 that featured a man in drag. David was making them all laugh by imitating the flamboyant character. Geordie walked in and didn’t like what he saw. He forced them to turn the TV off saying that it was garbage, confusing his wife and daughters and making his son nervous again. That was the extent of the David storyline in this episode, but there’s going to be more moving forward.

Reverend Alphy Kottaram is Grantchester‘s third vicar. Nair tells TV Insider that the differences between Will Davenport’s (Tom Brittney) relationship with Geordie and Alphy’s are going to help on the David front.

PBS

“The relationship between Tom’s character Will and Geordie, I think it was more father and son. Whereas I feel like Alphy and Geordie are kind of more friends/equals, and even though there is a massive age gap, I don’t think it’s a father-son relationship,” the actor explains, adding that “Geordie’s struggling a bit with his son, and Alphy’s that bridge between them not just by being a vicar, by being his friend, but also by being much younger than him.”

Alphy’s age will help him “bridge between the two” (Geordie and David) because the vicar has “a little bit more understanding of this new world that they’re living in compared to when Geordie was younger,” Nair explains of what’s ahead.

“I also think Leonard [Al Weaver] has a big influence on Geordie’s understanding of what’s happening with David,” Nair adds. “And so it is quite nice you see Geordie lost in this moment of not knowing how to deal with it, but he reaches out to his friends and they all have different perspectives and different ideas that they can give to him that helps him navigate through that obstacle that he has.”

Hopefully, Geordie can learn to accept his son’s differences sooner rather than later.

Grantchester, Sundays, 9/8c, PBS