Trove (d. Kristoffer Nyholm -The Killing 2, The Enfield Haunting).
Somewhat shell-shocked, Morse returns to work, endures a nasty beating and meets next door nurse Shvorne Marks (voicing the great line "I don't think you're yellow - just blue"). He also mis-solves the case, making him have to later apologise to his colleagues, including Jakes (Jack Laskey) who says something like "What's the caper, getting us up at the crack of sparrow's?"
Morse has a great way of not answering questions (particularly those raised by colleagues). Thursday is becoming his surrogate father. This involves a Miss Britain pageant and usefully comments on sixties' sexism.
Nocturne (d. Giuseppe Capotondi). For one thing, starts a hundred years in the past - an awful murder - and not your usual five intersecting stories over the credits. Although it's not really dwelled upon, Morse solves this murder too. It's all intertwined with mysterious goings-on in girls' school. And the 'Bermondsey Horror' referred to is a real case.
Features a hilarious exchange between Morse, Thursday and a Professor from the Royal College of Arms.
Bunty Glossop sounds like a P.G. Wodehouse name. She's played by Nell Tiger Tree, who was in Broken. When she kisses Morse at the end he looks affectingly bashful. Susy Kane, their teacher, is in Stan & Ollie. Pupils: Imogen Gurney (Safe), Anya Taylor-Joy (The Miniaturist, Thoroughbreds), Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody, Murder on the Orient Express, The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth, Sing Street, Lewis).
This is the episode in which Morse amusingly is completely uninterested in England's World Cup progress. Thursday: "Talking football with you's like showing a dog the three card trick." And to Joan "On aerial duty again tonight?" Watch too many of these and you start actually speaking like Thursday! (Interesting also to hear the military slang 'He bought the farm'.)
Sway (d. Andy Wilson). It's Dean Martin's rendition of the title song we hear repeatedly, written by Luis Demetrio and produced in 1953. Episode involves serial killer, stockings and Burridge's department store - a CGI'd version of Randalls in Uxbridge, I reckon, though the interior is Jacksons in Reading!
And - well we know Thursday speaks Italian (and. impressively, German - in Rocket), fought in Monte Cassino after the desert, and here we have his past wartime romance in Italy. In the original script, Morse withholds her suicide note from Thursday, but Shaun didn't feel it was right - and I agree with him.
Michael Caine Alfie mixed with (in Russell's words) 'Carry On Strangling'. Mournful episode.
Neverland (d. Geoffrey Sax). Lots of threads - why does inmate escape so shortly before release? Where is runaway boy? Who are the flowers in the woods for? How are police mixed up in (another) property development? And - the most beautiful prop as plot point - Morse's new scarf. (Joan's on to it first, then her father...)
Talk about a cliffhanger ending! An outrageous series finale. The police corruption story has been building slowly but the moment two senior officers try to shoot Morse is amazing.
Dr DeBryn: "It's our old friend Mr. Blunt Trauma."
Morse: "He hadn't even had his ticket punched."
Thursday: "He has now."
Morse's poem is A.E. Housman, 'How Clear, How Lovely Bright'. Just before he's shot Fred says 'I'll probably die a copper...'
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