VIDEO: Grace – and the mystery of the missing wife as TV detective returns

John Simm, who returns as DS Roy Grace, explains: “He’s still hiding it from Cleo a little bit. He doesn’t speak to her about it because he is still not sure. He says to Glenn at one point during the first episode, ‘I didn’t want to say anything just in case it was a false alarm that could cause a lot of worry about nothing, and I was right.’ They are still on the search. Sandy’s spectre, if you will, is always hanging over them a bit. Roy and Cleo do decide to move in together. They have a date on the bandstand, which was a lovely day filming with Zoë. It was a bit windy, but we had to pretend it wasn’t. Those scenes are lovely because it’s great to see Grace out of his job mode. He can be quite intense and very serious, but you actually get to see him smile.”

Opening the third season on Sunday, March 19 is Dead Like You which has a dual timeline and flashes back to when Roy and Sandy were married.

As John says: “Those scenes are interesting because you can see that it wasn’t actually a perfect marriage. There were problems there. She finds it very difficult to deal with his work and to live in that environment where she sort of plays second fiddle to his job. That always must be the case. There is nothing really you can do about that. There is a very telling moment when it’s her birthday and he is in the middle of looking for a missing girl and the phone rings. Sandy says, ‘Don’t take it. Choose me.’ He looks at her like she’s crazy. ‘What do you think I’m going to do? Just ignore this phone call?’ He picks up the call. There is no dialogue in that moment, but I think it says a lot about where they are and what happened with her. It’s quite telling. Sandy asks him, “Why are you more interested in a dead woman than me?” What do you think the answer is? Yeah, it’s quite an unfair question really because she knows it’s his job and he is super-dedicated to his job. He’s Roy Grace. He’s not going to start saying, ‘Ok, fine, darling, I’ll just turn the phone off and ignore it.’ You can see where their clash came and where it all started. It’s left to the audience to try and work out what might have happened. It is drip fed into each episode. You get a little clue.

“We all change as people as we get older. It highlights how unsuitable he and Sandy were when she is so jealous of his job. She is nothing to do with that world, so she doesn’t really understand. Whilst Cleo is different because she is in that world. I think he finds a kindred spirit with Cleo and doesn’t really have any of those problems. There is one scene with her where his phone rings and he says, ‘Sorry, I’ve got to get this’ and Cleo says, ‘Fine, get the phone.’ She realises. We see Grace packing up his stuff to move in with Cleo.”

CHARACTER CREDITS: DS Roy Grace JOHN SIMM; DS Glenn Branson RICHIE CAMPBELL; DS Norman Potting CRAIG PARKINSON; DS Bella Moy LAURA ELPHINSTONE; Cleo Morey ZOE TAPPER; DS Nick Nicholl BRAD MORRISON; ACC Cassian Pewe SAM HOARE; Kevin Spinella ALEXANDER COBB; ACC Alison Vosper RAKIE AYOLA; Rachel Ryan HEATHER FOSTER; Johnny Kerridge THOMAS COOMBES; Mimi BONI ADELIYI; Rollo Mercer LUKE NORRIS; Mingo MAX KRUPSKI; Punt JAY OLIVER YIP; Badger ANDY APOLLO; Oliver Starling BEN WIGGINS; SOIT Officer CHARLOTTE WORKMAN; Jack Skerrit JACK PIERCE; DI Sid Barrow ROB JARVIS; Anna JO HERBERT; Roxy CHARLOTTE CHRISTOF; Detective Marcel Kullen ERNEST GROMOV; Sasha KIERA LESTER; Maggie JOANNA BROOKS; Dominic Pope NICHOLAS TIZZARD; Pippa Starling CLAUDIA JOLLY

In this series:

FILM ONE - DEAD LIKE YOU. A chilling event at the Royal Edward hotel on the night of Assistant Chief Constable, Alison Vosper’s leaving do forces Grace and Branson into a difficult position when they must investigate all hotel guests, including high ranking East Sussex police attendees. Something about the incident is causing a deep unease in Grace - he knows he’s seen this before. Has a sinister offender from Grace’s past dubbed the Brighton Prowler resurfaced or is this a copycat? As the attacks continue, Grace is convinced it’s the same man – and delving into the past may be the key to saving the next victim.

FILM TWO - DEAD MAN’S GRIP. Grace and his team are called to the site of a tragic road traffic collision involving three vehicles: an articulated lorry, a car and a blue pickup truck. An unexpected discovery at the scene, found on the victim, soon suggests there could be far more to this particular accident than meets the eye, sparking an unsettling chain of events which leads Grace and Branson on a tense, desperate game of cat and mouse through the city of Brighton to save an innocent life before time runs out.

FILM THREE - NOT DEAD YET. A rising music star, Gaia Lafayette, receives the opportunity of a lifetime, and the same night that she excitedly announces to her devoted fans that she and her band are headed to LA, a shocking turn of events leads Grace and Branson to believe someone may be trying to harm her. With a perpetrator on the loose, Roy must deduce who of Gaia’s fanbase may be concealing sinister intentions. Meanwhile, a grisly discovery on a remote Sussex pig farm puts Roy under serious pressure, forcing him to split his team in order to investigate two impossible lines of enquiry.