Recap / Lewis S 5 E 4

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"The Gift of Promise" is the fourth episode of the fifth season of Lewis, aka Inspector Lewis in the United States.

Grace Orde, a former high-ranking officer in the Security Service, aka MI5, has written a memoir. She is signing copies for her fans, among whom is James Hathaway. Afterwards, Hathaway surprises Robbie Lewis by saying that he, Hathaway, was recruited by MI5 before he became a policeman.

Meanwhile, a teen prodigy, Zoe Suskin, is already enrolled at Oxford despite being only 15, studying Irish history and the Easter Rising and such under the tutelage of Prof. Donald Voss. Zoe and her parents, Judith and Leon, go to a reception held by one Andrea De Ritter. De Ritter, who runs a scholarship fund called "The Gifted Child", awards Zoe a fat scholarship. But that night, Andrea is murdered!

Our heroes, Lewis and Hathaway, take the case. At first suspicion focuses on Elmo Woodeson, another student in Prof. Voss's Irish history class, who was having a sexual relationship with Andrea. But Elmo falls off the suspect list when he also falls off a building, to his death. There's also Liam, Andrea's neighbor who had a fling with her in the past. But the detectives find a strange connection: Andrea's charitable fund was getting paid by Leon Suskin's publishing house, even though Andrea isn't producing any books. Still stranger is how, before her death, Andrea sent Leon Suskin a copy of Grace Orde's memoir, with a note asking "Who killed Mary?", and directing Leon to look for the answer in Chapter 8. The detectives begin to suspect that the murders are connected to MI5, and specifically Grace Orde's classified operations against the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, during The Troubles.

In personal news, Lewis and Dr. Laura Hobson are still dating.

Tropes:

• Accent Slip-Up: Prof. Voss is said to be British by birth but actually sounds American/Canadian. At the end, when he's been unmasked as a former IRA terrorist, he starts speaking in his original Irish accent.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: A flirty Dr. Hobson invites Lewis over for drinks.
  Robbie: To your place?
  Laura: No, I was thinking more the mortuary.
• As You Know: We know that Zoe is getting an award at the party, because Judith asks her "What are you wearing tonight to collect your award?"
• Blackmail Backfire: Why Andrea and Elmo were murdered. They found out who Judith and Donald really were and were trying to blackmail them.
• Blood from the Mouth: Elmo, after he jumps off a building to his death.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Donald offers Hathaway, who is jonesing for caffeine, a cup of coffee that Donald didn't touch. That is the reason that Hathaway later suffers from intestinal distress that he wrongly attributed to bad prawns. (The coffee was poisoned.)
  • Then there's the actual gun that Donald is seen holding in his office, for self-defense after he narrowly survives arsenic poisoning. It turns out that he's the killer, and he's carrying that gun again during the climax.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Eileen, the barista at the coffee shop. She's the one who poisoned Professor Voss's coffee, because she was also Mary Keane's aunt.
• Classified Information: Grace Orde cites this when Lewis tries to get her to tell him the details of her counterterrorism ops in Northern Ireland. Eventually she caves and tells him.
• Dies Wide Open: Elmo, after he took a flying leap off of the roof of a very high building.
• Double Agent: What Donald aka Conlan Doheny was during The Troubles. He was an IRA agent hunting moles, until MI5 turned him by using Honey Pot Mary Keane. Then Conlan/Donald started falsely accusing and murdering genuine IRA fighters, on Grace Orde's orders.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: Donald carefully cocks a gun, when he hears strange footsteps outside his office.
• Faking the Dead: It turns out that Mary Keane the Irish Honey Pot wasn't killed by her lover after all. She's still living, in Britain, under the new name of Judith Suskin.
• Hand of Death: The unseen hand carrying the knife, which said unseen killer uses to kill Leon Suskin.
• Honey Pot: In the back story. This is how MI5 got Donald aka Conlan Doheny to betray his comrades, by using sexy Mary Keane to flip him.
• Impairment Shot: Double exposures and blurred images are used to demonstrate Elmo's state of intoxication after he's been dosed with LSD.
• Le Parkour: Elmo does this when he's running about on the streets of Oxford, jumping off walls, backflipping over fences. Hathaway has to explain to a befuddled Lewis just what "parkour" is.
• Literal Metaphor: Hathaway, finally figuring out why he had stomach pains and diarrhea, says "It was definitely the coffee." Lewis can't resist saying "Gut feeling?"
• Never One Murder: A law of Lewis. Elmo is killed by a hot shot of LSD, and towards the end Leon Suskin is stabbed to death.
• Obsessive-Compulsive Barkeeping: This episode tweaks the trope by having Liam hanging glasses, rather than washing them, when Lewis comes back for more questions.
• Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Lewis and Dr. Hobson, going off together to get drinks.
• Old Flame: Two former lovers come back into each other's lives. Though the twist is one was a former IRA member who was given a new identity in exchange for him providing insider information, while the other was his girlfriend whom MI5 essentially set up to be his honey trap. By the time the of the episode she has moved on, while he still carries a massive torch for her.
• Smart People Play Chess: Zoe identifies Hathaway as a fellow (former) "gifted child." At the end they are playing chess, and she wins because, as Hathaway admits, she's smarter than he is.
• Spy Fiction: Lewis and Hathaway get mixed up in a case involving MI5 and a former British mole inside the IRA.
• Teen Genius: Zoe, who at the age of 15 is enrolled in Oxford. She is studying the humanities—currently, history and The Irish Question—because as she explains to Hathaway, teen geniuses like her tend to be socially maladjusted if they go into art and science.
• Unreveal Angle: The camera is pointed in a way to not reveal the nude photos of Liam found on Andrea's computer.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Said by a crazed Donald at the end, as he's trying to get Judith to go away with him.