Beyond Paradise season 3 ending explained: do Esther and Archie get back together?

In Beyond Paradise season 3 episode 6, we get an unlikely partnership as petty crook Josh Woods (Chris Jenks) finds himself needing the help of Shipton Abbott Police for a change when girlfriend Lucy Thompson (Eva Feiler) disappears on her way to work — and for once, Josh wasn't the one on the wrong side of the law.

Meanwhile, there's a heart-wrenching separation for DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) and Martha Lloyd (Sally Bretton), and DS Esther Williams (Zahra Ahmadi) faces a major decision in her personal life.

Without further ado, here's what happened in Beyond Paradise season 3 episode 6...

We begin as Lucy Thompson (Eva Feiler) stands outside her home, putting her cycling helmet on as she gets ready to head to work. She takes out her phone and looks at a picture of herself with boyfriend Josh Woods (Chris Jenks), and sighs.

Meanwhile, Josh is outside the Cute Buns Bakery in town, peering through the window and attempting to open the door even though the shop is clearly shut. This attracts the attention of PC Kelby Hartford (Dylan Llewellyn), who is nearby, so Josh books it and Kelby gives chase, muttering "not again" (you may remember that when we first met Kelby back in the first episode of season 1, he was involved in a lengthy chase sequence with Josh, so this is very much a callback to that moment).

Josh attempts to give Kelby the slip in various ways by throwing obstacles into his path and eventually secures his escape by slipping inside a covered pathway that has a large iron gate in the entrance way with a lock and bolting the gate behind him. Josh insists he didn't do anything wrong, that he was just trying to get some doughnut holes for Lucy as an apology and he didn't know the bakery was locked. He runs off in the other direction, leaving Kelby seething "I know where you live, Josh Woods!" through the bars.

Meanwhile, Lucy is riding to work, and it's getting awfully foggy. She rides past a 20mph speed limit sign, where somebody has spray-painted over the zero with a devil-face. She rides over a hump into the road as the mist gets thicker until she disappears from view, and we hear a scream. When the fog clears, Lucy's bike is lying in the road, but there's no sign of Lucy.

It's breakfast time in the Goodman-Lloyd household as DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) is searching for his keys, while Martha Lloyd (Sally Bretton) pours out cereal for foster daughter Rosie (Bella Rei Blue Stevenson), who's excited about her upcoming birthday party and the various snacks involved. Humphrey checks his pocket and finds a drawing that Rosie has done of the three of them out by the houseboat, with her name written backwards in the top corner. While Humphrey is looking for his phone, Rosie asks if they can all go to the zoo this weekend; Martha says she doesn't see why not, so Rosie gets her to promise, which she does. The subject turns to the possible flavours of Rosie's birthday cake, which Humphrey will be making, and Martha hands Humphrey his phone as he and Rosie head out.

Meanwhile, DS Esther Williams (Zahra Ahmadi) is lying face down on the sofa in her pyjamas, next to a coffee table containing multiple empty beer bottles and at least two empty tubs of ice cream, all of which suggests that she may be somewhat regretting her breakup with Archie Hughes (Jamie Bamber) last week.

Her daughter Zoe (Melina Sinadinou) comes in and gently warns Esther that it's 7:50 am and she's going to be late for work. Esther murmurs something non-committal, so Zoe turns to the window and asks if that's Archie she can see at the door. Esther springs to her feet and rushes to the window before realising she's been hoaxed. She asks Zoe who told her about Archie, and Zoe replies that her mum probably shouldn't leave her phone lying around if she doesn't want people to see her messages. Esther says that it doesn't matter now because it's over, and Zoe sarcastically notes that Esther's clearly handling it so well. Esther takes the mug of coffee out of Zoe's hands and heads off wordlessly to get ready for work while Zoe starts clearing up.

While making his way home, Josh gets a voicemail from Lucy — when he listens to it, he can hear a dog snarling and Lucy, sounding frantic, saying "Josh! Help... devil!" before the call cuts off. Josh grabs an unsupervised bike nearby and dashes off.

At Ten Mile Kitchen, Martha asks Zoe if she's OK to hold the fort later when she pops out to collect some stuff for the party. Zoe asks Martha why things didn't work out between Martha and Archie, and Martha says they were young and just not suited. She's curious as to why Zoe is asking, and Zoe makes up an unconvincing cover story about a friend who is having man trouble.

Esther is sitting at her desk, staring at her phone, contemplating calling Archie when Margo Martins (Felicity Montagu) arrives for work, closely followed by Humphrey and Kelby. Kelby mutters that Josh Woods is going to be the death of him, right before Josh bursts through the door without looking where he's going and crashes into the back of Kelby. They chase each other around the office until Humphrey puts a stop to it and Josh explains that Lucy is missing: her phone is switched off, she hasn't turned up at the hospital for her shift that was meant to start at 7:30am (it's now 9am), and it's unlike her to just abandon her patients. He plays them the voicemail and asks if they think she's referring to the Devil's Hump, which Lucy cycles over on her way to work every morning. Kelby snorts that the Devil's Hump is just an old wives' tale, and Margo fills in the blanks for Humphrey: the Devil's Hump is a bump in the road on the way out of town, said to have been placed there by the devil himself.

Local legend has it that if you have bad thoughts while you travel over it, the devil can take your soul. Humphrey asks Josh if he has any reason to believe Lucy would have been having bad thoughts on her way to work, and Josh says no — but he doesn't seem very sure. Lucy left the voicemail at 7:56, having left for work at 6:45 am as she always does. Humphrey gets the team to work trying to trace Lucy, and asks Josh to go home and wait in case Lucy gets in touch.

After Josh leaves, Esther wonders if they should consider the possibility that Lucy simply left Josh, but Humphrey says Lucy doesn't strike him as the type to do so. (Also, if you were going to leave someone, surely you'd just... leave? Faking a voicemail implying you've been abducted is a level of unnecessary drama that makes Married at First Sight look like Countryfile.) Esther notes that Josh is almost lying about something, and Humphrey agrees that he thinks Josh hasn't been giving them the whole story.

Kelby heads out to retrace Lucy's route on his bike, being very careful to think positive thoughts on his way towards Devil's Hump (examples being rainbows, bacon butties and Wayne Rooney — personally I would have expected Kelby to have slightly more complicated feelings about Wayne Rooney after his tenure as the manager of Plymouth Argyll, but the brain moves in mysterious ways). As he's crossing the Hump, he hits a pothole and exclaims "damn it!", before immediately recanting and trying to focus on thinking about bunny rabbits. On the other side of the Hump, he spots something on the ground and goes over to investigate: it's a necklace with a cross on it. He looks around, but there's no sign of Lucy — other than her abandoned bike.

Back at the office, Margo confirms that there have been no sightings of Lucy since she left for work, and her bank card hasn't been used either. The team are still waiting to hear back from audio forensics about Lucy's voicemail, and Humphrey wonders if the snarling sounds in the backgrounds could be hellhounds, which Esther thinks is unlikely. Kelby calls in to report the discovery of Lucy's bike and the crucifix, so Humphrey and Esther head out to join him at the Devil's Hump — where Kelby has just spotted a mysterious figure in the distance, but when he looks back, the figure is gone.

When Humphrey and Esther get there, Humphrey admits that the Devil's Hump in reality doesn't quite live up to its satanic reputation. Esther is behaving a little twitchily, and Humphrey asks her if everything's all right, a line of questioning that she shuts down fairly bluntly. Kelby, still a little ashen, comes up and informs Humphrey that the bike's serial number confirms it's Lucy's, and that the crucifix has been tested for fingerprints but nothing of any use came up. Esther gets a call from Margo, who has spoken to Josh and confirmed that Lucy doesn't have a crucifix necklace. Humphrey is convinced that there is a connection between the Devil's Hump and the sign of the cross, but he's not sure what it is. Esther and Kelby, meanwhile, are still convinced that a ne'er-do-well like Josh has to be involved in all of this somehow.

Back home, Josh is eating biscuits and waiting for news from Lucy. His phone rings with a call from "Bertie", which he declines to take. He goes to get a beer from the fridge, where he sees a to-do list that Lucy has left for him: put up shelves, fix taps, bleed radiators, paint door. He sits down and is about to turn the TV on, when he looks back over his shoulder at the to-do list on the fridge and gets back up again, putting the beer in the fridge and taking the list down so he can get started.

Esther goes to Ten Mile Kitchen to drop off Zoe's keys, having picked them up by accident. Martha asks her if everything is all right, and Esther snaps, "why does everyone keep asking me that?" She apologises, and Martha, picking up on what Zoe said earlier, asks if it's man trouble and if she wants to talk about it.

Esther says that she doesn't, but admits that the man in question is Archie. She says she's sorry and that she should have told Martha about it, but it's over between them anyway. Martha insists that it's fine: she and Archie were together a lifetime ago, and she's just sorry it didn't work out between him and Esther. She says it's none of her business, but for what it's worth, Archie is one of the good ones. Esther, sadly: "Yeah, I know. That's the problem." Martha tells Esther about the time she broke things off with Humphrey (back in season one, after their attempts at IVF failed) because she was terrified that she couldn't be enough for him. She says she still feels that way sometimes, but Humphrey makes her happy — and while happiness always comes with the risk of it being lost, she still thinks it's a risk worth taking. Esther seems to be mulling this over, and Martha apologises if she's overstepped, but Esther thanks her for being a good friend. (That was a lovely scene; I'm sad that we didn't get more of Esther and Martha's friendship in this season, even though I understand that they were both busy with other storylines and there wasn't really a lot of room left for it. Still, better late than never!)

Kelby rides back into town past a tattoo parlour called "Satan's Ink", which does seem slightly out-of-keeping with the general vibe of Shipton Abbott? I guess every town has its wrong side of the tracks. A man with tattoos all over his face stares him down, and Kelby continues riding past nervously. The tattoo parlour is just down the road from the Cute Buns Bakery, where Kelby notices a sign in the window advertising their famous doughnut holes, and decides to head back the other way.

Josh is trying to put up the shelves when Kelby knocks on the door. Josh explains that he was just trying to make everything nice for when Lucy gets back — as the shelf in the background crashes to the floor. Kelby offers to lend a hand, which Josh assumes is some kind of undercover sting operation to earn his trust. Kelby nods to his uniform and notes that he's "hardly undercover", saying that his dad used to bodge all the DIY around the house, so his mum took a DIY course and loved it so much that she signed Kelby up to do the next one with her. Josh invites Kelby in to give him a hand, and asks why he's here, if not to arrest him. Kelby says that earlier this morning Josh said he wanted to "say sorry" to Lucy, and asks what he's sorry about. He says that if Josh got Lucy caught up in something, now is the time to fess up. Josh assures him that it wasn't anything like that: an old friend, Bertie, got in touch and wanted to offload a bunch of knockoff accessories. Lucy thought Josh was involved in it and they argued. Josh admits that he was tempted, but that Lucy's the only good thing in his life and he didn't want to ruin that. He says he'll never so much as steal a paperclip again if Lucy comes home safely. Kelby tells Josh that he'll hold him to that.

Returning to the police station, Kelby tells Humphrey about the fact that Josh and Lucy argued last night, adding that he doesn't think the two things are connected and, as much as it pains him to admit, he thinks Josh might actually be innocent for once. Esther, however, remains unconvinced. Margo's been chasing for clues about Lucy, but come back empty-handed: the only prints on the bike would appear to be Lucy's, given the placement of them, and none of her friends or colleagues could say where she might be. Humphrey suggests contacting the hospital just in case Lucy made an off-hand comment to one of her patients.

As Humphrey is pondering the case, a post-it note with "devil" written on it falls off the incident board and lands on its back, with the word "devil" visible backwards through the paper. Humphrey picks it up and wonders what Lucy was trying to tell them, and who owns the crucifix. Kelby is starting to wonder if someone was really trying to ward off evil, and Margo tells the story of the Delaney brothers, who were arguing as they drove their delivery van over the Devil's Hump, and days later they disappeared, leaving their homes and their van behind. Esther punctures this anecdote by pointing out that the Delaneys were wanted for tax fraud.

At the winery, Zoe marches in and immediately interrogates Archie about what happened between him and Esther. She tells him that Esther is moping around like a lost puppy, and Archie asks if that's because of him. Zoe: "You don't have to be so happy about it." Archie insists he's not happy about it, and assures Zoe that he liked Esther a lot and wanted them to go public with their relationship, but she ended things so he doesn't think she feels the same way. However, Zoe insists the feeling was definitely mutual, saying that she hasn't seen Esther this happy — and then miserable — ever. She says she thinks Esther is scared, or stubborn, or perhaps both, and suggests to Archie that he try to win her back. Zoe adds that Esther hasn't dated anyone seriously since Zoe's late father, and maybe Archie and Esther are MFEO. Archie doesn't know what this means, so I'm assuming that as a hardcore fan of The Cure he probably wasn't super-into Kavana in the late 1990s.

Anyway, Zoe continues by explaining that her father died when she was a baby (something Esther never told Archie) and that Esther's a real softie once you get beneath her gruff exterior. Job completed, she leaves, and Archie resumes packing wine into boxes while deep in thought.

At the cottage, Anne Lloyd (Barbara Flynn) is supervising while Humphrey attempts to bake Rosie's cake, and Rosie — already in her pirate costume — is making plans for her trip to the zoo. Humphrey drops the bag of flour which puffs out all over him, and Martha and Rosie suggest they call the bakery to sort a cake instead.

The next day at the police station, Esther has the cleaned-up recording from audio forensics, and the dog barking in the background sounds less like a hellhound now; Kelby identifies it as a Bernedoodle, or possibly a Puli. Humphrey suggests they check all microchipped dogs in the area and cross-reference with anyone connected to Lucy, including on the patient list that's just come through. As Margo looks through the list, she notices that one of Lucy's patients, Cathy Morgan, didn't turn up for her check-up yesterday and the hospital haven't been able to get hold of her. Humphrey and Esther head off to check on Cathy, while Margo inquires how come Kelby knows so much about dogs. It turns out he badly wanted a dog when he was a kid, so he did loads of research and a big presentation in an effort to show his parents how serious he was. Unfortunately, they were unmoved, and told him he needed to get out more. (We have to meet Kelby's parents soon, right? I need to know more about these people...)

Humphrey and Esther pull up outside a static caravan out in the countryside and knock on the door. It's answered by a very fidgety Trent Morgan (The Change's Murray McArthur), Cathy's son, who says it's fairly usual for Cathy to forget things like appointments, but she's off visiting her sister in Cornwall at the moment, and isn't contactable: there's no mobile reception where they are, and her sister doesn't have a landline. Humphrey spots a picture of Cathy on the wall — and she's wearing a crucifix necklace just like the one they found earlier. Trent denies all knowledge of her having lost it, however, and assures them it's just a coincidence. As we all know, Humphrey doesn't believe in coincidences, so when he gets outside, he calls Margo and asks her and Kelby to find out whatever they can about Trent and Cathy Morgan. After ending the call, he mentions to Esther that he promised Martha he'd try to finish early so he can be home for the party, but he can't leave while Lucy is still missing. Esther tells him that they're just waiting for new information at the moment, and suggests Humphrey goes off to the party, promising that she'll call him as soon as there's anything concrete to act on. As Humphrey and Esther drive off, Trent gets a call from an unknown man —with a dog — telling him he's got until the end of the day.

Rosie's pirate party is in full swing, and Humphrey's cake is a mini triumph — though it doesn't stop Rosie and her hearties from forcing him to walk the plank. (Metaphorically, I mean; they don't frogmarch him off the deck of the houseboat or anything, although frankly these kids seem organised and terrifying enough that I wouldn't put it past them.) Humphrey drags Martha in to walk the plank with him, and in the chaos, Martha doesn't hear her phone ringing — but we can see from the screen that it's Hannah Owen, their social worker.

At the police station, Esther is working in silence when her phone also rings: it's Archie. She walks out into the corridor and answers the call, telling him that she's working. Archie begs her to hear him out and launches into an ill-advised car metaphor before eventually explaining that he's happy to go at whatever pace Esther feels comfortable with. He asks her to meet him tomorrow at 2pm, and Esther says she'll think about it.

Back at the party, Humphrey is serving up cake and Martha goes into the kitchen to retrieve the serviettes. She sees the missed call from Hannah on her phone and calls back. We don't hear Hannah's side of the conversation, but the way Martha's expression changes from joyous to faltering tells us everything we need to know. Humphrey comes in and Martha breaks the news that Rosie will be going home. They're both devastated, but they know this isn't the moment to wallow in their own feelings, so Martha puts her game face back on and heads back out to the party.

At the police station, Margo has discovered that Trent and Cathy are heavily in credit card debt; they've mostly been making the minimum payment each month, but there was a suspicious transaction last week when Trent made a large one-off payment. Esther says that people don't generally come into large amounts of money without doing something underhand, so asks Margo to check Trent's phone records. She wonders how Trent and Cathy's financial activities are connected to Lucy's disappearance, and whether they in fact have two missing person cases on their hands. At this point, a second post-it note with "devil" on it (presumably replacing the first one that failed to stick) falls down again. Esther reattaches it, and it falls again. Margo assumes it's a dodgy batch and says she'll order some new ones, but Kelby's clearly spooked.

While the kids are playing outside, Martha tells Humphrey and Anne that Hannah is coming to collect Rosie tomorrow at 10am. Anne tries to console them by saying that Rosie is very lucky to have had the stability and love that Humphrey and Martha offered her, but Humphrey replies that it feels like he and Martha were the lucky ones. Martha says she doesn't know if she can do this — she thought they would have more time. Rosie comes inside, full of chatter about the zoo, and Humphrey and Martha break the news. They do so in bright spirits, framing it as good news because Rosie's getting to go back to her mum, but Rosie's focused on the zoo — she sees it as a broken promise and sweeps the food off the table, running upstairs yelling that they lied to her.

Margo has uncovered a text exchange involving a lot of numbers and emojis between Trent and someone called JD that, between them, Esther, Margo and Kelby deduce is referring to a drug deal. Esther and Kelby go to see Trent and Esther asks if anything has happened to his mum. Trent insists he loves his mum and wouldn't do anything to hurt her, but Esther points out that someone else might, and tells him they can help him if he tells them the truth. Trent reveals that he makes deliveries to a man called Steve Banley, who runs a carpet shop (and presumably a mini drug empire on the side) and found a bag of weed just lying there. With bills piling up, Trent couldn't resist it, so he took it and sold it to cover his debts. Now Steve is coming after him asking for it back — and took Cathy hostage while she was on her way to the hospital as leverage.

Humphrey and Esther are on the floor outside Rosie's room. Humphrey gets a call from Kelby, but doesn't answer because it's more important to make sure Rosie is OK. As he takes his phone out of his pocket, he pulls out lots of bits of paper as usual — including Rosie's drawing with her name written backwards, and the original post-it note with "devil" written on it.

Esther and Kelby arrive at Steve's carpet shop, which is closed and locked. Esther spots a key safe next to the door and tries the code 0000 — it opens on the first attempt. ("People are so predictable," she notes.) They go inside, and there's nobody there — but there is a dog bed and a dog bowl. They go back outside, and Esther spots a CCTV camera on the shop across the way, so she asks Kelby to get Margo to pull the footage.

Humphrey and Martha counsel Rosie through the door about how change is hard, but her mother will be so excited to see her. Rosie tearfully says she is excited too, and lets them open the door. Martha apologises about the zoo, and Rosie hugs her and says she's sorry too. Humphrey gets another call from Kelby, who tells him that Cathy and possibly Lucy have been kidnapped by Steve Banley. Margo has sent Humphrey the CCTV footage which show Steve, his dog and another man leaving the carpet shop shortly before Esther and Kelby arrived.

Humphrey checks the footage and notices a reflection in the window of writing on a storefront opposite the carpet shop. He pulls out Rosie's drawing and the post-it note again, telling Rosie that she is a genius who has just helped him to crack his case. Esther and Kelby arrive to pick him up, and Humphrey says he knows where they are — in the bar next to the carpet shop. He explains that you can just about make out the writing in the bar's window on the CCTV: "live bands every Saturday". But there's not much space between the words "live" and "bands", and "live b" backwards looks like "devil". So Lucy was reading the writing on the window from inside the bar.

So here's what happened: Steve Banley (Dean Boodaghians-Nolan), who is the man who made the threatening call to Trent earlier and the man that Kelby briefly saw by the Devil's Hump, found out that Trent had stolen his drugs and tracked him to his home. While there, he saw the calendar which had Cathy's hospital appointment marked on it. When he discovered that Steve had sold the drugs and couldn't pay him back, he decided to kidnap Cathy to put pressure on him, so he grabbed her while she was at the bus stop near the Devil's Hump. Lucy happened to be passing on her bike at the same time and, seeing one of her patients being abducted, attempted to stop them, so Steve and his lackey took her as well — leaving the bike behind because there wasn't room in the van. Since Steve and his henchman were doing a generally amateurish job of kidnapping, they didn't think to check Lucy for her phone, so once she and Cathy (Sarah Bennett-Green) were tied up in the bar, she seized the moment to make a quick call for help — seeing the writing through the window as a clue to her location, but only getting as far as "devil" before Steve realised what she was doing and took the phone off her.

As they're heading into town, Josh sees the police truck passing with its blues and twos going, so he follows. The team arrive at the bar where Steve's dog is guarding the threshold, but Kelby uses his special dog-whisperer powers to calm it down while Humphrey and Esther get past. They find Lucy and Cathy in the back room and free them. Meanwhile, Steve and his henchman make a run for it, chased by Kelby... and Josh, who arrives just in time. In a brilliantly funny (and also kind of touching?) slo-mo sequence, Kelby and Josh pounce on the crooks and knock them to the ground. Humphrey arives in time to help cuff them, and Kelby thanks Josh for his help. Lucy and Josh are reunited, and he tells her that he put the shelves up and painted the door — but he had to take it off the hinges to do so and couldn't get it back on again. He apologises tearfully, and they hug as Esther watches on from the sidelines. Humphrey asks her if she's all right, and tells her she's done good work today. He says he doesn't say this enough, but he couldn't ask for a better partner and wanted her to know that. As they all walk past the pub, Kelby hears the dog, still inside and barking.

The next morning, Hannah (Amalia Vitale) arrives to collect Rosie. She tells Humphrey and Martha not to rush, as she knows how tough this can be. Martha asks if Rosie will be all right, and Hannah tells her they've made a care plan, and Rosie's mum has a good support network in place. Humphrey and Anne come out with Rosie, and Hannah takes her bags while Rosie says her goodbyes to her foster family. Martha gives her a big hug and tells Rosie that she's part of their family now, and they're only a phone call away if she needs anything. Rosie asks if it's OK to be happy and sad at the same time, and Martha says of course it is. Rosie walks off to Hannah's car, and they all wave goodbye as Hannah and Rosie drive off.

Beyond Paradise season 3 ending explained: Do Esther and Archie get back together again?

Meanwhile, Esther is driving off to meet up with Archie. She pulls up outside an aircraft hanger, where Archie is meeting someone from Shipton Abbott Model Car Club, who is organising a race day. Esther looks over at him and smiles. She opens the door of the car, but stops halfway — Archie looks over and greets her, but Esther closes the door again. Archie walks over and knocks on the window. Esther winds it down, and Archie sighs, knowing that she's not getting out of the car. Esther can barely look at him, and tells him quietly that she "just can't". She pulls her seatbelt back on, tells Archie she's sorry, and drives away, looking like she's fighting back tears. (Probably more successfully than I am right now, to be honest.)

Still, this is Beyond Paradise, so we can't end on such a heartbreaking note. Here's some better news: Kelby rescued the dog, and they're playing on the beach together! At the end of the day, Humphrey and Martha gather on the deck of the houseboat with a bottle of wine (and Selwyn the duck), where they admit they both miss Rosie hugely already. Humphrey pours them a glass each, and they toast to each other before turning to look out across the river.

That's it for Season 3. Thanks for reading, and hopefully an official Season 4 renewal is coming any day now — watch this space for updates!