Season 11 Episode 08

Geordie survived the shooting and is running the manhunt from his hospital bed. He goes through Dexter Sutton's record: trouble with the law since the age of ten, no fixed address, but a farm where he once lived with relatives. Cathy refuses to let him smoke, and when she leaves he smokes anyway. Larry and Alphy lead a raid on the farm. Les Browning tells them the family washed its hands of the boy long ago, and Jane Browning complains that they broke the door down before asking, and Les suggests the officer Dexter shot deserved it. Larry says he wants Dexter to know the police are coming.

Alphy tells Geordie he has had the dream again and cannot shake it, that he is praying over someone dying. Geordie says Alphy is having a crisis of faith and asks what happened after he was shot, and the two argue about the formula love the sinner, hate the sin, which the three vicars Geordie has worked with had tried to explain to him. Geordie says he will not accept it as a description of what Alphy does. Leonard and Daniel are at the Chapmans', where Daniel reminds Leonard that they have something to discuss. Marcus Hayes has asked Daniel to become Raymond's legal guardian, and Mrs Chapman calls the plan ridiculous while Jack calls it marvellous and points out that it is not just two men, since everyone else will be around. Mrs Chapman insists it will end in disaster.

Les Browning arrives at the station covered in blood. He says he tried to stop him, and that Dexter stabbed his aunt. Cathy, alone with Geordie, apologises. She admits she was stupid, that Switch made her feel appreciated and glamorous, and that nothing happened, and she asks Geordie to forgive her. Geordie then begins to bleed again and Cathy calls for help. Geordie asks Alphy to pray with him, and Alphy recognises the scene as his recurring dream: the dying person was Geordie. Geordie loses consciousness and is taken to surgery.

Back in his room and still unconscious, Alphy sits with him and talks about faith, which he has doubted since learning that his mother never intended him to become a priest or a Christian. He tells Geordie that at the age of ten he saw God and was told he had a new family and a new home, and that he now believes the people who told him that meant well. The dream's meaning closes here: Alphy's long-standing sense of purpose came from an orphanage's reassurance, not from a vocation. Marcus Hayes has had the paperwork drawn up to make his son Raymond Daniel's ward when he dies, which is imminent, and Mrs Chapman still thinks it is a mistake while Jack is delighted that everyone can contribute to raising the boy in one large household. Before Daniel signs, Leonard, who has been the plan's strongest supporter, hesitates, and Daniel talks him round and they receive Mrs Chapman's blessing. The papers are signed.

Dexter's uncle comes to the station with blood on his shirt, saying Dexter has gone mad, that he attacked his aunt and Les could not stop him, and that Dexter said something about going to the hospital to finish what he started. Alphy reassures Larry that he can lead the investigation with Geordie out of it. As Cathy and Mrs Chapman leave Geordie's bedside for a drink, Dexter slips into the room with a knife. Alphy and Larry rush in and he escapes past them, they catch him and fight him, and he breaks free again without the knife, and Larry thinks he wounded Dexter with it. Alphy sees a nurse close the blinds on Geordie's room while Cathy and Esme embrace inside and takes it as Geordie's death. He goes to his church and shouts at God, then notices drops of blood. He finds Dexter on the ground, holding his wounded stomach and asking for help. Alphy sits down beside him and talks to him instead of sending for help, disgusted by the bleeding man, who he believes has killed his friend, and seeing no remorse.

Larry returns to the farm and finds a cot with a gun and a prayer card hidden under the pillow, since the aunt and uncle had been sheltering Dexter after all. He goes to the hospital, where Geordie is awake, and makes him recall Dexter's entry into his room. Dexter had not come to kill him. He had come to apologise. Geordie gets out of bed and goes to the church. He collapses after embracing Alphy and tells him about a neglected boy who lashed out, and that Dexter could be Alphy. He says his view of people has been reformed by the vicars he has worked with, that he used to believe in punishment and now believes everyone makes mistakes and it is the duty of others to help them when they do. He shows Alphy the prayer card Dexter kept under his pillow, and it carries a prayer Alphy heard God speak to him as a child, a story he told Geordie while Geordie was unconscious. Alphy goes to Dexter, apologises, and asks forgiveness from the wounded man and from God, and ambulances arrive.

Months later Alphy goes to the library to return a book and apologises to Meg for his behaviour, then asks her out again. She kisses him, and he thinks he may want to marry her. He goes to the church to baptise Daisy, the baby of Jennifer Scott and Larry Peters, with Geordie and Cathy as godparents, and Leonard, Daniel and Raymond arrive late. Jennifer Scott now works for Cathy and Mrs Chapman at CeCe's Boutique as a bookkeeper, a job she can do while caring for Daisy. Geordie retires rather than taking the promotion, he leaves Larry his hat with a note reading proud of you, son, and he becomes one of the many people raising Raymond. The household, Geordie and Cathy, Mrs Chapman and Jack, Leonard and Daniel, Alphy, Raymond and the dogs, picnics by the river, and walking with Alphy Geordie mentions a dinosaur skeleton that has disappeared from a Cambridge college. The police have given up on it, and he suggests the two of them might look into it.

The finale is built to close the dream that has run through the season and to answer it with the same man, since the dying person Alphy has been praying over in his sleep turns out to be the friend who is shot in front of him. The prayer card under a pillow is the best possible clue to end on, because it proves that the boy who shot Geordie heard the same words Alphy did, and that the thing Alphy took for a calling was an act of kindness by strangers. The last exchange is a retired policeman proposing a new case to a vicar by a river, which is the only ending the programme could have had.