Lance finds a ring pull. Possibly Quattro. Andy has Stanley in the papoose. It is a gentle opening to a series finale that earns everything it is about to do.
Your host Katie is joined by Emma (Instagram: @emloveoldstuff) for Series 2, Episode 6 of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy drama Detectorists, written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, which first aired on BBC4 on the 3rd of December 2015.
Walking off the field, Andy finally says it out loud: he doesn't know why he has this compulsion to keep secrets. Lance, transformed since Kate came back into his life, offers something unexpectedly wise about ambition being overrated and letting Becky take the lead. At home, Becky is in a Victorian flower seller costume, bonnet and shawl, and the veins are practically visible in her neck as she says please don't make me lose my temper, not while I'm dressed like this. She goes to her mum's.
Rally morning on the mayor's farm. Terry gives the kickoff speech. The DMDC fleeces are not shifting, there are 132 left. At the crash site, Russell discovers that Hugh is thirty-two years old, has been receiving pints of Coke this entire time, and has never bought a round. Russell says he feels like he's been groomed. Peter turns up in a red hoodie and Terry strides down the hill to meet him, tells him he's a liar and a nighthawk and scum of the earth, and then phones his old police contacts on a flip phone when Peter walks away.
Kate shows up beside the TR7 and Lance explains the hobby to her in the manner of David Attenborough: detectorists are usually solitary animals, but at certain times of the year they gather together in vast herds. He produces a comically wrapped metal detector from the boot. She's going to come back and open a present each visit. They've got a long time. Meanwhile Andy and Becky switch sides on the phone simultaneously outside a Dickensian school fair, she apologising and he insisting they go, both lowering their phones at the gate. He is a day past the deadline. She accepted on his behalf, just in case.
In the final field, Lance tells Andy he's going to apply for Mastermind. Andy asks who will talk bollocks at him while he's in Africa. Lance says he'll probably just keep talking, not bothered if anyone's listening. That's good, Andy says, because half the time he isn't. Sophie marks an X in the dirt and says she'll see him there in a year. Lance lingers at the X after the others leave, hears something on the wind, turns back, and switches on his detector. The signal is immediate. Andy says leave it, it's junk. Lance says no. He digs. If in doubt, dig it out. The camera pulls back. He finds something. He rubs the dirt off. And after two series of waiting, Lance Stater starts to dance.
Featuring Toby Jones as Lance, Mackenzie Crook as Andy, Rachel Stirling as Becky, and Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Sophie.
Find Emma at @emloveoldstuff on Instagram.
For more metal detecting chat, interviews, and the history behind the finds, follow Katie and the Detecting History Podcast on Instagram and YouTube at @detectinghistorychannel, and listen on all major podcast platforms.
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