Season 6 of "Endeavour" is a short one (of 4 long and intricate episodes) that sort-of maintains the previous high standards, but "Deguello" (that's the Spanish word describing a "no quarter given" bugle call of the kind heard by the defenders of The Alamo) is in a stratospherically-high class of its own. Certainly - mercifully - it gives closure in most of the areas where we are longing for that, but also finds time to add new stories and aspects, not least a reference to the Ronan Point partial collapse of a tower block from 1968.
It's impossible - and in fact rather worthless - to explain exactly what we have here. Fans of the series will understand, while those who want to try "Endeavour" will need - like Morse himself - to get a bit of training and shaping before they mature through to this point! It's worth the "effort" of watching a number of previous episodes and series before coming here, believe me.
But OK, for the record (and perhaps for the makers to understand from a fan the artistic triumph they have achieved...)
Oxford was always different from Cambridge in (also) being a working-class manufacturing town in the Midlands, if tantalisingly close to natural and cultural beauty at Blenheim Palace, the Cotswolds and so on. Oxford has "Town and Gown" issues writ large, and many of them are visible here. Now, I can just remember 1968/9 (moon landings and all), and that is a different country. Back then we said "it's as many as 24 years after World War II", while now we say "it was only 24 years after WW2". And everybody back then was somehow living in that shadow, as does this episode.
But the late 60s were - for those of us living through them "the peak of cutting-edge modernity and coolness" - NASA offered the serious side, high-rise building the technical side, entertainments and other things the cool side. Yet, looking back on it, it was still remarkably "old-fashioned"!
In this episode the good and bad of the old meets the good and bad of the new, and where better for that to happen than in Oxford?
And that means old and new ways of being a villain, and old and new ways of being corrupt. This is vividly portrayed here, with a many a telling line and plot detail.
Of course Shaun Evans's Morse personifies "Town and Gown", and - reasonably resilient as the character is - he is made to feel effete by some really rough characters here, who feel such impunity (with friends in high places) that they are not at all afraid to threaten him "out in the open". The same people come after Reginald Bright, in broad daylight, and the plot-twist that saves him from being murdered ruthlessly has to be seen to be believed, and enjoyed with an EXQUISITE mix of laughter and tears!!! The same people also come after pathologist Dr DeBryn - in another SUPERB performance from James Bradshaw.
If Morse's were the best characterisation here, we would be doing well; but yet-higher heights are reached by Anton Lesser's aforementioned Bright and Roger Allam's Thursday. Both characters suffer their own tragedy, and while one is resolutely upper-class and the other resolutely lower-middle-class, the mix of contrast and shared experience, deference and fellow-feeling is splendid and touching. These actors act their hearts out, yet merge with the roles effortlessly, and - when both characters determine to act bravely from their reduced positions of power it is a very fine (if also eccentric) thing indeed to behold. Both resist corruption - either immediately or ultimately, and we cheer them on loudly for doing so. In his own way, Sean Rigby as Jim Strange does great work here too. His character was never averse to utilising Freemasonry to get ahead, and that was what developed a rift between he and Morse. But the character has been working to redeem himself, pressured by the desire to see a huge wrong rectified. And here he gets to see up close the continuum that exists between more minor backscratching and hideous corruption wrapped up with negligence.
If you feel that there is a kind of theatrically epic (pseudo-Shakespearean) setting up of right and wrong here, you'd be entirely right. And yet, thanks to deft touches, and underacting rather than overacting, it works compellingly, without looking artificial at all.
Thus, in some amazing and genuine way, we have been transported back to the late 60s, and can - now at last - take a bird's-eye view of the awful and awesome and often-hypcritical spectacle that that represents.
It's a privilege to do that.
The way that Bright effortlessly takes command when real disaster strikes (at the tower-block collapse) is also moving in the extreme (if definitely in a post-imperial sense), while the Detective that falls apart at that moment - Ronnie Box, ultimately experiences a turn of character that sees him save the situation in a way that costs him dear. This also works surprisingly well, as it was never quite possible for we viewers to hate Box, while it was easy enough to feel fear and resentment towards his (apparent) junior Alan Jago.
These are just hints of the immaculate plot-generation and staging that takes place here, as wrapped up with touchingly understated performances, fine or even exquisite settings and filming, and all of that meaning associated with the march of time and the way that, while some things change, many are eternal.
Wow!
22 out of 24 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink