'Endeavour: The Final Season' Begins with a Prelude to the End

A brief montage of scenes opens Season 9, the final season of Endeavour. Musicians and audience members gather for a concert by the Oxford Concert Orchestra, back in town after an extensive tour abroad. Sir Alexander Lemertov (Nicholas Farrell) conducts Mendelssohn with violin soloist Christina Poole (Kirstin Louie). A man is pursued down an alley, stops briefly in a phone box, and then is captured and tortured.

At the Thursdays’ home, Win polishes the frame of a photograph of their missing son Sam (Jack Bannon). And Endeavour Morse (Sean Evans) is back in Oxford, sitting peacefully by the river doing a crossword. Some things don’t change in the city of the dreaming spires, or do they?

Morse is back in Oxford following his alcoholism treatment, which DCI Fred Thursday (Roger Allam) and CS Reginald Bright (Anton Lesser) discuss in hushed tones. Bright, planning to retire, offers Thursday a promotion but at a different station. Word in the department is Morse had an extended holiday in the west of England, and he tells DS Jim Strange (Sean Rigby) he’s been following Hardy’s footsteps. Strange responds with Laurel & Hardy, “There’s another fine mess.” (Maybe he knows Morse is referring to Thomas Hardy and is winding him up.) In any case, the only notable difference is Morse no longer goes to the pub.