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/

I didn't know Shaun Evans was a Scouser. Gave me a surprise.

Not the best screen grab ever, but who’s this in the quick reel of characters at the end? He came directly after Trewlove.

isn't that George who was killed in crossfire? Think he was shot dead in a snooker hall.

It's a lovely gentle accent not the stereotype Scouser. I could listen to it for hours.

I think that was George Fancy.
They did sort of address why Thursday wasn’t mentioned in Morse, when Fred told Bright Morse would never divulge any confidences/secrets & would take them to his grave, I’m still slightly confused about the gun was it symbolic of the end of Endeavour the emergence of Morse, I need a rewatch I think.

Loved all of it except - the previous programme had overrun and the recording cut off before the last two minutes of the last Endeavour....

Did you not see Shaun in Teachers? He played a gay newly qualified teacher, complete with his Scouse accent and curly hair.

There was a lot missing from that episode, it did feel a bit rushed over some storylines

@MissHavishamsMouldyOldCake @dontcallmelen of course! I’m doing a rewatch and haven’t got there yet, I’d forgotten all about Fancy.

Thanks!

Roger Allan played an Olivier Award-winning Falstaff ( to whom these words are spoken in Henry IV pt 2) at The Globe a few years back.

Allam

Seemed a bit daft to me to have Morse pining after Joan tbh.

He'd lost Susan to someone else-he wouldn't let it happen again I wouldn't have thought!

It's his daughter who died as a child in India, so presume it is her grave somewhere hot...

I think it's very in character that Endeavour and Morse were both bloody useless with women.

It's all pining and admiration and fixation on glamorous idealisations of women. Susan, the posh girl from university, the multiple opera singers Endeavour has crushed on, Joan, the one who got away. He's literally done nothing to try to win Joan except once, sort of half tell her that she meant a lot to him. Even when she was flirting with him he was a cold fish. And he shagged her cousin.

I think it's very in keeping with his later character! Especially winding up having no sort of relationship at all with the Stranges, and never mentioning Thursday.

Reminds me of my brother, actually.

It was Morse, hiding a letter from Strange, to spare Stranges blushes for having an affair with her (think it was after his wife died, from a long illness)

I know. I saw him perform it!

I assume Anton Lesser was sat at his wife's grave. He has retired, probably spent his career assuming his retirement would be spent with his wife but when the time finally came she was already gone so he was contemplating his future without his daughter, without his wife, without his career.

The screen grab is George Fancy who was killed in the pool hall.

Oh no! So you missed the bit where Joan jumped out of the car, said she had made a terrible mistake and had only ever loved Morse?*

What a shame. It was brilliant.

*This may actually not be true.

😂

I think one of the things I became more aware of when I rewatched earlier Endeavour's prior to this last season, that a lot of the filming and dialogue are sort of "in jokes" or theatrical references. (I think Shaun Evans is very keen to say he is more than a soap star, even if it is a superio soap.) Apparently in theatrical tradition if a gun is seen to be loaded it must be fired. So one explanation could be that he did try Russian Routlette and he just go a click, which we wouldn't hear as they moved the camera back to the entrance to the church yard. And he then fired the gun in frustration.

I thought the child who was presumed to be dead, but then we found had been "given" to a family who wanted a kid was "little Pete". That was why it was meant to be so poignant. (Trying to tie that in to Lewis in Newcastle was just plain silly, and another example of how wanting to make references to the previous tv series, did this series no good).

I didnt realise that Bright was in India. My eyesight isn't that good enough to read the headstone! (Like those irritating plots that use text messages on phones that I cant believe anyone can read!)

And yes Sam instantly stopping being a drug addict and signing up to the police was just too stupid.

One thing that bothered me, but not relevant to the plot, but why was Joan left to get herself into her wedding dress and veil? I know Thursday had many hidden talents but he appeared to be the only one left in the house with her! (I hadn't realise the actress playing Joan was pregnant, I just thought she's not as slim as she was!)

I dont think it matters who the man was at the end, his only function was for Endeavour to be able to say is that it then. Although having watched the fan documentary I did wonder if it was the conductor of the specially formed orchestra who provided music for each episode. He took over when Barrington Pheloung, who wrote the theme music for Morse, Lewis and Endeavour, died.

And just to repeat what I said last night, I reckon there will be a big push for someone to create another series, ie Morse, the Carlton Newtown Years.

(Sorry cant remember where Morse in the original series had been prior to be an inspector in Oxford.)

I read that Sara Vickers (Joan) filmed these episodes just six weeks after having her 2nd baby - hence the slightly fuller figure. I was also surprised by the real life Scottish accent!

Funny that Carshall is fictional, but Kidlington is real.

oops is it Carshall? Last night I typed Carshalton and today Carlton. I'm hopeless with names, not just places but people.

Just to add I think the Den of Geek article that someone recommended last night is good.

I've enjoyed Endeavour over the years apart from Shaun Evan's.
There were also too many "nods" to various things that went over my head.
However it introduced me to Roger Allam and Anton Lesser.

I loved every overwrought theatrical inconsistent minute of it.

Endeavour's denial of Thursday using the words of Hal as he becomes Henry V and independent of Falstaff were devastating as they are in Shakespeare.

Anton Lesser is one of the best Shakespearean actors I have ever seen (try to see him as a heart breaking Feste in a 1988 production of Twelfth Night if you can - he is so good it unbalances the entire show) so loved the totally self-referential use of the Tempest.

By the time we were on Fauré's Requiem I was unashamably sobbing into my sofa, although I was hoping for Mozart to finish the whole thing off (would have used the Lacrimosa I think although I know the Fauré is important to the whole Morse universe (the Morsiverse?) )

I hope Shaun Evans gets another big series soon. He's too good not to be on our screens regularly.