What happens

After the previous episode’s confession, Pünd faces a familiar danger for a detective: an answer that appears to settle everything before all the details have been explained. Madeline is ready to leave, but he is not satisfied. The task now is to reconstruct the sequence with enough care to distinguish what somebody believed had happened from what actually happened. In a story full of self-serving witnesses, even a confession needs to be read critically.

Susan’s conversations grow more difficult too. The people who knew Stefan offer glimpses of the conditions under which he worked and the power others held over him. What originally sounded like straightforward misconduct begins to require closer attention. Questions about the old murder compete with concern for Katie, whose family life has become another subject surrounded by awkward silences.

This penultimate episode asks the viewer to hold two different kinds of detail together: practical timing and emotional motive. Who had an opportunity matters, but so does who feared losing money, security, status or a relationship. Neither a confident explanation nor a forceful personality should be allowed to do the work of proof.

Ending explained →

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Who’s in this episode

Susan Ryeland

Played by Lesley Manville. Susan questions the treatment of Stefan and presses on despite increasing hostility.

Atticus Pünd

Played by Tim McMullan. Pünd refuses to close the case on the strength of a confession.

Katie Williams

Played by Claire Rushbrook. Katie finally explains the upheaval in her family and offers Susan personal advice.

Derek Endicott

Played by Thomas Coombes. Derek and his mother add to Susan’s understanding of the hotel’s relationships.

Gwyneth Endicott

Played by Joanna Bacon. Gwyneth explains why Alan’s research did not include a willing interview with her.

Algernon Marsh

Played by Will Tudor. Algernon’s confidence exposes the leverage he believes he has over Leonard.

Where it was filmed

Filming: Crete hosts Susan and Andreas’s hotel. Dublin locations supply the English settings.

Clues to watch for

The location of the dagger compared with John’s movements before his death.
Whether the timing of Melissa’s telephone call fits the accepted account of her injuries.
Leonard’s changed attitude towards sharing Samantha’s inheritance with Algernon.
The absence of an Endicott interview from Alan’s collection of recordings.
The assumptions behind the report of a couple seen in the woods before the wedding.

Full recap (spoilers)

The opening shows Martin Webster digging while Joanne watches, before a disturbing image in the woodland signals what lies ahead. At breakfast in the novel, Madeline wants to return to London. Chubb considers John’s death a suicide following his confession. Pünd rejects that explanation: John had dressed to go out, and the position of the dagger does not support the simple account being offered.

Leonard now encourages Samantha to share her inheritance with Algernon, reversing his earlier position. Algernon admits to the hit-and-run when questioned and seems more concerned with its financial consequences than the victim. He also claims that Melissa was his lover. Pünd speaks separately with Samantha at church. Her horror at adultery and opposition to helping her brother make the family’s changing financial arrangements especially significant.

Susan asks Derek and Gwyneth why Alan did not record an interview with them. Gwyneth refused, and the resulting fictional portraits are distinctly unkind. They point Susan back towards the Websters: Martin once supplied laundry services to the hotel, but lost the work after a disagreement with Cecily. Susan’s attempt to revisit the couple is rebuffed, leaving motive easier to establish than a useful conversation.

At Branlow Hall, Susan reconsiders Derek’s sighting. Why did Chase bark? Where did the figure go? If robbery was the motive, why was murder necessary? Lawrence reluctantly identifies Liam as another employee hired through his scheme for former offenders. Liam describes low pay and exploitation. He also says that he saw Stefan with Lisa in the woods, and reveals his own sexual relationship with her. His account adds information but also depends on assumptions about whom he saw.

Katie finally tells Susan that Gordon has left her and that the financial consequences are forcing the sale of their home. She urges Susan to value Andreas. On the return journey, Martin drives aggressively at Susan and forces her off the road. At the hotel, Locke delivers the news that Cecily’s body has been found. Lisa tells Susan to leave; Andreas’s arrival offers a badly needed moment of support.

Pünd gathers the suspects and reconstructs two attacks on Melissa. John assaulted her and left believing her dead, but she recovered enough to telephone the doctor. Leonard then killed her. He was her lover and feared losing access to Samantha’s inheritance if the affair became public. Algernon knew enough to blackmail him and had falsely claimed the affair for himself. The explanation clears up Melissa’s death, but not John’s. Asked who killed John, Pünd startlingly declares his own responsibility, leaving the precise meaning for the finale.

Book vs TV (book spoilers)

Melissa’s husband is Francis Pendleton in the novel and John Spencer in the adaptation.
The book presents the Pünd story as a continuous novel; television makes its revelations episode endings.
Both versions retain Leonard Collins as Melissa’s killer, despite the husband’s admission of violence.

The book handles this differently. Read or listen to Moonflower Murders.