S04.E03: Lazaretto

[Driad]

I'm always glad to see the medical examiner (Dr. DeBryn?). He's a refreshing break from the overall glumness.

[beadgirl]

The issue isn't that they can't let go, it's that they don't even know if she's alive.  That's a cruel thing to do.  For all we know, they'd be perfectly fine with not interfering in her new life, so long as they have a general idea of where she is and what she's up to.

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This is the mid 60's ... not the feminist 1970's ... There was little expectation that most girls could do much more than squeak by, sharing a flat with several others, working for a pittance ... think Holly Golightly and the money she received for her visits to the "powder room" (which paid her rent and bought her clothes and shoes, etc., in addition to HER mob acquaintance to passed his "weather report" along with her as messenger). 

No, it's not the feminist 1970's, but I think to assume the only options women had were to eke out a living or latch on to men does women of the 1960's a disservice.  There were women then who did have decent jobs and careers and ambitions; not as many as now, maybe, but they existed -- lawyers, doctors, bookkeepers, librarians, nurses, teachers, etc.

[Enigma X]

I honestly couldn't care less about Joan, and that is mainly due to the this sudden infatuation that Morse has with her. I feel though, adult or not, that Joan can drop a letter or something saying she is not dead to her parents. I could see if her parents beat her or even done a mildly less child-abuse style grievance toward her. I don't believe I am mistaken, but they didn't. She does not even have to give them an address. No, as an adult, she is not obligated. From my viewing perspective, everything dealing with Joan, including Morse, makes no sense to me.

[orza]

46 minutes ago, beadgirl said:

The issue isn't that they can't let go, it's that they don't even know if she's alive.  That's a cruel thing to do.  For all we know, they'd be perfectly fine with not interfering in her new life, so long as they have a general idea of where she is and what she's up to.

Yes, they do know Joan is alive. She left them a note. If Win is letting her imagination run away with her and thinking the worst that is not Joan's issue. I also think that Morse is right in respecting her Joan's privacy and not running to tell her parents where she is.

[Anothermi]

I saw the UK pace versions of this series so it's been a while and I don't have the best of memories. I had to search out another forum that followed the UK pace to verify my memory of the probable reason for Joan leaving. I'm giving all this background because frequently scenes are missing from the PBS versions and that may explain why no one here has mentioned this:

- In the 3rd series there was a bank robbery that went wrong and someone was killed.

- Joan worked at the Bank that was robbed.

- Morse was working with Thursday following a mob style gang, known to Thursday. (They were the ones who eventually committed the robbery.)

- Morse ran into Joan at some kind of club and it was clear she was dating one of the suspects (robbery had not yet taken place) and he ineptly tried to warn her away from that guy. She didn't take well to his acting like he was her father and telling her what she should or should not do.

- Both Joan and Morse were in the bank when the robbery occurred. A co-worker of Joan's (a male who I think was sweet on Joan but that could be just my interpretation) got shot and died. Joan sat on the bank floor holding him as he died. Her father and the rest of the police were outside the bank. Her father was "heroic" and in a rather violent series of scenes chased down the perps. Joan had been taken as a hostage. There was a stand off and I think that the boss-bad-guy was going to shoot Thursday when Morse messed with his head by saying he'd been counting the number of shots he (the bad guy) had fired and that he had none left. The guy decided against shooting and Thursday ended up shooting HIM. Morse checked that guy's gun after and there was 1 bullet left. Joan was present for all this.

- Joan realized later that her "boyfriend" had just been using her to get information to pull the bank heist. Her connection with him resulted in her co-workers being traumatized and one dying and her father almost being killed as well.

That was the background to Joan's leaving. It wasn't rational, but today we would describe it as PTSD.

MY take (not laid out by the show as they didn't give a motivation in so many words) was that she blamed herself for the robbery and the death of her co-worker AND putting her father's life in jeopardy - again! because he was still walking around with a bullet in his chest from his corrupt fellow cops. She felt she was a bad person. She couldn't take being treated like an innocent victim by her parents so she left. She might have done better if she'd seen a shrink, but that wasn't done back then. Again, this part is my take on why Joan left as it occurred not too long after all these events.

My main criticism is that the show seems to care so little for Joan that they don't flesh her character out enough for us to be able to understand her. She seems to have become just another destructive young woman like the two who perpetrated the murders in episodes 1 & 2. All these young 60s women were just "crazy" I guess. 

2 minutes ago, orza said:

I also think that Morse is right in respecting her Joan's privacy and not running to tell her parents where she is.

THIS. As I laid out above, Morse had already treated her she was just a child to him when he warned her about her then "boyfriend". She'd been interested in him for some time by that point, so it was insult added to injury. He was realizing that he was interested in her too, and recognized that was no way to treat her, so keeping her secret was his way of making amends.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Anothermi
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[JudyObscure]

I think Morse could tell Thursday that he saw Joan and she's okay without betraying anyone.  He doesn't need to tell anyone her address or anything about the married man with the key, but I think as Thursday and win's friend it's a betrayal to them to not tell them anything.

4 hours ago, orza said:

If Win is letting her imagination run away with her and thinking the worst that is not Joan's issue.

It's Joan's issue if she cares at all about the woman who gave birth to her and spent 18 years loving her and caring for her. I  imagine the reason Win has sunk into this depression is  that she's been so completely rejected by one of the people she loves most in the world. Joan has every right to leave the nest and start her own life, but severing all contact is needlessly cruel to someone who has done nothing to deserve it.

[Mermaid Under]

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lawyers, doctors, bookkeepers, librarians, nurses, teachers, etc.

As someone who was alive during the sixties, no.   Not lawyer or doctor, except for a very wealthy and very exceptional few.    To most women the typical paths were secretary, teacher, nurse. Period.    And if you couldn't afford any education after high school, a bank teller like Joan.  And all of those poorly paying professions were really only placeholders until you married, at which time you were expected to leave the working world.  It took exceptional imagination and strength for a young woman to think of herself as something other than that in those days, and most did not.

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Yes, they do know Joan is alive. She left them a note.

They know she was alive ten weeks ago.  

Your comments seem to be assuming she hates her parents.  I don't think there was any indication that was the case before now.

She is angry with herself because she made choices that were supremely stupid, but she has chosen to punish them.

[JudyObscure]

9 minutes ago, Mermaid Under said:

 

She is angry with herself because she made choices that were supremely stupid, but she has chosen to punish them.

Agreed, and if she's overcome with guilt because she indirectly contributed to the death of her co-worker, think how she'll feel if she ends up directly contributing to her mother's suicide.  Morse is doing her no favors by helping her hide.  He knows how sick her mother is better than Joan does.  I think her phone call to him was a subconscious cry for help, if Morse doesn't heed that cry then he will not only fail her, but his relationship with Thursday will be over forever. Did Joan once think of the position she's put him in?  I'm not angry at her, I don't believe she's thinking straight and she desperately needs someone to help her before she makes even more mistakes with her life.

[sugarbaker design]

10 hours ago, Anothermi said:

That was the background to Joan's leaving. It wasn't rational, but today we would describe it as PTSD.

Or self-centered bitch syndrome.

[attica]

Coupla things that are gnawing at me:  1) Joan answered the door in her underwear. She was expecting someone else that would not have been put off by that, or else she would have dressed before answering the door to a stranger. 2) A known married man keeping her would have no reason to pull his ring off before letting himself into the apartment. 3) a call girl's customer would have no reason to pull his ring off before being admitted, nor would he need to bring flowers (okay, some johns are sentimental), nor would he have a key. 

So: Key Man is romancing Joan and of long-enough standing in order to have a key (but not live there -- there was no decor that suggested Man Stuff), and she isn't supposed to know he's married. Maybe keeping her? Dunno. Her vague answer to 'how are you supporting yourself?' certainly suggests something less wholesome than 'I got a job', but I'm not yet persuaded by the facts now in evidence.

Waiting for a reveal, that's me.

[jjj]

38 minutes ago, attica said:

Coupla things that are gnawing at me:  1) Joan answered the door in her underwear. She was expecting someone else that would not have been put off by that, or else she would have dressed before answering the door to a stranger. 2) A known married man keeping her would have no reason to pull his ring off before letting himself into the apartment. 3) a call girl's customer would have no reason to pull his ring off before being admitted, nor would he need to bring flowers (okay, some johns are sentimental), nor would he have a key. 

So: Key Man is romancing Joan and of long-enough standing in order to have a key (but not live there -- there was no decor that suggested Man Stuff), and she isn't supposed to know he's married. Maybe keeping her? Dunno. Her vague answer to 'how are you supporting yourself?' certainly suggests something less wholesome than 'I got a job', but I'm not yet persuaded by the facts now in evidence.

Waiting for a reveal, that's me.

Yes, those same things were gnawing at me, also.  Some of that was for our audience benefit (I guess they could have just done a big close-up of his ring finger, but then we would not have seen Morse noticing that specifically), but no, it made no sense to twist off the ring at that last moment.  If they are in the "romancing" stage (presumably, she has known him for a few weeks), it seems odd to answer the door in a bra.  And I'd say that for 2017 as well as in 1967.  The key really raised a lot of questions for me, much more than if he had knocked. 

I don't think Morse really knows how far gone Mrs. Thursday is -- if he had seen her as Thursday himself had done, Morse might realize he really needed to tell them.  I will be surprised if they don't know by the end of the last episode of this series on Sunday.  And it will be new problems for Morse. 

Did you notice the way the scene with Morse/Joan mirrored the scene with Win/Thursday, when they were on opposite sides of a wall (kitchen/dining room) and talking but isolated? 

[orza]

2 hours ago, Mermaid Under said:

As someone who was alive during the sixties, no.   Not lawyer or doctor, except for a very wealthy and very exceptional few.    To most women the typical paths were secretary, teacher, nurse. Period.    And if you couldn't afford any education after high school, a bank teller like Joan.  And all of those poorly paying professions were really only placeholders until you married, at which time you were expected to leave the working world.  It took exceptional imagination and strength for a young woman to think of herself as something other than that in those days, and most did not.

They know she was alive ten weeks ago.  

Your comments seem to be assuming she hates her parents.  I don't think there was any indication that was the case before now.

She is angry with herself because she made choices that were supremely stupid, but she has chosen to punish them.

No, I don't assume Joan hates her parents. I also don;t think that Joan is punishing her parents for anything. There no evidence of that. We do know that the bank robbery was a very traumatic experience for Joan and, as mentioned upthread, she is no doubt suffering from PTSD and not getting treatment or support for it. If getting away from home and everything that reminds her of that trauma is what she sees as her only option to get relief, then fine. The feeling of her parents are secondary. Children are not responsible for the emotional needs of their parents and they don't owe their mothers for giving birth to them. Joan putting herself first is not punishing her parents.

Win did not go through the trauma that Joan did. Her job right now is to support her daughter when she is struggling, yet Win has chosen to make it all about her feelings and self-worth and wallow in self pity. Totally inappropriate behavior in this situation. That is not helping Joan at all, so it's probably a good thing that she is not in contact with Win.

[beadgirl]

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As someone who was alive during the sixties, no.   Not lawyer or doctor, except for a very wealthy and very exceptional few.    To most women the typical paths were secretary, teacher, nurse. Period.  

But there were some, the pioneers.  Wikipedia lists here in the US several medical schools founded just for women in the 1800s, and hospitals that had all or primarily female staff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_medicine#Early_modern_era

Here's some info about early female lawyers and judges: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_United_States_judiciary

Just because there weren't a lot of them doesn't mean they should be dismissed as exceptional.

My grandmother had a job in my grandfather's company (after marriage and children). My mother and aunt both graduated from college in the 1960s, and my mom got a masters in education.  Yes, they were "just" teachers, but they didn't see those jobs as placeholders until they could land husbands, but jobs that were meaningful to them.  Teaching and nursing were and are undervalued, but they are also important vocations that do real good in the world.

Did you see Hidden Figures? There were women in science, math, and engineering, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_science#Later_20th_century

Betty Friedan had already published the Feminine Mystique by the time Endeavour takes place, and Congress had already passed the Equal Pay Act. Women were entering politics in greater numbers.

Look, I'm not saying it was easy, or that most women had the resources to achieve what they wanted, and certainly a lot of women never got the recognition and remuneration they deserved, but I reject the notion that all women in the 1960s were oppressed, hopeless victims of the patriarchy with no agency or choices of their own.  And I'm tired of tv shows depicting sexual agency as the only kind of agency women have.

Currently Joan reminds me of a young woman from an earlier Endeavour episode -- she was the daughter of upper middle class parents, about to graduate college, and claimed to have feminist ideals, but she spent most of the episode complaining that her parents just wanted her to marry well, and what was the point in fighting the patriarchy; she might as well resign herself to her fate.  But in that same episode was a working class young woman who won a beauty contest (that the other woman dismissed as anti-feminist); this young woman had very specific goals to parlay that win into the career and life she wanted, and she wasn't going to let anyone hold her back.  I want more of that kind of woman, rather than the former.  I want to see women fight for what they want (and not just romantically!).  I wanted Margaret on Grantchester to push for recognition in her job and have healthy relationships with any number of available men, not start an affair with her married boss and put her career in jeopardy.  I think Joan is behaving pretty crappily.  If she gets her life together on her own, and takes responsibility for her choices and the hurt she's caused, and takes deliberate action to achieve the life she wants rather than just acting impulsively or letting things and men happen to her, ok. But if she needs to be rescued by Endeavour or her father, then bah.

[SusanSunflower]

There's no evidence that Joan is "that sort of girl" ... except for her flirtation with the "wild side" hanging out at that mob connected nightclub, even after warned off by Morse and apparently subsequent events (her father being in the mob crosshairs) did not extinguish that attraction to the wrong-side-of-town (hard to keep the various mobs/organized crime and more petty criminal elements straight or to remember if/how they are interconnected). 

Joan may just consider her parents conventionally dull and old-fashioned (normal enough for most teens).  I honestly don't remember but I think she knew her (bingo-caller??) boyfriend was considered a bad sort, running with a bad crowd. 

I don't know -- also -- if the children of policemen have the same mystique wrt to "running wild" that plagues the children of clergy ... some sort of assumption that they are inclined to rebellion, having been raised in such as repressive moralistic home environment.  

I think Morse has vaguely worried about Joan since the end of season 1 ... in a older brother sort of way, knowing full well that he's not her brother and the inappropriate presumption of acting like one. 

I took Joan's stated plans of maybe going abroad, etc. as a sort of brag about her various opportunities in her new "free of the past" life, but again "who's paying for this" looms large. 

Working class women in the U.S. in that period also had no access to credit (and earned too little to qualify for any sort of loan or credit card).  Several women living together "chaperoned" each other from the gossip that they were "kept women" or prostitutes.  Lots of concern about contraception paving the way for "nice young girls" to go wild ... since unplanned pregnancy commonly put an end to many young women's dreams, even as small as high school graduation -- "shot gun weddings" were preferable to the (unthinkable, life ruining))alternative ... for at least another decade.  Homes for unwed mothers were common also. 

Edited September 6, 2017 by SusanSunflower

[attica]

1 hour ago, jjj said:

Did you notice the way the scene with Morse/Joan mirrored the scene with Win/Thursday, when they were on opposite sides of a wall (kitchen/dining room) and talking but isolated? 

I did. It made me wonder if so much interpersonal stuff in 60s England could have been worked out if only for open concept floor plans! :)

[tootsie]

5 hours ago, orza said:

No, I don't assume Joan hates her parents. I also don;t think that Joan is punishing her parents for anything. There no evidence of that. We do know that the bank robbery was a very traumatic experience for Joan and, as mentioned upthread, she is no doubt suffering from PTSD and not getting treatment or support for it. If getting away from home and everything that reminds her of that trauma is what she sees as her only option to get relief, then fine. The feeling of her parents are secondary. Children are not responsible for the emotional needs of their parents and they don't owe their mothers for giving birth to them. Joan putting herself first is not punishing her parents.

Win did not go through the trauma that Joan did. Her job right now is to support her daughter when she is struggling, yet Win has chosen to make it all about her feelings and self-worth and wallow in self pity. Totally inappropriate behavior in this situation. That is not helping Joan at all, so it's probably a good thing that she is not in contact with Win.

I'm no expert, but I don't think people choose to be depressed. Also, from her character's previous behavior I think Win would be willing to support Joan  - if only she knew her daughter was safe and well.  (She criticized Mrs. Church Woman in last week's episode & hasn't come off as a restrictive, up-tight parent in other seasons that I can recall)  Today, family members of people who undergo trauma can seek and be trained in the best ways to help their loved ones handle emotional stress. Not so 50 years ago. Win seems to be doing the best she can under the circumstances, so her actions don't seem totally inappropriate to me.  I see her much more sympathetically. Simply human. And a mom. I'd be happy if in the upcoming last episode of this season, the Thursdays find out their daughter is okay, even if Joan chooses to keep her distance. But that Tarot death card makes me nervous.

[Driad]

About the tarot cards -- (1) Why? Is this leading up to something, or is it another reference to a long ago episode? (2) I’m not an expert but the Death card does not mean death literally. It refers to a change from one phase of a person’s life to another, which can be good.

[jjj]

1 hour ago, Driad said:

About the tarot cards -- (1) Why? Is this leading up to something, or is it another reference to a long ago episode? (2) I’m not an expert but the Death card does not mean death literally. It refers to a change from one phase of a person’s life to another, which can be good.

In the first "Endeavour" series, each episode ended with some sort of Masonic symbol, and it was never made clear how that tied into those episodes.  It appears to be a theme with a long-term payoff, perhaps in the "Masonic Mysteries" in the original Morse series.  The Tarot cards may or may not mean something within this fourth series, or may be some kind of inside joke, like the series one Masonic symbols. 

 

1 hour ago, tootsie said:

I'm no expert, but I don't think people choose to be depressed. Also, from her character's previous behavior I think Win would be willing to support Joan  - if only she knew her daughter was safe and well.  (She criticized Mrs. Church Woman in last week's episode & hasn't come off as a restrictive, up-tight parent in other seasons that I can recall)  Today, family members of people who undergo trauma can seek and be trained in the best ways to help their loved ones handle emotional stress. Not so 50 years ago. Win seems to be doing the best she can under the circumstances, so her actions don't seem totally inappropriate to me.  I see her much more sympathetically. Simply human. And a mom. I'd be happy if in the upcoming last episode of this season, the Thursdays find out their daughter is okay, even if Joan chooses to keep her distance. But that Tarot death card makes me nervous.

I completely agree.  Any parent I have ever known, whose child lived with them her entire life in a regularized household, would be just about insane with worry if the grown child disappeared overnight, whether or not she left a letter.  And the parent would be left, like Win, with endless questioning of what she (the parent) had done wrong.  Because, Win has no other information to work from, except her own relationship with Joan.  Win's career was devotion to her family and household and its smooth-as-possible functioning.  We never saw her as overly obsessive nor cruel, and suggesting now that Joan is reacting against Win is misunderstanding that Joan had some kind of internal breakdown as a result of her life being at risk and causing death. 

I initially misread your first sentence as a denial of depression!  But I agree, now that I read it correctly, that depression is not a bad mood that can be jollied away, and while we might enjoy a good cry or melancholy day now and then, no one chooses the weight of long-term depression.  What I saw in Joan was a real brittleness, something she had not displayed before.  This could be her way of keeping the rock of depression from overtaking her -- can't let the emotions come to the surface. 

[statsgirl]

On 9/6/2017 at 7:47 PM, jjj said:

Any parent I have ever known, whose child lived with them her entire life in a regularized household, would be just about insane with worry if the grown child disappeared overnight, whether or not she left a letter.  And the parent would be left, like Win, with endless questioning of what she (the parent) had done wrong.  Because, Win has no other information to work from, except her own relationship with Joan.  Win's career was devotion to her family and household and its smooth-as-possible functioning.  We never saw her as overly obsessive nor cruel, and suggesting now that Joan is reacting against Win is misunderstanding that Joan had some kind of internal breakdown as a result of her life being at risk and causing death. 

THIS.  Win spent Joan's entire life taking care of her, making sure that she's all right.  And now, after a traumatic event, the very sheltered Joan leaves a note, not even telling her parents in person, and disappears entirely for ten weeks.  For all Win knows, Joan could have been so traumatized she committed suicide.  Win desperately wants to know that Joan is all right, and to help her if she can, and the selfish bint won't even tell her parents that she's alive. 

On 9/6/2017 at 11:34 AM, orza said:

Win did not go through the trauma that Joan did. Her job right now is to support her daughter when she is struggling, yet Win has chosen to make it all about her feelings and self-worth and wallow in self pity. Totally inappropriate behavior in this situation. That is not helping Joan at all, so it's probably a good thing that she is not in contact with Win.

Yes her job is to support her daughter when she is struggling.   But she can't.  How does she even know that Joan is alive?

Joan is the one who has made it all about herself in an extremely adolescent display of self0-centredness.  If she doesn't want her parents around her right now, then for God's sake at least tell them she's alive and managing on her own.  (Not that she is of course.  A well-brought up young woman doesn't open the door to a man in her underwear, expecting her lover.)

On 9/6/2017 at 8:25 AM, Mermaid Under said:

As someone who was alive during the sixties, no.   Not lawyer or doctor, except for a very wealthy and very exceptional few.    To most women the typical paths were secretary, teacher, nurse. Period.    And if you couldn't afford any education after high school, a bank teller like Joan.  And all of those poorly paying professions were really only placeholders until you married, at which time you were expected to leave the working world.  It took exceptional imagination and strength for a young woman to think of herself as something other than that in those days, and most did not.

This is very much what it was like for my mother-in-law, although she worked in an office until she got married in 1940.  My mother, on the other hand, got her medical degree in 1952 and she had to work as a cleaner to earn the money for her fees.  The message to me when I started high school in 1968 was Do you want to be a doctor or a lawyer?  so I disagree that women in the sixties were trapped.

There's no reason Joan couldn't have got a job as a bank teller again or a secretary or a ticket taker for public transit after she left home.  There was no need for her to become a kept woman to survive.  Unless she really was badly traumatized and then she needs her family to help her get through it.

[SusanSunflower]

Funny, I never considered Joan either innocent or sheltered**, rather involved with or drawn to the "small town" glamor of that mob nightclub; part of the town v. gown contrast of the Oxford/Cambridge of the university versus the "regular folk" working service jobs in the same area and the sometimes less than savory co-mingling, such as drug trafficking to eager students ... a regular Colin Dexter class-based theme balancing out the wealthy good-family crimes of the well-educated university folks.  Joan was looking for some sort of excitement and some sort of glamour, going back to the end of season one.  

She didn't make much of an impression on me otherwise, except as a person of limited-prospects / ambitions (as townies often are) in a place filled with well-to-do young people (students) anticipating bright and wealthy futures ... how frustrating the contrast be if you're the one working a dull pretty-much dead-end job at the local bank. -- however, I never saw much "spark" to Joan except maybe she was attracted to ambitious, somewhat "dangerous" men. 

** She certainly gave her parents no worries that I recall, but that was likely a matter of careful discretion. 

Edited September 10, 2017 by SusanSunflower

[Mermaid Under]

Quote

Look, I'm not saying it was easy, or that most women had the resources to achieve what they wanted, and certainly a lot of women never got the recognition and remuneration they deserved, but I reject the notion that all women in the 1960s were oppressed, hopeless victims of the patriarchy with no agency or choices of their own..

I've read that one of the hardest things to do (for TV writers trying to capture the recent past) is to ensure that they don't mistakenly view things with a modern perspective. 

beadgirl, I don't even know if you live in the US.  If you do, try to find some high school yearbooks from the 1960s.   Historical societies or libraries often have them.  Read what the women who graduated during those years put down as their "ambitions" for the future.   Maybe by the late sixties things were changing a bit, in the media and in large cities.  But in the early or mid-sixties, you'll see how trapped women still were.  I wouldn't trust any source that wasn't actually from that time.

I'm not saying that they all of these women ended up as nurses, secretaries, or school teachers.  Many of them eventually became much more than that.  But when they were becoming adults, these were the paths that were open to them.

[SusanSunflower]

Born 1952, I and my classmates in California were slotted in 7th grade based on IQ scores as either college material or not ...  There were many good jobs that were learned as apprenticeships or on the job training, letters of recommendation (who you knew) were key. Most people did not go to college and in families willing and able to support a first-in-family college student usually devoted the money and effort to sons ... as future fathers and breadwinners.  Two year Community Colleges offered all sorts of good (life long career type) vocational training -- nursing, accounting, auto mechanics, drafting.   Three girls in my 8th grade class left school to get married to their baby daddy ... Birth control pills were still new and "scary" and besides many girls were eager to get started on that family they had been dreaming of ... Ambitions for most people were fairly modest by today's standards ...  College loans were a very new thing in the late 1970s when I was struggling putting myself through ... and were not available to me because they required parental tax info neither of my parents were willing to provide (means testing). 

Edited September 11, 2017 by SusanSunflower

[Magnumfangirl]

On 9/4/2017 at 6:44 AM, Mermaid Under said:

Did I miss something big?  Who shot Scottish Tam and his driver and how did that fit in?  Did they get killed by the gang that hired them for screwing up the murder for hire?

I just watched this one again and they never discuss the bodies in the car after the scene where they are discovered, but I think they are building something with this Matthews gang story line.  And I'm afraid it's going to be something tragic.

[JudyObscure]

17 hours ago, Mermaid Under said:

I'm not saying that they all of these women ended up as nurses, secretaries, or school teachers.  Many of them eventually became much more than that.

Because a person's worth is their income? 

I belonged to my local chapter of NOW in the early 70's and worked with the education task force.  We met with the school board and got them to change their career day program to include many more jobs for women in their pamphlets and talks. We wanted both boys and girls to consider all the careers, whether they be nurse, doctor, engineer or musician.  So, I understand that we needed to broaden the girl's options, but I think it's sad that in the process, all the traditional women's jobs became lesser in so many minds.  I think it's really very anti-feminist to consider anything our grandmothers ever did, from quilting to nursing as inferior -- just because it's a "woman thing," and "man things" are automatically better. 

[SusanSunflower]

There was, and still is in many people's minds, the "need" for children to have a stay-at-home caretaker which is for many a privilege that is (and always has been) far out of reach and not really some simple matter of preference or priority. After WWII, which mobilized armies of women laborers, there was pressure to get women back in the kitchen as some ordained "norm" or better-for-the-children (when with good or even just adequate childcare, children do just fine the world over).  eta: When the war was over, they needed to get women out of the workforce to open up jobs for returning GI's.  Note that about half the country was still on-the-farm at that time, so this urban workforce was more of a subset than it is now.  

Stagnant real wages post-1970's, also worked to get women into the workforce as one-paycheck was no longer enough to be comfortable. 

Most of my peers' mothers were stay at home in the 1950's with some part-time jobs or school/church volunteering.  Many of these moms moved into the workforce in the 1970's and '80s as rampant divorce (probably a good thing) made financial independence a necessity and the stigma of a wife needing to work was lifted.  Women still do get married and have babies and desire/need to stay-at-home for months, even years (in part because good reliable childcare is so expensive and often hard to maintain).  My younger brother's generation seemed to take stay-at-home moms as a for-the-children necessity although that may be class-based and/or some odd resulting function of child support enforcement (my generation's mother were often stiffed by walk-away dead-beat dads (or just games-playing manipulative bastards like my father). 

The selling of the working woman as "liberating" was as I recall embraced by Madison Avenue, even with the assumption that women yearned to be SAHM when the time came.  The "mommy wars" have seemingly only gotten worse and societal surveillance and judgment of parenting (still mostly directed at mothers) has redefined parenting to something which resembles the frantic helicopter parent who replaced the ubiquitous soccer mom. 

I guess I'm just saying that it's hard to even imagine doing both ... much less doing both well.  A lot of the oft-cited feminist denigration of "women's work" I think was a direct response to the suggestion that working women were -- "in fact" -- neglecting their children and/or that working women were thereby "selfish" and "ambition" or money-grubbing greedy.  Latch-key kids used to be fairly normal -- now it's a secret shame, considered close to child abuse. I had two (female) managers in the 1980's and 90's who (bizarrely to me) let it be known that they were working for career ambitions and luxury items ($$ independence), not because they had to -- oddly they were both bean-counting martinets, but whatever.  

Back in the 1960 and 70's "having a good life" meant having a steady low-stress good-enough job and (cough) being debt-free (home ownership -- like college loans -- were out of reach for most).  I suspect the average satifaction/happiness index was higher. 

Edited September 12, 2017 by SusanSunflower

[SusanSunflower]

I'd also add that 1960-70's feminism was called second wave because it was built on the back of earlier feminism which was part of the earlier progressive/leftist wave of the 1930-40's and opportunities for women and economic parity never stopped be part of progressive agendas...  Many in the anti-war movement of the 1960's were the children of progressives as well as the newly self-interested (don't wanna get drafted, not wanna go to vietnam) 

The new Vietnam War miniseries may (or may not) open up myriad old wounds and issues.  From what I've seen in previews, it seems almost deliberately revisionist and provocative. 

[jjj]

Joan was doing quite well in her bank job, within the opportunities available in 1960s England.  It is a mistake to conflate the U.S. opportunities for women with those in Britain in the 1960s.  Particularly in Oxford, Joan grew up as a "townie" in an elite academic city-state where members of the male colleges of Oxford were indisputably the ruling class.  And even for men, the strict weeding system of access to the Oxbridge colleges limited their opportunities.  There were brilliant women in the womens colleges at Oxford, but we have not seen that Joan was voraciously seeking the life of the mind -- and the competition for the few spaces in the womens colleges was fierce. 

Some of the most painful moments in watching "Endeavour" or the "Morse" series is when the Oxford college members, faculty or students, make so clear to Morse that he is a lesser person because he is no longer part of the Oxford university community. 

[SusanSunflower]

And yet, it's also clear that despite his brief time at Oxford, Morse made a lasting impression and his leaving college is considered with regret by the professors who knew/taught him.  It's reinforced that (despite some backstory about his failing grades resulting from despondency over a failed love affair) he was considered brilliant, with a bright future and, I think, boldly someone who chose not to be reinstated ... he walked away from a golden opportunity 

[jjj]

Absolutely, it is clear that he was considered brilliant in his time there. What makes me sad is when someone looks down on him for choosing a different path, or worse, tries to make him feel bad.  

30 minutes ago, SusanSunflower said:

And yet, it's also clear that despite his brief time at Oxford, Morse made a lasting impression and his leaving college is considered with regret by the professors who knew/taught him.  It's reinforced that (despite some backstory about his failing grades resulting from despondency over a failed love affair) he was considered brilliant, with a bright future and, I think, boldly someone who chose not to be reinstated ... he walked away from a golden opportunity 

[radishcake]

Please keep your comments centered on your own opinions. While debate is encouraged personal attacks are never a good idea. 

[radishcake]

Another note guys, not everyone sees these episodes switch when they come out so keep your information about episode 4 out of episode 3’s thread.  No spoiling of events that haven’t happens in this episode. Thanks.