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/

agreed. that was such a weird episode. campy horror.

I think he was at his daughter's grave in India.

I'm watching the documentary. Kevin Whately has aged so much. I wondered if he'd not been well.

I wondered that too. Only a year older than Anton Lessor.

I hadn't realised that Thursday wasn't mentioned in Morse. Had a feeling that when discussing his car on one occasion Morse says something about an old guvnor inspired him....

Working backwards from what's be said so far Thursday isn't mentioned in Morse and the explanation in the fan documentary (shown after the news) is that the combination of Thursday being guilty of a crime and Sam not being identified because he is now a target of the bikers, means Endeavour as Morse must never refer to them. A bit implausible but they admitted Thursday was never mentioned in Morse so put this as the reason why.

Bright is sitting by his wife's grave. Some of the most touching scenes were Anton Lesser as Bright having to face his wife's illness and eventual death. Its funny in the fan documentary Lesser comes over (another great acting part) as being a bit giddy and light hearted, but more often than note plays parts where he has to convey horror and desperation. (Though always enjoyed the Roman detective series he did for the radio which was not like that at all.)

Still think the Joan plot line didn't really work. As Endeavour clearly was able to be quite open and frank with women, and all this nonsense of endlessly referring to her as Miss Thursday was just silly.

I think this is the only episode when on two occassions that had characters repeat the thinking behind how a crime had been worked out. Maybe it because they know that we arent always as clever as Morse, and normally in a follow up episode things are explained. But it sounded a bit odd. Sort well this happened because, and then another character says, oh you mean this happened because ...

But again as said in the fan documentary having the same writer made huge difference to the script and having bits of the past come up in later episodes.

Certainly towards the end of Lewis some of the scripts were terrible.

However, still dont think that even with 10-15 years or however long it is meant to be, the Endeavour character would become the boorish bully that Morse was.

Do you think in fact that the outcry will be so great we will have Morse the Carshalton years, with a totally different actor?

Maybe Netflix will go rogue and cobble one together - and it will be pants.

Wasn't the conductor at the end Colin Dexter?

Colin Dexter’s dead.

Bright was in India at the end, I assume, at his daughter’s grave. The birth and death dates on the grave were in the 1940s, and he’d previously been looking at a tourism leaflet for India.

So Thursday stabbed missing Pete from the children’s home and Morse covered it up. His son then made a miraculous recovery from drug and alcohol addiction and was ready to join the police.

I think Morse fired the last bullet from the gun so he couldn’t use it in future (having found his morals again, before his personality transplant into grumpy Morse)

I didn't realise that was missing Pete (Big Pete) who Thursday stabbed. I'm going to have to watch again.

Good explanation about the gun. Wonder what he did with it afterwards.

Morse " a boorish bully"? That's not how I saw John Thaw's character at all. Melancholy, clever, interesting......Loved that character.

I think the Russian roulette explanation for the gun makes most sense.

At the end he's really lost everything. The woman he loves is married, his mentor is gone both physically and mentally, he's lost the team that understood him and the case that has driven him..

It is the end of Endeavour in effect and that he might consider ending it all there (or letting fate decide) is plausible.

Like we see so often in Morse, music is his salvation and company through life. It's echoed again in Lewis with the Endeavour music scholarship gifted in his will.

Russian roulette was my first thought because of the way he spun the barrel. Would it go off BANG if it wasn't the chamber with the bullet? I know nothing about guns.

There could only have be been a blast from the gun if the actual bullet had been fired, so I don’t think it was a Russian roulette situation. It seems more likely it was a symbolic “killing” of Endeavour as he became Morse, as we also saw right at the end with the two cars passing each other. Or perhaps Endeavour simply wanted to get rid of the bullet so that he wouldn’t ever be able to use the gun.

I know nothing about guns either, but from an episode of The Blacklist I watched recently, it just goes click if there's nothing in the chamber. So I think the "removing the source of temptation" explanation makes more sense than the Russian roulette one.

OK. I accept that re the gun.

My only criticism of the episode was that the serial killer felt crammed in so he could give a shitty rant that our heroes looked disgusted at.

This rushed/pushed out far too much of the Bleinham Vale resolution.

The best series finale was the one where Bright rallied Traffic to rescue them from the bent cops - it felt like the biker intervention could have been done a little better. Then Morse putting together the Big Pete thing afterwards.

I did like the irony of Thursday doing a double cover up on Bleinham Vale and not even knowing it - suppressing the investigation to protect his family AND being the actual killer of Big Pete in the end.

Thursday didn't realise who Tomahawk was, did he?

No, and Morse didn't tell him

I didn't really see why Thursday couldn't have told the truth (more or less). A biker was attacking my son, he had a knife, we struggled, he died. Serving copper v career crook, it wouldn't have been a prob, surely? I suppose to shelter Sam, because of the sulphate?

In the very last Morse book, The Remorseful Day, there was something at the very end where Morse or Strange had concealed some letters sent to the woman who had been murdered, implying there had been a bit of a fling! The book and the TV programme had this reversed, in one Morse had written the letters and in the book Strange had written the letters. I need to find my book, pdq!

And Morse a real Scouser, that was such a surprise though I'm old enough to recall John Thaw in The Sweeny, very un-Morse like. John Thaw could do an amazing array of accents, so sad when he died.

Because when Colin Dexter created Morse there was no back story, Joan Thursday etc. didn't exist, there was little indication of any out of work relationship between Morse and Strange. Watching Endeavour has created all kinds of impossible questions even though they did refer to things from Morse's future life, eg Susan .

The rogue policeman told Thursday what had happened to Big Pete, he'd been adopted and his name changed, just before he got his comeuppance from the bikers. Did anyone tell the ex policeman who'd returned from the US and had been a friend of Big Pete when they lived in Blenheim Vale? So many questions unanswered!