SusanSunflower

They really are doing a good job of showing how the underground crime syndicates gradually poison a town, from a corrupt boys' school professor to shoot-out at a local dive. That really was a massacre. Does this mean either that there's a third "mob" attempting to muscle in or a turn-coat upstart wannabe from one of the two known gangs? Morse said something about Fancy dying for such a small score (the packet of heroin destined to the teacher) but I wonder if there wasn't more ... and if we're seeing the usual booze and tax/duty free liquor underground mobs coming up against the more hardcore drug distributors in rapid succession. Nero was your known, longstanding local crime thug (who could be tolerated to a limited degree -- within the law) being supplanted by younger, fancier and bolder (and more violent) competitors who are a genuine menace to society on a different level. Yes, it would have been satisfying to see those savage school boys confronted by none-to-happy parents who might have waved off their violence and a bit of hashish, but were horrified at the prospect of narcotics use. The nurse / matron looked very familiar. IMDB appears to be down. I'll try again later.

It was more pronounced in the books I think ... which I attributed to middle-aged male and female fantasies about the availability of casual sex to the well-over 40 crowd with a dose of James Bond, single man about town being catnip for women of a certain age. Rather like the "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" male protagonist (Mikael, investigative journalist) who is inexplicably attractive to all sorts of women of various ages and wealth leading to some prolonged soft-porn depictions of his sexual encounters. Again a gentleman and great in bed. We can all dream, she said affirmatively. Still, I only read the one Dragon Tattoo (which had a neat little mystery at its core) and laughed out loud more than once at the unlikelihood of Mikael's Scandinavian prowess and Lislbeths physical strength and cunning and the overall taste of "international best seller" readers. (Lisbeth's vein of the story was also highly-unlikely BDSM / kiddy torture not-so-soft porn, not that there's anything wrong with that.) eta: As I recall Mikael Blomqvist is not a cad, although his semi-domestic partner might object some to sharing him.

no, occurred to me too .... girl talk, y'know,

I thought she was inviting him up for some pity sex ... but he was having none of that and didn't trust her not to "change her mind" ... it's not like she (and her friends) aren't into casual sex ... she acted as if enough water had passed under the bridge ... not for Morse (wise imho)

So, what is it with Morse that beautiful women aren't really interested in him "like that" and chose to break off with him without a good-bye (at least the French photographer) leaving him wiht a picture of himself .... as she goes gallivanting off to Vietnam and adventure / career in war photography. I can understand that a "policeman" is not the most exciting profession (like medicine, there a lot that can't be talked about and even uncensored most of what might be worth talking about is depressing as hell) ... particularly a policeman whose immediate goals are saving up for a flat and riding out the conversion / merger of Cowley into Thames Valley or whatever. ... Morse is pretty enough, well mannered and apparently more than adequate in the bedroom (laughs are a good sign), but its as if ALL the women he meets aren't ready to settle down and assume he's not interested as well (and I've seen little to indicate that "getting married" is as yet a looming "milestone" ... Still I wonder if it has ever occured to him that he might possibly consider something more ambitious than being Detective ... not that there's anything wrong with that, more just a concern of having settled on a life course a bit early. Early days, Thursday and his wife and cozy and affectionate home likely seemed perfection .... sadly things change. (oh, Thaw died barely more than a year after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer for which he received chemo with initially fabulous results (contracts were signed) but it returned about 12-13 month later and he died -- I don't know how far he pursued surgical treament, if at all, very life-altering, likely career ending. Years of heavy drinking -- which he had quit -- and smoking likely contributed -- from memory of wikilpedia ) eta: Joan suggested Morse come up for some post-dump "chat" .... Is Morse perceived at "that kind of oh-so-sensitive guy" that he's up for platonic commiseration ... pound the pillow and weep about being misunderstood?

yes, happy and giddy Morse managed to bring me joy and break my heart all at once ... I don't think I believed he was capable of being that infectiously happy. Lovely golden memories to be sure.

I considered my family long lived as a child ... my grandparents and parents proved that to have been more a matter of the pre-smoking generations ...

I always suspected that Morse's worst drinking days were in the decade before the TV series (although his controlled-drinking was wobbly in the early years), He had made the decision, more or less, not to go down the toilet, being forced to resign. Lewis might tolerate a pint (rarely two) and so kept his work-hour drinking from getting out of hand (I suspect he often had previous "lost afternoons" after a first pint. Similarly, his dating appeared more dutiful than eagerly sociable -- designed to avoid evenings at home tediously not-drinking-alone and/or to-excess. Coping mechanisms. [I disliked the Morse in the books so only read a couple -- rather unsuitable "god's gift" for modern audiences -- while I certainly understood by women of a certain age were drawn to Thaw's Morse -- standing up well to the competition with no story of my divorce to tell. John Thaw died at age 60, after 15 years of the series, making him and Morse rather 45-ish for reference. However, it probably should be mentioned that "older generations" had different life-expectancy, older life/retirement/quality of life expectations -- not uncommon for people to die before or just after retirement, pensions barely touched. Sea change in attitudes and expectations with the boomers who followed.

One of the things that keeps startling me this season (5) is how time/date stamped each episode is .... currently at episode 3, Passenger, we're clearly at 1968 shortly after RFK's assassination Looking into something else (more Morse related) I discovered that "Last Bus to Woodstock", the first book, was written in 1972 (thought was not the first Morse/Thaw Episode (which was "Dead of Jericho produced 1987). My impression of Morse was that in the course of the early episodes (which may not correspond to the books) he was "call out" for his drinking and general funk and so had to "keep up appearances" and some of his (was I projecting?) concern about Lewis (would he offer unflattering appraisals of Morse's character) ... the trials of a middle-aged fairly well controlled alcoholic detective working out his days in hope of dying "in the saddle" rather than in a care home. Regardless, from the current episode I'd guessimate that Endeavor has about 15-20 years to become (metamorphasize into) Morse ... who currently seems to me more than 15 years older than Endeavor ...(not talking about body changes of still "skinny" Endeavor to middle-aged "thick" Morse) anyone else? thoughts? TPTB have suggested that a lot of changes to Endeavor's constellation of work/personal relations undergo upheaval by season's end.

Thought it referred to Morse's fear of heights (which apparently got worse as he got older and became a veteran of several death-defying roof-top adventures) ... referring to Joan's derriere, however obliquely, seemed rather out of character for Morse.

I suspect Joan would like for Morse to be happily hooking up with someone else and her matchmaking was in this way self-interested, in service of her comfort and peace of mind. Apples and oranges: Joan is happy with a party and a bunch of friends .... Morse may be most happy solitary with a drink, a crossword (not too easy) and opera on the phonograph. I'm not sure "being happy" is something it would occur to Morse to aspire to.

Joan has no desire to become her mother any time soon, so while Morse may appear an "excellent prospect" to us, I suspect he looks a lot like a ball&chain to her .... mooning about after she declined his proposal offered in her "hour of need", perhaps not a particularly happy memory for Joan.

I assumed she was .... she was French and French-accented and something-pink (maybe her cigarette?). We know for certain now that Joan has an extensive circle of beautiful-young-people friends (in contrast to Morse's evenings of drinking and crosswords). I'm fine with Morse and Joan being the subject of eachother's "misty watercolored memories of the way things were" in 20 years .... but I'm ready for for Joan to step back and/or become better defined as to her ambitions, beyond a rooftop view that extends "beyond Oxford" ... without some ambition, she still seems to be most likely simply intent on having a good time (wild oats) )before most likely settling down like ma and dad, at least as far as I can tell .... "How can I miss you if you won't go away?"

yes, talk of accents reminds me of Lewis' "low class" Geordie accent** (whcih I never recognized or understood -- except that Eric Burdon of the Animal has one too). The Beatles were, irrc, markedly Liverpudlian and of course the more general monoied "posh' private school accents ... I'd guess that Fred and his wife gradually lost their accents, perhaps even consciously to avoid their kids being saddled. So much was made also of Michael Caine's Cockney ... such as scandal, such a renegade .... mostly mysterious to me as an American, though things like "West Side Story" and even "South Pacific" testified to some of our peculiarities. Here at home, I remember distinct New York accents in my childhood (in Los Angeles), and quite a number very marked, Jewish and with Yiddish for garnish (likely derived from German/Russian) voices among the elderly, particularly down along the Venice Boardwalk. I think I've only heard the lower-class Boston accent in movies, think it may have evolved from Irish. Most of the Iranian and other middle easterner folks I've met have tended to have French accents to some degree. I recall my mom saying that the universal TV voice (Californian, pretty much accent-less, Los Angeles being broadcasting central ) had wiped out many American regional voices ... Texan and Southern and even the Scandinavian inflections of the Great Lake regions. Blame national broadcasting. True in England too? Where a generation or two of bland announcers subconsciously altered the nation ** oddly the accent -- which broadly references folks from Northern England -- is not mentioned in Whatley's wiki. ... I was stunned by all the "it's so sexy" remarks!! And because I just remembered, Apparently Evans' parents are Irish although he was born and iirc raised in Liverpool.

Yes, that occurred to me at the moment and seemed to gruesome to consider --- did she use power tools? More than one story has been undone by the suggestion that the murderer performed feats of superhuman strength. I recall a Lewis where a man (a large middle-aged college lecturer) was poisoned (I think) and then strung up in the window to look like suicide ... by one person.... because dead bodies in mysteries don't flop around heavily and aren't hopelessly heavy ... Another "favorite" (also Lewis I think) that fell apart for me when an elderly man "tidied" up a accidental murder scene (she fell and struck her head on the pointy part of the stairs, doncha know) by wrapping this healthy young woman in a Persian carpet, putting the bundle in the boot of his car and tossing into the woods. Dragging the body to the car would have likely killed him (if no one noticed), dragging the rolled and tied carpet alone would have been a chore ... would there have been room for bundle in the boot? --- he was nabbed when his "missing" carpet was matched up .... still, the idea of dragging the two (carpet and body) solo to the car and the "tossing" this bundle down an embankment seemed "unlikely" (I also can't imagine anyone throwing out a good persian carpet (I'm not sure it was blood stained) so casually.... p.s. and, oh yes, it was an accident .....

thank you JJJ -- I didn't and that whole birth-order business is probably significant ..... hard to take over for a (now dead) beloved older sibling and try to play the benevolent "older sibling" to someone you never thought much about. Fred seems rather intentionally blind to his younger brother's flashy car, wife, daughter ... Fauntleroy: That car seems to embody some sort of garish flamboyance .... like "patent leather shoes" that (unlike leather) could not be fixed if marred/spoiled (someone stepping on them) -- like real suede which was amazingly extravagant because it was so easy to "ruin" in normal use -- rain, mud, spill Didn't recognize Evans as the archaeologist ... but he is "filling out" nicely these days... Charlie as "trouble in River City" may have been a bit heavy handed, iykwim jjj just posted -- it will be interesting how they deal with this "confusion" as to whether the attacks on Nash's properties are financially motivated rather than racial animus related. The suggestion orginally was Nash engaging in arson on his own properties, (for insurance and resale opportunities) but that shifted to some degree to "uncertain" with a possible hidden gang rivalry.

yes, and a terrible double-bind for gay boys sexually abused by gay men ... the toxic attitude being that the boys must have "wanted it" even more than the "usual" child-as-seducer scepticism (whereby a child's "secondary rewards" for participating and continuing a relationship was used to -- both -- mitigate the crime and blame the victim. I watched the final installment and it was very well done. There's been so much in the news that's been triggering (whether you like or approve or disapprove) ... it hit important points without ignoring how sordid the reality was ... it's one thing to talk about abuse endured, it's another to talk about there lasting physical / sexual damage inflicted or PTSD looming in shadows even when it's apparently dormant. (I discovered that my "triggering" can be demonstrated I start to "recognize" random faces/people ... it means that some undercurrent of anxiety wrt stalking has been triggered, even if I have no clue what triggered it, like a news report or a movie -- kind of like how an old broken leg hurts when when the barometric pressure falls)

interesting article from 2018 on current organized crime situation http://theconversation.com/whats-really-going-on-in-londons-organised-crime-scene-according-to-a-criminologist-88659 apparently there's suggestion of some transatlantic bloods/crips migration and the usual opportunistic excessive blaming of "furriners"

"the poisoned straw" which I accepted in the story on viewing, now rather seriously bugs me .... so it goes.

It's funny to me because as an American, I think of Scotland Yard and the Met as the prototype professional and scientific police force on which much of American policing was based. (prior to that independent contractor forces (like the Pinkertons) were contracted to provide security by those who could afford such things (big businesses, mine and factory owners, etc. which led to a definite anti-"proletarian" bias particularly wrt labor organizing. ... I don't think immigrants were much "trusted" either. Anyway, I was confused by repeated references in Morse (and Endeavor) to the crookedness of the Met. In elementary school (some 50 years ago) I was told that where really wasn't much, if any corruption, in the USA .... I never really believed we could be somehow immune and wondered often as to how some "illegal" operations seem perennial despite what we were assured was maximal efforts (kiddy porn on the massively surveilled web or our current opioid crisis which requires a steady and resilient supply chain to meet the needs of addicts or a series of newly-manufactured gun shipments from the railyards of Chicago)

And now with Cartouche, season 5 episode 2, I think we have the framework of the rest of the season snugged in place having to do with Eddie Nash (local Kray type underworld jack-of-all-trades) and the protection paying Cafe owner (and his daughter), with Thursday's living-above-his-means flashy brother (and hot-to-trot vs. "slutty" daughter) I again spent some time on Wikipedia trying to find out just how "big" and influential the English underworld was -- aside from the Kray twins and their rivals The Richardson Gang (they had a gang war which is what seems to be being foreshadowed in Cartouche. The crime syndicates mostly seem to have trafficked drugs (pills uppers/downers and cannabis). The Krays had celebrity friends like Deanna Dors and Frank Sinatra, but seem to have been London centered. The Krays were eventually brought down on murder conviction. The Richardson Gang was notorious for both torture and mock-trials. There have (afaict) been serial scandals involving the Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) most recently this century https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/exclusive-scotland-yard-s-rotten-core-police-failed-to-address-endemic-corruption-9050224.html Although Operation Countryman in the late 1970s involved police complicity in actual crimes rather than the prior bribery and general "leakiness" by officers to the benefit of criminals https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/06/scotland-yard-in-corruption-scandal-private-investigators-target/ FWiW, I still can't confirm or link "organized crime" to Oxford or to George Gently's part of the world or the mean streets of the industrial north (Get Carter) ... it's so juicy red meat of story potential, I can't tell how pervasive they were ...like the mafia in New Jersey ... versus "the mafia" in the rest of the United States where they were in competition with other locally based networks. It is often said that there is "no organized crime" in the U.S..... and then the Russian mafia does something or other ... or various black and Hispanic gangs make excited headlines .... their significance and "danger" apparently can shrink or expand to fit the need. The English underworld was credited with keeping the Italian mafia out of the UK (by and large). I read last week that the Sicilian mafia has never been stronger and is expanding (geographically) and has expanded into migrant smuggling and trafficking. (Organized crime is not often discussed in the United States as a "real thing" ... there are drug gangs and distribution networks, but if they have connections with politics and apparently legitimate businesses, crickets. A few years ago, Walmart was cited because they had subcontracted their housekeeping/maintenance to a company that was found to operate using crews of near-slave illegal immigrants in quite northern locations ... Meat packing is perennially being raided by ICE but seem dependent (atrocious working condition and hard labor) on successive waves of immigrants to fill extremely undesirable jobs.

Season 6 on Amazon on 07/29/2016 for those eager to rewatch or record.

Season 3 starts Sunday .... http://www.pbs.org/program/tunnel/ (6 episodes) --- I'm excited.

yes, agree. Endeavor is a very solid program/series with well-formed intelligent character and very well written and intelligent plots .... in addition to excellent acting, production values and the rest. It stands with Morse (the original series) and most of the Christie adaptations (some of which were imho pretty shallow and "off character") AND is all the more remarkable because the stories (unlike Morse and Christie) are original and intricate without getting too clever/precious. Each season has been a new adventure for me, so I'm eager to see what they do "this time out" ... Talented bunch!

I think Morse is conservative enough to have serious "girls gone wild" anxiety that includes things Joan might have done wittingly or "innocently" enough (as I said before) ... like accepting money left on the bureau ... I suspect her friends have done so and yet -- certainly -- do not consider themselves prostitutes, certainly not "common prostitutes" In my 20's in Los Angeles around 1970, I was asked by clique of very pretty co-workers if I would be interested in "dating" the visiting friends of one woman's boyfriend (he was Saudi or Egyptian) ... these friends visited often and had a ton of money, went to the best restaurants and clubs and, of course, no sex would be expected (yeah right). They wanted "nice girls" (well spoken, good manners) and someone they could talk to (not airheads or models; romance was possible). While I was vaguely flattered, I quickly declined it was one of those "just no" things. (I was also approached twice by a friend of my mother's about marrying someone to get them a green card -- again, I just said no) "I'm not that kind of girl" For many men, "Women's liberation" was unfathomable, particularly if they believed fundamentally that women needed to be protected (by men) When women went off and did "wild things" -- particularly with bad outcomes -- there was a lot of frustration,... hasn't changed much 50 years later, I guess, ... see College Rape Culture/Scandal.