The Viceroy Cometh! Truthfully, I wondered if we were ever going to meet the big man in charge in Indian Summers, but here we are in the 4^th episode and he arrives in style played by Patrick Malahide (long-time PBS viewers will remember Malahide from George Eliot’s Middlemarch where he played Rev. Edward Casaubon). He babbles on to Ralph about the situation back in England and how happy he is to back in India. And he really wants to meet Madeleine! Cynthia has kept him well informed about Ralph’s love life. He reminds Ralph he’s now 30, it is past time for him to stop having fun, to settle down and find a wife.

But there is a little problem, see, Eugene has gotten fed up with Ralph diddling his sister without putting a ring on it, so he insists that they go back home to Chicago. Eugene shouts that Ralph is just using her! Maddy is not happy with her brother but given the time period, she can’t stay in India all by her lonesome. And besides as she shouts back at him, maybe she doesn’t care if Ralph is using her, maybe she likes it! Of course, Ralph wants to please the Viceroy, so he asks Madeleine to stay to meet him. Maddy takes this as a sign that an engagement between them must be imminent. Ralph, who can’t make a decision by himself, asks Aafrin if he should propose to Madeleine! Aafrin is a little confused by what his boss is asking of him. None of this is covered in the Head Clerk manual. Aafrin is also forced to play games, pretending to fence with an umbrella while the Viceroy sings show tunes.

Meanwhile Aafrin has bigger problems than Ralph Whelan’s love life or learning to play golf which he is singularly bad at. Remember that document that he took last week, the piece of paper that seems to prove that Chandru Mohan was a member of the Indian National Congress? Well the authorities are looking for it and Aafrin’s name is on the list of people who were there that day for the inquest. Gulp! When Aafrin learns the news at dinner with Ralph and the Viceroy (for which he is woefully underdressed), he almost looked like he was going to pass out. Thinking quickly he writes a note and asks Alice to take it to his girlfriend Sita, requesting that she instruct Sooni to destroy it, but not before the two spent long minutes staring into each other’s eyes. Unfortunately for Aafrin, Sita doesn’t take the note to his family. As she informs Alice, Aafrin’s family disapprove of her. Instead the document is found but Ralph doesn’t let on that he knows to Aafrin. Clearly he’s keeping that information safe for leverage later on. Back at home, Aafrin spends time smelling Alice’s scarf that he found earlier at his graveyard hookup spot with Sita.

Alice is also not having a very good episode. At tea Sarah Raworth announces her intention of sending her little son back to England but Alice fails to support her decision, infuriating her. While walking back to Alice, Sarah toys with her like a spider, asking her what she should do if she knows that a friend is telling a life. Alice quickly realizes that Sarah knows her secret, that her husband is not dead. Of course, Sarah puts her own spin on it, claiming that Alice abandoned her husband without cause. Instead of defending her actions, Alice asks what Sarah wants, bracing herself for impossible demands. Instead Sarah chirps that she just wants to help. Right! Alice had better watch her back. Later on, Sarah and Dougie have dutiful marital sex. Adam, the little boy that Leena and Dougie found in the first episode, has been having nightmares. He runs out the orphanage one night only to run into his long-lost mother who has been sneaking around the compound. Stafford Armitage recovers from his heart attack and wants to go home to Scotland, he’s spent 40 miserable years in India and he wants to die at home. Ranu Sood offers Ian work as his plantation manager to the disgust of Cynthia Coffin who sneers “That is not the way things are here.” When Armitage dies on the train to the coast, Cynthia crows that this means that Ranu Sood can be charged with his murder.