Dessert

Now I’m mad. I’ve seen a clip of the scene between Morse and Joan on the roof. PBS edited it! What is wrong with them? What else did they leave out?

Accents are strange things. A few years ago I heard a voicemail from a childhood friend who I hadn’t spoken to since we were children in a small Texas town. He sounded like Walter Brennan. It was shocking. Friends I know who left have faint accents. The people you spend time with as an adult can influence your accent, as can personal flamboyance. Fred has been in Oxford for years. Charlie probably hangs out with a cultural subset of people who share similar slang and way of speaking. I thought the differences in the brothers’ accents to be fairly realistic.

I’m certain it wasn’t there. There were other mentions of Laurel and Hardy, old movie theaters, etc., but not that one. on a shallow note, I think Shaun Evans is even more handsome than usual this season. Last season he was thin to the point of being gaunt, but he’s looking healthier now and very dashing.

I was looking for it and didn’t see it either. Apparently they always delete some scenes to make it shorter or PBS. So irritating.

I don’t know what to think about the mystery in this episode, but the personal parts were fun. World’s collided to hilarious effect - Fred’s brother and Bright, Morse’s sex life and the Thursdays - sqirming all around, with poor Strange as a nonplussed bystander. Morse’s conversation with Joan about Carol was priceless. He seemed to be hoping a trap door would suddenly swallow him up.

I know this is beginning to get a little off topic, but it does relate to His interaction with the prostitute in this episode. Morse hasn’t treated any of the women he’s slept with like they were sluts (yet.) I’m thinking of Monica and the old friend from his Oxford days. He seemed to think sex was certainly an expected part of the relationships. Those romances failed for other reasons. He has also treated Truelove with respect (Frankly, the squad’s acceptance of her is probably unrealistic.) When he tried to warn Joan off Mr. Bingo, he just said “you can do better” or words to that effect - not “Be a good girl”. I think he is old-fashioned and romanticizes a kind of family life he never had and that the Thursday’s used to embody. He is also very aware of class, being from a working class background himself. He was rejected by his fiance’s family partly for that reason and never really fit in with some of the Oxford crowd. Joan is a working class townie and seemed to be trying to marry up with a Ray from Leamington. He knows how girls like her can be treated. The last thing I will say is that seeing so much criminal behavior probably colors his thinking about the perils women face. His world is full of crime, abuse, and bad behavior. To bring it back to Eve Thorn, he did think she had hammered a spike into a man’s ear and gouged out another’s eyes. That would tend to make one a little disrespectful.

I don’t get the impression that Morse judged Joan or considered her a fallen woman. I think he has worried about her, and with good reason. Some of the men she has become involved with have been dangerous; one was a criminal and, as it turned out, a murderer, and one was a married man who got her pregnant, didn’t leave his wife when Joan got pregnant, and beat her. Scum both. I think Morse knew how dangerous the wrong man could be to a woman - particularly at that time. I’m sure he’s paternalistic, too.

Morse is a snob about some things, but I don’t think he’s particularly judgmental towards unmarried women who have sex or towards gay people. He tends to be harder on people who are prudish about such things. When he gets angry with a woman over sex, it’s usually because she is trying to use sex to manipulate him or hurt someone else. The reporter who stole his notebook and the married, rich woman who tried to seduce him while he was on the job (otherwise known as sexual harassment) and had forced her daughter to get an abortion are examples. With Eve Thorn, I think he lashed out partly from sexual frustration, but I also think he was playing her. It was an interrogation and he suspected her of being the killer (I still think she was complicit.) He knew how dangerous she was and was trying to get a rise out of her - hoping she would slip up. I love Thursday, but Morse is absolutely right about his violence and abuse of suspects & witnesses.

I agree. Each episode deals with a contained mystery of the week, but the series is trying to solve the mystery of Morse - what about young Endeavour’s life and character destined him to become old man Morse. Some people think it’s soapy when the show focuses on his personal life, but I disagree. I think it’s illuminating.

Loved tonight’s episode and I’m so glad Endeavour is back. Shaun Evans was brilliant. Eve Thorne nailed it when she told him, “You've got needs coming off you like a junkie gouging for a spike. But you won't do anything about it.” In his scenes with her or with other women (watching the stripper & later interviewing the wrong Delilah), he seemed ready to climb the walls with desire - almost breaking into a cold sweat. The sexual tension was off the charts. Poor Morse! I love Fred, too. I think Joan was mad at him because he was right. She screwed up horribly and knows it, so she’s lashing out. She is also right that Fred was overprotective. She needed the freedom to make her own mistakes. They were harsh with each during their confrontation last season. It’s hard to come back from that. They’re very much alike.

I love Craig so much! Before he and Deran trashed the wrong apartment, I thought that he had, impressively, found someone who is even dumber than he is. Of course, I speak of the guy who thought Craig gave him $600 and then survived a two story fall. In my dream scenario, they team up together, miraculously surviving idiotic escapade after idiotic escapade.

I have read the books and, in Some Hope, Patrick remembers telling his father to stop the sexual abuse and he does. Patrick was actually even younger when the abuse started. He was about eight years old when it stopped. He remembers his father as being horrified. Apparently, he had convinced himself that Patrick hadn’t understood what was happening. I do think that the wording in the series was more metaphorical.

I don’t think Nick is even indifferent about Eden. He’s terrified and probably not even terrified enough. She’s been forced on him. He didn’t have sex with her at first and she was ready to report him as a gender traitor - a sin for which he could be tortured or mudered. She’s a child who’s been brainwashed, but is absolutely a spy in his house whether she knows it or not. My money is on Waterford seducing her - with disasterous consequences.

It’s hilarious the way he manages to defy the logic of being “too dumb to live”. I like to think he’ll be the last man standing, oblivious as world crash around him.

The series is not trying to make an excuse, in any way, for the parents abominable behavior. I’ve read the books, and Patrick, for all of his faults, does not continue this abuse with his own family.