REVIEW Endeavour (S8 E3/3)

The ominous title Terminus suggest that things are coming to an end for Endeavour – but can this one episode tie up all the loose ends and mark the transition to Inspector Morse?

After the farcical events of series seven, all histrionics and implausibility, this season has marked a reasonable return to form. True, there seems to have been a collective case of amnesia among the characters, the in-jokes have flowed thick and fast, and Morse’s character development seems to be all over the shop, but at least Striker and Scherzo had semi-plausible plots and fairly competent direction.

In Terminus, everything goes slightly doolally, with references to 80s horror films and On the Buses. The plot is so complicated and the motivations of the characters so bizarre that you will probably have to watch it three times to catch up.    

In brief, a passenger on a night bus is found stabbed to death and with his eyes mutilated in a graveyard. The Oxford don, Professor Patrick Stanton, seems to have had an interest in gambling and number theory.

Morse was a passenger on the bus, was too drunk to notice what was going on. When he’s sent home by Fred the following day, in a driving snowstorm, the bus skids into a snowdrift and all the passengers decamp to a derelict hotel.

The hotel was the site of a mass murder eight years earlier, and it becomes clear that there are two cliques at work; a group of gamblers who swindled the killer out of his pools winning, and a group of his supporters who intend to avenge his betrayal, imprisonment and subsequent suicide.

If you can follow which is which right through to the end, congratulations to you.

Umpteen questions arise, few of which have clear answers.

Since when has Morse lived outside town and taken a country bus to get home? Why is Fred driving a Ford Zodiac, not the Jag? Why is the hotel, abandoned for eight years, stacked with booze, silverware and antiques – shouldn’t someone have looted it?

Why did neither the killers or the gamblers make an attempt to steal the safe in the last eight years?  

If the plot hinged on trapping the conspirators in the hotel, how did they plan on a convenient snowstorm?

Why murder one victim one day, and the others the following day?

And which Hawkwind album was student Richie talking about – In Search of Space, or Doremi Fasol Latido?

We get passing references to sitcom On the Buses, and to horror classics The Shining and Halloween (one character is called Loomis, another looks like Donald Pleasance’s character from the movie, a masked killer wears a harlequin costume). There’s also a mention of writer Steven Fitzowen (who we met in Endeavour series 2 episode 2, Nocturne).

One of the suspects uses the phrase herkos odonton, which we had to look up – basically it means “keep your mouth shut”

In subplots, Fred and DCS Bright finally have the much-anticipated conversation about the traumatic events in Venice last season, and Morse’s aborted transfer to Kidlington. Shouldn’t this conversation have taken place in episode one?

And Fred is worried when he’s told that his son Sam is absent without leave in Northern Ireland – this, annoyingly, remains unresolved at the end of the episode, though it suggests fractures in the Thursday family which may have future implications. Joan Thursday gets closer to Jim Strange – is there any value in the fan theory that they will marry?

In the deranged denouement, the three knife-wielding killers explain the plot to Morse, then Fred turns up mob-handed and carts everyone away, variously to jail, the loony bin and the hospital. Morse agrees to take some time off to sober up – but there’s no real sign of tension between him and Fred.

If we were expecting this episode to mark any sort of transition to the ‘McNutt years’ in Kidlington, or towards an end to the series, we are disappointed; though there may be a clue when Morse remarks that the snow is ‘beginning to Thaw’.

It’s been hard going, this brief season, not as thoroughly annoying as last season’s operatic nonsense, but still some way away from the thoughtful and skilfully written early episodes of Endeavour, and certainly of Lewis and Inspector Morse. Certainly we’ll be back for more if there is indeed more to come, but like Morse himself, it will be with a sort of weary resignation rather than with genuine enthusiasm.

Chris Jenkins

EPISODE RATING:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

SERIES RATING:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

READ MORE: OUR EPISODE ONE REVIEW

READ MORE: OUR EPISODE TWO REVIEW

The 10 Best Crime Dramas This Week (Monday 27th September – Sunday 3rd October)

We’re now into October, and, thanks to a few series finishing their runs, we get a whole slew of new series. Check out Søren ‘The Killing’ Sveistrup’s The Chestnut Man for some serial killer drama, Nordic style, and two new big shows on the UK’s top channels – Ridley Road on BBC One and Hollington Drive on ITV. Enjoy!

1 The Chestnut Man *NEW UK PREMIERE SERIES*
S1 E1-6/6

A young woman is found brutally murdered in a playground and one of her hands is missing. Above her hangs a small man made of chestnuts.
Wednesday 29th September, Netflix

2 Hollington Drive *NEW UK PREMIERE SERIES*
S1 E1/6

Grief tears through a picturesque suburban street when 10-year-old Alex Boyd is declared missing. Sisters Theresa and Helen struggle to hold their lives and families together as secrets begin to surface in the wake of the tragedy. Theresa is troubled by her own son’s behaviour – is it possible that he was somehow involved in Alex’s disappearance?
Wednesday 29th September, 9pm, ITV

3 Ridley Road *NEW UK PREMIERE SERIES*
S1 E1/4

Jewish hairdresser Vivien walks out on her wedding in 1962 to go in search of her lost love Jack in London – but is shocked to see him apparently at a rally by a neo-Nazi movement. She discovers that he and her own estranged uncle are agents for a secret underground movement battling far-right extremism. When a confrontation at a Jewish school leaves Jack missing and a student dead, Vivien is persuaded to take up his assignment as an undercover operative.
Sunday 3rd October, 9pm, BBC One

4 The North Water *NEW UK PREMIERE EPISODE*
S1 E4/5

Drax has a daring opportunity to escape, but must convince Cavendish to help him. Otto’s vision comes to life as Sumner hunts a bear, but he strays too far into icy oblivion.
Friday 1st October, 9.30pm, BBC Two

5 Silent Witness *NEW UK PREMIERE EPISODES*
S24 E7&8/10

A tricky murder case leads Jack and Nikki into the world of underground boxing, while a talented forensic ecologist proves to be just what the team needs. Jack’s brother Ryan is released from prison and comes to live with him and Conor, creating a struggle to maintain peace and keep his secrets.
Monday 27th and Tuesday 28th September, 9pm, BBC One

6 Wolfe *NEW UK PREMIERE EPISODE*
S1 E4/6

The forensic scientist and the team end up in the sewers of Manchester when colossal fatberg is found to hold the remains of a seemingly sadistic ritual killing. As they piece together the dissected victim, they construct a timeline from everything that people flush down the lavatory, unearthing a complicated web of interpersonal relationships, sexual liberation and prejudice.
Friday 1st October, 9pm, Sky Max

7 Grantchester *NEW UK PREMIERE EPISODE*
S6 E5/8

As the day of Leonard’s trial dawns, Will and Geordie are called upon to investigate an audacious robbery from a bank security van in Cambridge, which has had tragic repercussions for an innocent bystander. Questioning the apprehended suspect Malcy Smith and the bank security guard Wilson Black, Will and Geordie have a hunch that something about their account of events doesn’t quite add up.
Friday 1st October, 9pm, ITV

8 Happy Valley *REPEAT*
S1 E1/6

Catherine Cawood is the sergeant on duty when accountant Kevin Weatherill enters her police station to report a crime – the kidnapping of his boss’s daughter. Although he originally came up with the plan as a way of paying for his children’s private education, he eventually backed out. However, his partner is dangerous local drug kingpin Ashley Cowgill – and he has gone ahead with the plot anyway. The case hits a nerve for Catherine, who has lost her own daughter and is determined to bring the captors to justice.
Tuesday 28th September, 9pm, Alibi

9 The Brokenwood Mysteries *NEW UK PREMIERE EPISODE*
S7 E4/6

Mike, Kristin, and the team look into the murder of a farmer’s market owner, who staggers into the crowd with a garden implement embedded into her back.
Monday 27th September, 8pm, Drama

10 For Life *NEW UK PREMIERE SERIES*
S1 E1/10

The return of the legal drama about a wrongly convicted prisoner-turned-lawer. Aaron must find a way to gain the upper hand on Maskins, while Marie faces criminal charges for assisting Aaron in previous cases.
Monday 27th September, 9pm, Sky Witness