Endeavour 9th & final season starts 26 February 2023 at 8pm on ITV

[IwantToRetire]

2023’s final trilogy of films will find Endeavour and Thursday entering a new era of change both professionally and personally.

Set in the spring of 1972, the final season’s opening episode is directed by none other than Endeavour star Shaun Evans.

The synopsis for the story reads: “Two unexplained deaths turn up ties to the Oxford Concert Orchestra, while a body discovered in a derelict warehouse stokes fears that ‘London business’ has yet again found its way to Oxford.

“Thursday and Endeavour’s investigation unearths some unsettling connections to cases the duo believed were well and truly behind them.”

britishperioddramas.com/news/endeavour-season-9-release-date-itv-february-2023/

Aha. The Guardian article has it (I think):

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/mar/12/farewell-endeavour-what-a-perfect-end-to-one-of-tvs-classic-shows

"Another theatrical allusion was to Chekhov’s rule that, if the audience is shown a rifle, it must be fired before the curtain. In separate scenes, Thursday was shown taking a gun from a cupboard at home and a drawer in his office. Was it the same weapon, or were there two? That question is key to a highly ambiguous ending that seemed designed to drive online speculation."

Seems it worked!

One theory online is that the gunshot symbolises the end of Endeavour, ( he told Thursday he was Morse now) and the beginning of Morse.

I don't understand why the Anton Lesser character was sat at a grave in a shirt?

The concert for Blenheim Vale being held at Blenheim House was very clever. Did Thursday collapse in the same quad where Morse collapsed , it looked like it. I loved the dream sequence at the wedding, so sad, knowing what his future is of never being able to sustain a relationship.

His wife's grave and he's retired so can wear whatever he wants!

Sometimes i feel sad when i watch it.that they are dramatising a time i grew up in.The clothes. the music..sense of loss he has even though other things jar.The sense of being at a seventies wedding..the interiors of houses.
My ex has a german wife who is obsessed by Morse Endeavour Lewis etc.So much so that she made him put in an offer for a house in Oxford though he lectures in the midlands.She thinks it represents a kind of Englishness and loves Shaun Evans repressed anguish.Mind you so do I.Saw him in a play recently but he did not seem to fit.
The Tempest ending words were maybe a little contrived but also effective...I dont know why but i felt sad.But that kind of nostalgia and nonsense is no good.I suppose i just felt like history and maybe like Morse i am alone

It never entered my mind that they were two different guns!

Joan is Scottish! Who was the person Morse said is that it then at the end? Was that the director/writer?

The other thing I don't understand is why is Strange so grumpy and boorish with Morse in Morse when they were such good pals in Endeavour?

I was expecting something major to happen (aside from the wedding bail out!) to cause Strange to be so irrascible with Morse.

I was thinking the same. The relationship seems so different.

The haunted boarding school?

He was handing the music score back to the choir conductor I think but it was like 'is that it - the end of Endeavour '.

Was the conductor a little cameo?

I didn't see who it was. Probably wouldn't have recognised them anyway but the whole episode was loaded with references and symbolism.

Favourite Morse episode... The one in the first series with all the bodies in the church. Max made some joke about not much of the congregation being left!! 🤣 🤣 🤣
Favourite Lewis episode...
The one with Cravecore House..
Favourite Endeavour episode..
The Pilot and the last one with clips of John Thaw in them...💔 💔 💔

Thought it was brilliant though I am also confused by the gunshot. I will miss Endeavour.

@CaptainMyCaptain the broken down bus one and the hotel

@CaptainMyCaptain @Cherrypi I wondered if it was Kevin Whatley?

Den of geek has done an excellent write up so DON'T read unless you have seen it coz it's a spoiler

www.denofgeek.com/tv/endeavour-series-9-finale-review/

So happy Thursday didn't die or end up in the clink in disgrace. And I was as moved as he was when he had his life's savings returned to him <blub>

One of the best TV theme tunes ever.

Scrap that, apparently it was the writer Russell Lewis at the end.

No, it wasn't!

Worst episode ever!

I thought that was great. I was never much of a Morse fan, but I've loved Endeavour and they've done him proud with that finale. The scene with the two Jags on the driveway reminded me of the last scene of Performance, but I doubt that was a deliberate allusion. And there were plenty of those, including quite a few that passed me by, I imagine.