Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Shaun Evans, Roger Allam, James Bradshaw, Anton Lesser, James Wilby, Gordon Kennedy, Abigail Thaw, Oliver Lansley, Jack Laskey, Sean Rigby, Vince Leigh, Shvorne Marks, Caroline O’ Neill, Lasco Atkins, Jack Bannon, Sarah Beck Mather, Oliver Coleman, Mark Flitton, Abby Ford, Max Gold, Andrew Gower, Martin Hancock, Emma Hiddleston, Simon Kunz, Paul Ridley, Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Connor Sitton, George Turvey, Sarah Vickers, Nick Waring, Sarah Woodward.

The final episode of the second series of Endeavour ended thankfully with a bang and not as had been half suspected a whimper. The series has certainly seen more peaks and troughs that had been allowed to happen in the opening series that looks at life of the young Oxford City policeman before the much missed John Thaw gave the performances of his life as Morse. Even when the story line has waned slightly, it still has been a riveting rummage into the world of 1960s law-breaking and proper criminal detection.

The series has also seen a progressive thread throughout as well its four part run. The constant referrals to previous cases has been an interesting arc and the fourth story, Neverland, captured the essence of what the future Inspector Morse means to a generation of fans. This was the finale in which the fan could only hope for, the scene for which had been coming over the last four weeks and which stretched Shaun Evans, Roger Allam and Anton Lesser to the limit of their acting skills and then threw them over the line in some kind of heroic gesture.

With Morse and D.I. Thursday finding themselves with nowhere to turn, with nobody to trust but themselves, enemies from within come crawling out of the woodwork to tear the team apart and the investigation, which takes a very sour note and one in which could be seen as mimicking possible real life events very closely, allies and friends are in very short supply and in a nod to the future, Morse tells the young P.C. Strange that now is the time he has to choose a side.

This was by far the best episode of the series and it was complemented by the appearance of Gordon Kennedy playing against type as Alderman Wintergreen, the superb Oliver Lansley as the ventriloquist Benny Topping, performing in such a way that was both heart breaking and beautifully restrained and James Wilby as A.C.C. Clive Deare. Indeed James Wilby gave such a measured performance, that it could only make audiences wonder why he has not been given this type of role before.

For Shaun Evans and Roger Allam though they have proved to be such a big hit together that like John Thaw and Kevin Whately in the original Morse series, you could never imagine anybody else portraying the parts.

A dramatic end to a good series, one in which you can only hope that viewers haven’t seen the last of the young Endeavour Morse.

Ian D. Hall