History Recap / Endeavour

The murder of a 15-year-old schoolgirl and the apparent suicide of her boyfriend lead an investigation by the Oxford City Police to the discovery of sex parties where under-age girls are procured for politicians, businessmen, Oxford dons, and policemen, which in particular make the sifting of evidence very difficult. Endeavour's superior, Detective Inspector Fred Thursday, recognising the young constable is a detective he can trust, takes him under his wing and is determined to break the case and, with Morse's help, bring it to a successful conclusion.

The sudden death of a secretarial student and the shooting of a doctor appear unconnected despite Morse's theories. Chief Superintendent Bright, the new commanding officer of the Oxford City Police, is unimpressed with Morse's zeal, protesting to Thursday that the bagman's position is a Detective Sergeant's job and the young constable is too inexperienced. Following the shooting of a vicar, Morse is reduced to general duties for dismissing a beautiful but mentally unstable girl as a suspect and must continue his investigations alone.

An unknown menace stalks Oxford, appearing at first to be a deranged lunatic, killing at random. But Morse uncovers an underlying method to the madness; the elaborate staging of the crimes suggests that the killer shares his passion for opera. While the Oxford City Police scramble to find the next potential victim, it seems that Morse has met his intellectual match. As the body count increases, letters containing cryptic clues, goading the police for their failures, are sent to the local newspaper. Only a detective of Morse's intellect can catch the killer.

The prospect of a visit to Oxford by Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret, who is to unveil the British Imperial Electric Company's new "Standfast" Mark Two missile, has Chief Superintendent Bright, slated to provide security, on red alert. But when an unpopular worker is found murdered in a secluded area of the factory, Morse must pursue the truth from the sidelines while dealing with the intoxicating presence of Alice Vexin, an old acquaintance from his days at Oxford.

December 1965. Morse, still on general duties and studying for his forthcoming sergeant's exam, investigates an apparent hit-and-run accident that has claimed the life of an Oxford don. The victim had been at odds with his peers over the sale of a piece of college-owned land to a development company in conjunction with the town council. The case is complicated by the appearance in Oxford of London gangster Vic Kasper, an enemy from DI Thursday's past, which reignites a personal feud as Thursday thinks Kasper is somehow involved with the case. In the meantime, Morse makes a trip back home to Lincolnshire to visit his dying father.

May 1966. Aafter returning from sick leave, Morse investigates a suspicious suicide during an Oxford parade, a missing girl and the theft of historical artefacts from a college. A beauty pageant and a local by-election draw him into disagreement with Thursday and Bright when he believes they are connected to the crimes, despite the evidence. A missing notebook and a Masonic lodge hamper the investigation.

July 1966. At the Museum of Natural History, Adrian Weiss, a specialist in heraldry and genealogy, is murdered. The similar murder of a 12-year-old girl at her boarding school leads Morse to delve into a 100-year-old murder mystery involving a wealthy family with connections to India and an inheritance. The girls staying for the summer, as they cannot reach home for the vacation, play pranks based on a book about the murdered family. A descendant of the owner of the large family home, now the school for girls, thinks he might finally inherit thanks to a change in the law.

November 1966. A housewife found strangled with a silk stocking in her own home becomes the third such death in Oxford in a month. All the women were married but died alone. Tracing the stockings to the sole supplier, Burridges Department Store, a number of suspects surface. For Thursday, a face from the past he thought long dead leads to complications in his family life and at work.

December 1966. A boy with a brutal father is reported missing from his home. The body of a journalist is found on a railway line and within days a convict who escaped from prison with only a month of his sentence remaining is found dead. The two men have connections with Blenheim Vale, a disused correctional facility for boys in Kidlington, soon to be redeveloped as a new police headquarters in a reorganisation of the local forces to form the Thames Valley Police. Thursday's and Morse's investigation leads to a property developer and corruption in high places including missing police evidence in Morse's last three investigations.

March 1967. Morse is disillusioned after spending time in prison following his last case. Even though he is exonerated, he ponders his future with the police. Having relocated to an isolated lake front cottage, Morse is befriended by an unhappy millionaire and his friends. At a funfair on Cowley Green a young girl is spirited away into the night, seemingly without explanation. When her body is found the next morning, Thursday investigates and discovers that Morse's new friends are involved. When Morse's millionaire friend is killed but then reappears the next day, Morse realises his future is as a detective and that the solution lies at the funfair where Hearne went missing.

April 1967. The death of an artist in a horrendous house fire leaves the police baffled as to the cause of the blaze. A housewife dies of a ‘tummy bug’ that has seen half of Bright’s men go on sick leave. Tainted food sold at a local supermarket, Richardson's, and the blackmail of the wealthy owners who refuse to pay culminates in the kidnap of their daughter with a ransom demand from the dead artist. Morse strives to connect these elements to solve the deaths and kidnapping.

Early June 1967. The missing persons case of Danish au pair Ingrid Hjort proves far from routine, pulling Endeavour into the duelling worlds of Oxford scientific academia, the city's vast parks, as well as an urban legend said to haunt the untamed wilderness of the Oxfordshire countryside.

Mid June 1967. Gangland loyalties are tested when criminals vie to replace their dead boss. Police loyalties are tested when Thursday is suspended for hitting an informant. Bank staff loyalties are tested where Joan Thursday works when armed robbers trap them along with Morse, who is there investigating a killing and payroll robbery. As hostages are taken, he and Joan try to conceal their identities. Morse realises he is part of someone else's plan to conceal another crime.

July 1967. The body of a scientist, who disappeared over a month previously, is found floating in a local river. The initial suspected cause of death is accidental drowning, but Morse is unconvinced. When a second victim is found drowned at the local swimming baths, Morse begins to recognise a pattern. He connects the victims to a university science group who are undertaking work on one of the first working computer systems. The death of a third victim sways Morse to convince a sceptical Thursday to use the computer technology to identify a possible list of suspects, connected in particular to the second victim. The discovery of another body at a farmhouse owned by one of the possible suspects leads Morse right into the path of the killer. Meanwhile, Morse is shocked by the news that he has failed his sergeant's exam after his paper mysteriously disappeared.

A labourer is found dead in the garage of a local pub, and initial reports suggest the cause of death is strangulation. Meanwhile, Morse is asked to act as bodyguard to busybody Joy Pettybon, a moral crusader who since coming to Oxford to appear on a TV show, has received threats to her life. Her fellow guests on the show, pop group The Wildwood, whose record Pettybon has tried to ban from the airwaves, are prime suspects for sending the threats - and when one of Pettybon's closest allies is poisoned, suspicions on the tearaway group begin to grow. When one of the group's founding members disappears during a writing session, Morse and Thursday are thrust out into the dark cold Oxford night to try and find him. When he finally reappears, they discover he too has been given a concoction of mysterious poison. Once again, Morse finds himself on the trail of a murderer.

Morse is called to deal with the death of an elderly Oxford resident. Meanwhile, the star witness in the case against the Matthews gang is admitted to hospital from, and Morse is assigned to act as bodyguard. While on the ward, he meets a regular patient, Mr. Talbot, who tells him that Bed 10 has become infamous for unexplained deaths. Back at the station, Thursday finds Bright collapsed in his office, having seemingly suffered from a perforated ulcer. Back on the ward, Morse catches an armed intruder and gives pursuit. The next morning, the star witness is found dead. Morse tries to unravel the clues to find the killer.

September 1967. The discovery of a body on an archaeological dig sends Morse to the village of Bramford, where botanist Matthew Laxman disappeared five years earlier and where pagan customs are practised for the forthcoming Autumn equinox. All the locals, including reclusive clairvoyant Dowsabelle Chattox, deny seeing Laxman until Selina Berger, whose brother is a doctor, recalls seeing the missing man's car in the vicinity of the nuclear power plant nearby. While its director Elliot Blake assures Morse that it poses no danger, it is not a welcome presence in the village, the proposed site of a new reservoir. Morse believes the locals are lying when Laxman's jacket is found on a scarecrow and Dowsabelle and others admit that he came to Bramford and to the power station. As the celebrations begin Morse and Thursday rush to the station to prevent an aggrieved avenger destroying the whole area before unmasking Laxman's killer.

April 1968. Ex-boxer Joey Sikes is killed on the night of a failed theft of the last Fabergé egg from the Oxford college where it is to be auctioned. Next day lecturer Robin Grey is also murdered and the link is prostitute and artists' model Eve Thorne, who was seen with both men. When the egg is stolen, suspicion falls on another of Eve's clients, latest victim Simon Lake. Morse, now a detective sergeant, discovers that Lake and Grey belonged to an elite club and were involved in a scam regarding the egg. In establishing whether the murders were linked to the club or the egg, Morse must cope with a lazy new constable and the reappearance of Joan Thursday.

May 1968. Ex-policeman and museum attendant Ronald Beavis is murdered after watching a re-run of 'The Pharaoh's Curse' at the Roxy cinema. Of its staff only organist Leslie Garnier can recall him having a secret conversation. Morse takes Carol, daughter of Fred Thursday's flash brother Charlie, to a glossy remake of the film, witnessing museum curator, Egyptian Dr Shoutry, protest that it cheapens his culture and carries a curse. Shortly afterwards Leslie is poisoned and the film's star, Emil Valdemar is given a sinister token, stolen from the museum. Morse believes Valdemar to have been the intended victim and rushes to save him in a cinema now in flames to prevent its sale. At the same time racist attacks on properties owned by a local racketeer would appear to have links with the Roxy and its employees.
cap/EndeavourS5E03Passenger Passenger]]
June 1968. Morse suspects a connection between a woman's disappearance and the unsolved murder of a teenager ten years earlier. The discovery of another body and some unusual crime-scene details, however, suggest another possibility. Thursday investigates a lorry hijack which he believes could be the work of a local gangster and Fancy takes on an informant in the case.

Oxford seethes as a protest at a hair salon exposes rising racial tensions in the city. Meanwhile, Thursday's son discovers a murder at his Army base, and Morse must uncover long-held secrets within the regiment to solve the case.

Morse investigates the assassination of a competitor at an international ''It's a Knockout'' event and a spectator, a small boy, is hit by a stray bullet. Special Branch quickly take over the case but Morse delves deeper and is drawn into a web of espionage, big business and dark secrecy. Thursday faces a dilemma as he tries to protect a woman from her violent husband in his local newsagency.

Morse investigates the disappearance of a teacher from a public school and begins to question whom he can trust when a body is discovered. Thursday grapples with the imminent closure of Cowley Station as he tries to connect Eddie Nero to a series of unsolved murders and he assigns Fancy to track down the man who may be the key to cracking the case.

Early July 1969. Morse, back in uniform, finds himself policing a lonely country patch, but when he discovers the dead body of a missing schoolgirl, it opens the quiet backwater to the roar of Castle Gate CID, now staffed by Thursday and an old adversary. With the former's hands tied, Morse resolves to prove an accused teenager's innocence, and to uncover the truth behind the young girl's death.

Late July 1969. As the highly-anticipated Apollo 11 moon landing draws near, Morse finds himself investigating the death of a promising young astrophysicist and his girlfriend. On first inspection, their deaths seem to be a result of a tragic car accident, but various clues point to foul play, and Morse enlists the help of an injured Thursday to uncover the truth.

Late July 1969. As the highly-anticipated Apollo 11 moon landing draws near, Morse finds himself investigating the death of a promising young astrophysicist and his girlfriend. On first inspection, their deaths seem to be a result of a tragic car accident, but various clues point to foul play, and Morse enlists the help of an injured Thursday to uncover the truth.

Mid-October 1969. When a librarian is gruesomely murdered at the Bodleian, Morse and Thursday have little to go on besides a set of muddy boot prints. With the two main suspects having their own motives for killing the librarian, Morse digs deeper into their backgrounds, tracking a trail of corruption and conspiracy that appears to connect to their seemingly innocent college bequest, finally cracking a case that has haunted the Cowley boys for so long.

# [[Recap/EndeavourS5E03Passenger Passenger]]

The murder of a 15-year-old schoolgirl and the apparent suicide of her boyfriend lead an investigation by the Oxford City Police to the discovery of sex parties where under-age girls are procured for politicians, businessmen, academics and policemen, which in particular make the sifting of evidence very difficult. Detective Constable Endeavour Morse is one of several officers bussed into Oxford from elsewhere to help with the enquiry; for him, it's also a return to the university city which he left after having his heart broken. His superior, Detective Inspector Fred Thursday, recognises that the young constable is a detective he can trust and takes him under his wing. He's determined to crack the case and, with Morse's help, bring it to a successful conclusion.

[[folder:Series 1 (2013)]]

# [[Recap/EndeavourS1E01Girl Girl]]
# [[Recap/EndeavourS1E02Fugue Fugue]]
# [[Recap/EndeavourS1E03Rocket Rocket]]
# [[Recap/EndeavourS1E04Home Home]]
[[/index]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Series 2 (2014)]]
[[index]]