Football is entering its baroque phase in ‘71, with rising salaries and glamour girls galore. Morse is stuck with this episode’s other case: a phoned-in threat against the life of Oxford Wanderers’ star striker, Northern Irish international Jack Swift (Julian Moore-Cook). Would you believe me if I say that I called this particular development last year? Probably not, but it always seemed clear that something pretty serious had to happen to disrupt the budding friendship between Strange and his former housemate, given how fractious their relationship in Inspector Morsewill turn out to be… Joan’s flattered by the unexpected invitation, and – much to Strange’s evident surprise – she accepts. She’s back home in Oxford again, working at a women’s refuge as part of her employment with Welfare.
WATCH INSPECTOR LEWIS SEASON 8 EPISODE 1 PLUS
It’s Joan Thursday, for whom Endeavour’s carried a torch for years, that Strange settles on as his potential plus one. At least, that’s what we might deduce from the concerned look on his face as he opens his invitation to a Masonic function, for which a date is most definitely expected. The DS Strange we meet in ‘ Striker’ is an altogether more dapper, organised man than we’ve seen him before someone who, like Morse, is in search of a little more to fill his life than take-home murder cases and dinners for one. Similar plaudits are owed to Sean Rigby, who’s also faced the tough task of capturing a man already familiar to us from Morses past.
WATCH INSPECTOR LEWIS SEASON 8 EPISODE 1 SERIES
A young secretary, Margaret Widdowson, has opened a lethal package and is killed instantly.Įndeavour: Will There Be a Series 9? By Louisa Mellor A bomb blast rings out through the quads of Morse’s alma mater, Linacre College. At first glance, they don’t seem to have much in common. The two cases he’s confronted with in ‘ Striker’ don’t do a great deal to improve his mood, either. That acid note of disappointment has been present for a while in Morse’s behaviour, but it’s sourer than ever now. The worst of it is, we know that it won’t be the last time he’s hit by such despair. A master manipulator took away somebody he’d grown to love, and a brief idyll ended in disaster. As Morse bitterly remarks to Joan Thursday late in this episode, that situation ended how it had to. The shocking events of series seven’s finale, in which any last vestiges of Morse’s innocence were snuffed out forever, are never discussed directly, but they’re here, nonetheless. It isn’t going to be fun to witness, but it’s what we signed up for. John Thaw’s Inspector was a man who suffered silently, and it’s that version of the character that the sensitive, easily hurt young man we met back in Endeavour’s pilot episode nine years ago is growing into. It’s not behaviour we’d expect from our Morse…except, of course, it is, when you think about it. Endeavour Morse (Shaun Evans) wakes up late from a hangover, leaving DI Thursday (Roger Allam) waiting in vain for his usual morning lift to work from his Detective Sergeant. It’s 1971, and Oxford’s finest are, as ever, dealing with all of humanity’s worst impulses. Warning: this Endeavour review contains spoilers.
Endeavour Series 8 Episode 1 Review: ‘Striker’