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Endeavour – ‘Pylon’

Endeavour is back for its sixth series and, from the off, it’s darker than we’ve seen before. ‘Pylon’ finds our lead characters struggling with events of the past, as their paths cross to investigate a tragic death, in what proves a typically compelling episode of the show.

It’s 1969, six months after the death of George Fancy and the closure of Cowley Station, and our leads are in changed circumstances. Morse (Shaun Evans) has been put back in uniform and assigned a lonely rural beat, but his quiet days are soon taken up with crime when he finds the body of missing schoolgirl under a pylon. It brings him back in touch with the now-demoted Inspector Thursday (Roger Allam), who is working for old adversary DCI Ronnie Box (Simon Harrison). A suspect soon turns up, a heroin addict linked to one of Thursday’s old cases, but the two detectives believe him to be innocent. After a second girl goes missing, the race is on to find the culprit before it’s too late.

The most striking thing about ‘Pylon’ is how our main characters have changed since the last series. Morse has grown a moustache (something that has proven incredibly controversial with viewers), and he’s harder and more remote than we’ve ever seen him – DS Strange (Sean Rigby) is frustrated with Thursday’s demotion, and asks Morse: “Don’t you care?” His response is a cold “Would it make a difference?”. Chief Superintendent Bright (Anton Lesser) has been moved to the traffic division, a figure to be poked fun at by his younger colleagues – we don’t get to see too much of him in this episode, although he appears in a fantastic educational video.

I sang the praises of Allam last series, and I’m going to do so again. This is Thursday like we’ve never seen him

Some of the biggest changes are in the Thursday household. Joan (Sara Vickers) is now employed as a social worker, and Win (Caroline O’Neill) is no longer happy at home. I sang the praises of Allam last series, and I’m going to do so again. This is Thursday like we’ve never seen him, fallen prey to self-doubt, guilt and regret, stripped of his authority and his control, and Allam plays him with an-almost desperate dignity (especially compared to the cocky arrogance of Box, who we first met in ‘Passenger’). Certain scenes – his reaction after beating up a local pervert; Morse turning up a missing piece of evidence from an earlier case – show how the pair have evolved, and that evolution is not necessarily a good thing. The jovial pub lunches in the earlier series are definitely a thing of the past.

I don’t want to give the game away but, when it turns out that there are two cases at play, a slight plot hole also leapt out at me

The main case in ‘Pylon’ is similarly dark, with a missing child turning up dead, and a cast of suitably creepy suspects – a sweaty vicar and a lecturer called Sheridan (Roger May) are among the most developed. The focus on character work and the disparate threads of our main characters results in the case becoming a bit secondary, and the resolution (down to hard work rather than exceptional deduction) was satisfactory if not entirely satisfying. I don’t want to give the game away but, when it turns out that there are two cases at play, a slight plot hole also leapt out at me – why should one of the characters have drawn attention to themselves by summoning the police to their house? These are picky issues, however, in an episode that successfully spins a lot of plates.

The episode also contains some hints as to the series’ plot threads. Strange is still keen to solve the murder of Fancy (killed in ‘Icarus’, the final episode of series five), and his private pinboard suggests potential links to heroin deaths in Oxford. There’s also the suggestion of police corruption (a piece of planted evidence drives the investigation) – it seems that Box is involved, but will Thursday choose to go along with it? And if so, how will Morse react?

‘Pylon’ marks a typically strong return for Endeavour – an interesting case (although not one of the series’ strongest), and some bleaker character development for our lead characters, hints at a dark series to come.

Next week: As the highly-anticipated Apollo 11 Moon landings draw near, DS Morse (newly-transferred to the Thames Valley station) investigates the death of a promising young astrophysicist and his girlfriend.

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