What happens in episode three, ‘On Children’?
WARNING: Major spoilers for season one, episode three ahead.
After their run in at the bench by the lake, Wendy and Séamus spend their own time digesting their shared experience. The next morning, Séamus wakes up to a party hat on his wife’s pillow, and Wendy has another bird drop out of the sky on her car as she arrives on location for the start of the shoot.
Big Jim gets into hair and make-up, complete with spray-on six pack and fake tan. Wendy walks in on him getting changed. She wishes him a good first day but is rushed off due to another issue.
At the Proctors, the family celebrates Joanne’s birthday, and note they’ll throw a party at the pub later that evening.
Wendy gives a speech to kick off the shoot, but it’s largely awkward as she gets peoples’ names wrong and is ultimately ignored. She later corners the committee to warn them not to mess with the production. Things go wrong immediately though, with a lighting rig collapsing to the ground.
While she sorts it out, she is shocked by the arrival of her father on the set. They arrange to meet up later that evening.
With the film crew on set, business has picked up at Keith’s petrol station. Joanne, who works there part-time, is asked to stay on longer to help with the chaos, even though it’s her birthday. A member of the team overhears this and buys her a Twirl to wish her a good day, which she’s grateful for.
Séamus makes a house call to visit his elderly patient Betty, who in another cryptic ramble says she knows “they’ve found him and need him for something” and comments that the white ridges the town is based around are alien to the region. But just as he begins to ask questions, they’re disturbed by Barry, her adult son and a friend of Séamus. Séamus tells him to shut up, earning a punch from Betty in the process. As he leaves, another bird falls out of the sky.
At the pub, Jules is left upset when Glenda tries to fire him from his job as he’s “no longer needed”, but it becomes clear it’s because he’s still on crutches after his accident. The discussion is overheard by Shelly, who steps in to inform Glenda it’s against disability discrimination laws to let him go.
A flashback shows Séamus, Catherine, Joanne and Sonny during happier times, playing on the beach while the children were young and Catherine could still walk. Séamus watches as his wife packs her wheelchair into the car and heads to work but gets a message from Wendy telling him “Tell Catherine today or I will.”
At the production, Wendy is informed Jules is prepared to sue for unfair dismissal. She goes to meet him, but he immediately collapses his own case. She takes pity on him, especially as he is a huge fan of the book, and decides to hire him as her assistant. Wendy also gets a message from her father, inviting her to join him for a round of golf that evening.
Séamus heads to the football pitch to see Barry to resign from his position on the committee. Their discussion is interrupted by Keith looking for Joanne, who didn’t return for her second shift at the petrol station. While Séamus and Barry both tell him to give her a break as it’s her birthday, a friend of Joanne’s is concerned, as they had plans to meet up, but she never arrived and her phone is turned off. Séamus says Joanne is responsible. Keith and the group agree, which is why her sudden disappearance is so strange.
Jules and Wendy head to the golf course to meet her father and stepmother. Sitting in the restaurant, things are awkward between them, and they get into an argument about why she never visits. When he joins her outside for a cigarette, they talk about the Millenium night, and how she asked for his help but he told her off for being drunk. He says that aliens don’t go well with his Christian faith, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t believe her. Her stepmother then joins her and says she believes her too, and they return every now and again. They ask her back to the club for a drink, but Wendy declines.
A search party is formed to find Joanne, with Sonny and Shelly heading to the school, and an increasingly worried Séamus heading into the woods. As it gets dark, Séamus has flashbacks of the Millenium night, with no sign of his daughter.
With the first day of the shoot proving to be a nightmare, the day is called off and everyone goes home. Wendy ends up getting a call from Séamus in a panic, believing she’s behind Joanne’s disappearance, and the pair argue. Séamus arrives at the busy pub and blurts out everything that happened in the woods at the turn of the Millennium to convince the townspeople that Joanne might have been abducted. When he looks to Wendy to back him up, she denies all knowledge.
Awkwardly, Joanne then arrives, completely unharmed. She reveals she secretly left town to get a tattoo and didn’t tell him because she knew he’d disapprove. The entire pub starts mocking Séamus for his confession, turning him into the village laughing stock. Embarrassed, he leaves the pub and goes home early. Wendy also leaves, remembering how she was shunned by those around her who didn’t believe her.
That evening, Joanne returns home drunk and eating cake. Séamus and Joanne talk, and she shows him her new tattoo – the name Proctor on her ankle, which he’s touched by.