Set against the backdrop of Fred and Win Thursday’s 25th wedding anniversary and Fireworks Night comes Russell Lewis’s third installment in Endeavour’s second series.
(07 May 2014) The story starts in typical fashion – the death by strangling of three married women, none of which appear connected until Morse makes the sharp observation that none of the victims were found with their wedding rings. In the course of the inquiry, DI Thursday comes across a woman he had “known during the war”, (and, in fact, “known” during the war) who is so shocked at the sight of him she faints – not that he looks any less stunned. Who she is and why she’s important to him are made clear pretty quickly, but what this means for their lives two decades on is less so.
As per usual, Morse makes quite a few leaps of highly educated deductive reasoning, though as is frequently the case in the story of Endeavour’s evolution as a policeman, they’re not always on the nose. In fact, it’s Sergeant Jakes (Jack Laskey) who gleans the key piece of information from a clue left at one murder scene, in his typical salt-of-the-earth manner. The director, Andy Wilson (who has plenty of mysteries under his belt, including Wallander, Miss Marple, and Poirot), is given to leading the audience astray with throwaway red herring shots, so that we’re never quite sure which piece of information might be more important than another – much like actual detecting. Does that raven signify a morbidity that might lead to murder? Or is it just a fascination with a 120 year old poem? ‘Sway’ is not the most delicate of the Endeavour episodes, but perhaps that’s with some intent. After all, war itself (like murder) isn’t a delicate undertaking, as we’re reminded in the story Thursday’s 48-hour pass wedding, the department store manager’s half-rueful, half-wistful remembrance of his RAF days, and the tragic events of Thursday and Luisa’s shared past in war-torn Italy.
Caroline O’Neill’s delightful Win Thursday gets quite a bit more air time than before, her steadily burning love for Fred providing a striking foil to the white-hot flame of amore between Thursday and Luisa. As it plays out, the episode takes us through twists and turns in which we see young Morse begin to understand that not every facet of his mentor is open to his understanding while we’re left holding our breaths in will he/won’t he anticipation. It’s a sign of Fred’s distraction in this episode that he nearly leaves home without his sandwiches.
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Cecile Paoli, is without doubt, the most beautiful of French Women.
She is a master of showing her beauty, by the minimal use of “make up” (my personal opinion) She is the epitome of French Chic (I hope that I have spelled right)!!!!