Friday, March 8, 2019

Endeavour Series 6 - Degüello - Episode Review



My review of last week's episode: Confection.

"Do you think a golem's wandering around Oxford?"

Alas, there's not. There's usually a wild card episode in Endeavour seasons, but Degüello doesn't quite live up to the promise of that dialogue! That said, it's one of the most satisfying conclusions the show has produced in a while, largely because it feels like, well, a conclusion.


I've been talking about how much this season has been drifting towards becoming Inspector Morse. This episode, however, takes an abrupt about-turn to embrace its optimistic Endeavour spirit. I really ought to mind. But somehow, I can't. The show has earned it. These characters have earned it. Should the season have a happy ending? Probably not. Did I enjoy it immensely? Absolutely.

Chief librarian Osbert Page is bumped off while searching the library for stragglers before closing. At his flat, Morse finds a map with the words anemoi (Greek for "the wind gods") and "H.B." written on it. Clues abound at the crime scene itself, from muddy footprints, to a scrap of Hebrew writing, to a book recently checked out from the obscene collection. The book was checked out by Dr. Jasper Nicholson, who seems to be the target of an intimidation campaign, receiving more written Hebrew phrases, a clay figure, and a name scrawled on his blackboard: Dora. Taken together, these clues evoke the Hebrew legend of the Golem, a clay giant animated by written words placed into his head (and a major plot point in a Terry Pratchett novel - this is the episode where they should have referenced Sam Vimes).

The investigation takes Morse to the door of Deborah Teagarden, a German Jewish woman whose uncle and his family were killed in the Holocaust. Somehow involved, also, is Professor Burrows, a cheerful old man who is just a little Too Helpful To Be Innocent. He's good, but Aidan McArdle is great as Nicholson - a sadly small role for such a great actor (watch him in Poirot sometime).

All of this, really, is the episode's B-plot, to give it something to do while the season's big story-line draws to a close.
 

The actual first body in this episode is a heroin overdose found in house full of druggie squatters. Even without Eddie Nero, Oxford's drug crime has not diminished. It's another link to this season's general theme - the search for George Fancy's killer. Strange has been tracking the gun that killed Fancy, which isn't on the records, so Bright and Strange initially assume it came from outside Oxford. They should have been looking closer to home, because once again, we're dealing with corruption in high places. Politician Clive Burkitt seems just a little too perfect.

He's also deeply involved in the episode's big historical moment, which was inspired by a real-life story: a collapsed high rise, Ronan Point, in London in 1968. The catastrophic scene in Endeavour is unquestionably this episode's technical high point. It's terrifying and claustrophobic, though the show's budget doesn't feel at all like a constraint in wide shots.

Naturally, the collapse wasn't an accident. Corruption is afoot! The disaster served to expose a scandal, but it also exposes a body buried in the concrete a year earlier (it turns out he worked for the council, was poking around into their shady use of adulterated concrete, and was the "H.B." mentioned in the librarian's notes).


Morse and Strange are on the case, but things are complicated by the fact that Thursday is on the enemy's side. It turns out he really was taking a bribe for real. The conflict with Win and a lifetime of police service with little to show for it finally got to the old man.

The question then, is how to redeem him. Because at the end of the day, this isn't an episode of Inspector Morse, it's Endeavour. It's an episode that is devoted to restoring these characters to their former glory.

For instance, this is Anton Lesser's finest hour - at least, finest since the Incident With the Tiger. The Masons clearly heard about that Incident, because they send two heavies to kill the little head of Traffic Division in the street instead of slipping something in his tea on the sly. Bright does many awesome things. He runs a disaster scene, gets saved by his kid fans like Indiana Jones in Cairo, sassily defies corruption in high places, rallies the resistance, and is a supportive loving husband to boot. The scene in which he takes charge at the collapsed high rise is particularly good. After a furious bout of competent orders, once he's got everyone else working, he pauses a moment to look horrified and overwhelmed, all on his own, and Anton Lesser, you win this episode.

Strange, Max, Dorothea, and Joan are fine, though they're mostly supporting players. Thursday comes to the fore again, as he decides - after a confrontation with both Win and Endeavour - to give the pay-off money back. But it doesn't work that easily. He can't just turn his back on the seedy underworld he'd been sucked into.

"It's you or Morse," Box tells him. Damn, I thought. This feels like real stakes again.

And it does! This recalls the heady days of season 2. It's like Blenheim Vale, which Thursday references, but if Blenheim Vale had ended happily or ended at all (as you'll remember, it was really left unresolved). Yes, this episode doesn't quite have the courage of its convictions. Fred Thursday gets off far too lightly for all of the corrupt things he's done this season. He beat up an unarmed suspect! He took a bribe! He has gall, acting the white knight in his confrontation with Birkitt, McGyffin, and Box. When he tells them they're villains, he should include himself in the pile, contrasting with his plaintive line, "Morse is an idealist."

But the season has been such a dark one that I'm not as bothered as usual about deferred consequences. Everyone has been through the ringer. It's nice to have a rare victory.

Series 6 Overview:
Looking back over the season, I'm struck more by its stability than its risk-taking. Most of the episodes are meat-and-potatoes Inspector Morse-style stories. But that doesn't mean it's not interesting. Just the opposite, the settled focus has given it a lot of strength. It's more dangerous this time - Morse is on the outside, and it suits him. Yes, Fred hasn't been himself, but he hasn't really been himself since season 2. There was a clear mandate for the season: find Fancy's killer and push Morse farther towards cynicism and isolation. Both goals were accomplished. Lewis dropped the Morse-and-Joan story-line, or at least pushed it to the side, which was a great decision - that was always a dead end.

Speaking of which, the show now feels like it could absolutely be head-lined by Shaun Evans on his own (it has felt that way for a while, but his isolation within the department demonstrated that concretely). He's gone from strength to strength. Fred Thursday's quivering nerdy little bagman has grown into a hardened and resentful but confident detective. He's a zip-thin live wire of a man. He doesn't feel like he should be Fred's second-in-command anymore. He has gravitas. If all the other characters left and he got saddled with a Geordie sidekick, it would work.

My review of next season's premiere: Oracle 

My reviews of Endeavour:
Series 1
Series 2
Series 3
Series 4
Series 5
Series 6

Notes:
  • Morsestache update: I've experienced a strange reversal over the course of the season. I have won the victory over myself and come to love the Morsestache. Now, I look at previous reviews and see pictures of bare-lipped Shaun Evans and think, who is this strangely naked young waif?
  • "I'm more of a Holly Martins man, myself." - Thursday, apparently a fan of the cowboy genre, except Holly Martins is a fictional Western writer who's the protagonist of the noir film, The Third Man, so this is all very meta.
  • Morse has moved into the house where he will live for the rest of his life. That bittersweet note feels out of place in such a warm, familial ending, but it's a positive sign - the show knows where it's going now. It feels sure-footed and confident again. Bring on Series 7.


 Longish

34 comments:

  1. Hi, Hannah. Agree with everything you say – and have said, since I chanced on your reviews only after rewatching ‘Ride’/Gatsby (and then played double catch-up, re-visiting them all again & reading your comments before this latest series).
    It’s the warmth that counts, no? You, I, everyone cares because – in spite of the cliches and occasional absurdities – there’s a bedrock of decency.
    I rewound Thursday’s bribe twice (he can’t? he isn’t!), though I do think you are perhaps a little hard on him. He’s always walked close to the ‘line’. I feel some of it can be explained, if not excused, by his stress, his weariness – & the accidie that chokes even the best of us as we get old. He had to really taste the bottom, the sick shard of self-loathing, to see and reach again for the light. And Roger Allam made me believe that.
    In fact, I was frantic watching it live on ITV Sunday. And as the credits crawled my still-panic only faded when they announced the seventh series. Some checking and counting tells me that was episode 27. 'Inspector Morse' ran for 33, while 'Lewis' was the same. A further six, and 'Endeavour' will hit that magic number. And stop, probably…
    Could there, can there be a 100th? Maybe 'Sergeant Morse'? Or, even (more meta-nods) 'Acting-Inspector Morse'??
    What do you think?

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    1. Taking the bribe was one thing (and it did remind one of that scene of Richard Rich betraying More to Cromwell for the first time in A Man for All Seasons), but the greater significance is that the show implied Thursday was getting deep with Box and company - which seemed to contradict everything we knew about him (and the brutality toward a suspect felt like a step farther). Box was the sort of slimy young character Thursday would have beaten up back in season 1. To join the sort of sleazeballs he always despised, and take cash stolen from the honest working man, and beat up a defenseless suspect...all of those things are direct assaults on everything he's ever stood for. It is not cause for utter condemnation, but it should be cause for a great deal of humility from Fred when he finally does turn back to the light. Thursday's renewed swagger near the end of the episode should be tempered because of that. (A great redemptive sacrifice of some sort would have helped as well.)

      Anyway, as far as a hundredth episode, it's hard to imagine what Russell Lewis could be planning. I'm sure he wouldn't want to keep going beyond the episode limit of 33, but it must be tempting to find some sort of great tribute to create for episode 100. An Endeavour/Lewis crossover of some sort? Some sort of mystery that bounces between a present-day Lewis and early 70s Morse? Lewis meets Sam Thursday (played by Roger Allam) and reminisces about Morse? (All ridiculous, of course, but it's 1:30 in the morning and I'm spitballing here.)

      And of course, there's always Hathaway.

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    2. Tbh, I was really scared Thursday was going to die, which would have been the most redemptive act, Yet I’m not going to dissent. I’ll simply remind you of ‘The Triumph of Despair’. And add (tugging forelock) that I found it uncanny.

      The ‘desperate depravity’ brought me up short. But, maybe, how we fight for/to the light doesn’t exclude our ducking/diving/dipping in the dark?

      I found your spitballing charming. I so love that word though, weirdly, a half-American friend had no idea what it meant. But he’s a recent graduated scientist – ‘just the facts, ma’am’.

      Fact is – bad segue – I have to tear myself away from your blog and get on with my own work. Truth is, the more I read of yours, the more I think what’s the point…

      Turns out deguello (with the non chi-chi umlaut my keyboard skills can’t find) means decapitation, or, idiomatically – according to Wikipedia – no quarter/no surrender. I hold my hands up.

      Yet keep my eyes firmly on the canvas/fridge magnet of GF Watts’ allegory ‘Hope’. Which, interestingly, your idol GKC said should have been called ‘Despair’. In mangled French that could be ‘d’espere’…ie, hope... A prochaine, Hannah. Roberet (sic)

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    3. I really had to wrack my brains to remember what "The Triumph of Despair" was. Reading it now is a bit embarrassing - me, seven years ago! Aaagh. But in general I still hold to that. Thursday, yes, needed a great redemptive sacrifice - a martyrdom, even - to satisfyingly bring him back into the fold. It didn't HAVE to be a martyrdom (though I'm always a sucker for one - I love A Tale of Two Cities), but it needed to cost more than it did.

      I appreciate the flattery, but let it never be said that I intimidated anyone out of their own work! Especially someone as talented as to produce that great Sherlock Holmes piece. I suspect it's just the natural writer's inferiority complex speaking there - give it a bit, it'll pass! (I write this to myself as much as anyone.)

      In any case, all of this has inspired me to track down the half-finished essay I once started about Morse talking about faith with a stranger at a pub.

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    4. @Robert Wynn: Re: “Degüello”: I had wondered about the title as well, and noticed that it is part of the lyrics of the song being played on the record towards the end of the episode, along with the words, “no quarter.” I figured it related to the “Mexican Standoff” at the end of the episode. It took a second watching to catch it, though.

      Hannah, I am enjoying your reviews; I found them because I was searching for an explanation as to why Bright was suddenly surrounded by children asking for his autograph. Your review of an earlier episode reminded me that Bright had done that PSA, so he might well be a local celebrity now. It was still a bit of a deus ex machina moment, though I liked it.

      I was glad that Thursday didn’t have to die for his redemption, but really kind of wished that Box had. While I suspected that he might show up and choose to fight for the good guys, I’ve never forgiven him for his over-the-top misogynistic treatment of Trewlove and Joan. I know we are years away from “sensitivity training” and sexual harassment rules in the workplace, but considering how respectful everyone else had been with Trewlove earlier, it just seemed too extreme.

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  2. Another insight into Ronan Point may be found here: "Ronan Point: a fifty-year building safety problem" - prompted by Grenfell

    https://t.co/lSSGPH6YkI

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    1. Link doesn't appear to be working?

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    2. I can’t figure out who the actor is who looks like Mr. Furnish (maybe older). He was a sadist husband on Selfridges, and an Oxford Don on “Teagarden” episode. Sublime actor, but WHO is he? : o )

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  3. It's the little things I love. Now that the Oxford body count is approaching the per capita television record of Crabapple Cove, Maine, I wondered when Angela Lansbury was going to show up. And she did! (Or at least Bad Guy's PA with her last name;)

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    1. Yes, I noticed the Lansbury character and she has no credit in IMDB. Does anyone know this actor's name?

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  4. I think Dr. DeBryn deserves a lot of credit for bringing down the bad guys. He found all the evidence, and he informed only the City group.

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    1. Here in US editing, the last sighting of DeBryn he was tied and gagged, reassured by Endeavour he'd be ok!!!!
      I can only hope you Brits got more satisfaction than that!! As you astutely pointed out, BeBryn figured it out!!

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    2. Disgraceful editing. Viewer be warned. They cut DeBryn's scene.Also, Morse (the hero!) and Joan, somewhat intimate, at the hospital visiting the collapse victims. Also, explaining "golem" to Fred Thursday.
      Apparently, it's 'not worth taking a long time to say'. Gotta get Alan Cummings back on screen to hustle up some bread, toots sweet.
      Crap. A real screw job.

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  5. Did anyone else notice the last name of the library assistant? Check out "Marion the librarian" from The Music Man.

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    1. I thought her name was Lansbury, homaging the brutal small town death toll in Murder She Wrote. Commented on that earlier.

      My Series 6 disk just arrived, which are apparently the uncut Beeb versions. Looking forward to seeing what we didn't get to see.

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    2. The character's name was Lucy Paroo. "Marion the Librarian" was Marian Paroo. Coincidence?

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  6. I've been reading other recaps online, and have found surprisingly few mentions of Strange's summons to meet the "Grand Exalted Master" and receive his orders to get rid of Morse. Why is everyone glossing over this? Work of the Illuminati...

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    1. It's surprising the episode didn't circle back to that! Or perhaps it did in the U.K. cut and I'm forgetting. I think Strange was still working with the Cowley gang undercover, so I'm not sure it needed to be resolved.

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    2. Doesn't the guy at the standoff referring to Strange not doing what he was told count? Strange says something like he's a city man first. Worked for me.

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  7. Hi Hannah and other commentators. Looking for clarification for a US viewing
    Did we miss an explanation of what a golem is? I happened to know but I can't imagine many do. Is it ever explained how the Killer got into the Bodelian library. Last time I was there you needed a readers' card. The greatest mystery is how Ronnie box came to be injured? Was he shot and if so by whom? Can't remember how many of them had guns.
    And by the way, I believe The would-be killer of Anton Lesser were employees of the cement company, masons.

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    1. Yes, that was one of the things that was not explained in the U.S. cut. Wasn't Ronnie shot by Jago? Can't remember about the Bodleian, but perhaps someone else will chip in.

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    2. Yes, Box was shot by Jago and I think Box also took a shot at Jago at the same time. They never explained how the killer entered the Bodelian but his boot prints were found on the stairs right away.

      I was kind of expecting the reveal that George Fancy had a connection to the Masons and that was why Strange wouldn't give up on finding his killer but I liked it better that he was just motivated by justice & camaraderie. I've never watched the original Morse but I've kind of inferred from reading comments for these recaps here and other places that Strange doesn't turn out the best but I've always liked him here.

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  8. Masons that is only by association with the building trades.

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  9. Sorry. I misunderstood the reference to Masons or more precisely confuse Strange with straight.

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  10. Hi Hannah! Strangely, for a devoted fan of Endeavour, I've just stumbled on your fantastic blog. I've been reading through your reviews of some of the episodes, and enjoyed your comments and observations.
    However, can I just make a tiny, weeny correction about DS Alan Jago. Richard Riddell is NOT a Geordie. He's from Sunderland (my home city) and is classed politely as a Wearsider, or less so, as a Mackem.
    When I have a bit more time, I shall go through all of the reviews and maybe find out some snippets of useful information to complete my enjoyment of the series.
    All the best for 2020, and Series 7!
    Hazel x

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    1. Hi Hazel! Thanks for the correction - I'm always interested to find out more regional details, and I love being able to pick out accents, but as an American, I sometimes get it wrong!

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    2. Hi Hannah, I didn't realise that you were American and I hope that you can forgive my correction about Jago's accent. Wishing you a very happy new year!
      Hazel x

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    3. hi Hannah!! during this covid year of disruption somehow your blog was highlighted when i was reading reviews of Morse/Endeavour on another blog. Your comments are very extensive and well articulated. Good on ya.
      ken from marvelous melbourne

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  11. My second post to this excellent blog. Many times I read your reviews before watching the episode to see if it's worth 1.5 hours of my time (cheating, I know). Because of this, I skipped the other series 6 episodes and went straight to Deguello - I didn't want to go through the wringer. A comment: In the first scene between Mr/Mrs Bright, she acts confused - thinks he's their dead daughter, carries on about the past. In the later 2 scenes, she is lucid. I realize she's dying of cancer, but what's with the scene 1 dementia? Maybe I missed something from the earlier episodes. :) Keep up the good work!

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    1. Maybe it's brain cancer - some sort of side effect? I confess, I don't remember the exact details.

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  12. Hi Hannah

    I discovered the Endeavor series recently. Your website is amazing !!
    When an episode ends I come to read your review and comments, there is always something that I have not found out by watching the episode.

    This is one of my favorite episodes along with Neverland. That ending when Bright tells them he's back to being the boss and there's finally a smile from Endeavor I love it. Well, half smile ...

    And when he finally enters his house :-)

    I'm spanish and I just wanted to comment that Degüello in Spanish is the action of killing someone by cutting his neck
    There is also an expression that says "tocar a degüello" which is a drumbeat that warns the troops that they have to attack and without taking prisoners, everyone must be killed, even those who surrender.

    Greetings and thanks for your website !!

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    1. I'm so glad you're enjoying. I suspect "tocar a degüello" would be the reference - as things take on a "take no prisoners" intensity.

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  13. My apologies for probably not very a appropriate remark, but I find it very funny that local Masons were led by a guy, who messed up a construction project.

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