History Recap / EndeavourS1E01Girl

* HeKnowsTooMuch: The killer offed Frank Cartwright in order to eliminate any risk of him knowing about and exposing Derek's minor criminal activities, and Rev. Monkford for witnessing Cartwright's killing.

** How exactly were the police able to contact the gas meter man's superior at night, and how did this lead to Mrs Bright's bridge night being ruined? One would have thought that in an age before mobile phones, they wouldn't have been able to get hold of the superior until he turned up to work the following morning, following which the meter man would've been apologetically released after a night in the cells.

* ShoutOut: At one point, Jakes quips "I know it's not ''Gideon's Way''" -- referring to an ITV crime series broadcast between 1964 and 1966, based on the novels by John Creasey. The title character, George Gideon, is a dedicated senior police officer who's also a pipe-smoking family man ... not a million miles from Fred Thursday.

** Dr. Stromming has probably left Oxford, given that his wife murdered his underage lover.

** Why did Frank Cartwright go to the trouble of getting a postal order for ten shillings to send to Pamela when he could have just posted her a ten-shilling note?

* DamselInDistress: Pamela Walters, a single mother who suffers from epilepsy and has been poorly treated by her family because of this. Thursday correctly identifies that Morse (the only person to express sympathy for her plight) has something of a blind spot where seemingly vulnerable women are concerned; this is the first time in the show that this particular aspect of Morse's character is explored, and it won't be the last.

** Chief Superintendent Crisp and DS Lott have presumably either resigned from the police force or transferred elsewhere. [[spoiler: we later learn, in the last episode, that Lott transferred to London.]]

** Chief Superintendent Crisp and DS Lott have presumably either resigned from the police force or transferred elsewhere.

* AlwaysMurder: Margaret Bell is initially thought to have died of natural causes. That turns out not to have been the case — although this trope is still subverted as the man who supplied her with the amphetamines that killed her had not intended for this to happen as he was unaware of her heart condition. The second and third deaths in this episode — a doctor shot in a public toilet and a vicar shot in his church — are obvious cases of murder.

* ChekhovsGun: Chekhov's periodic table, more like. Sir Edmund's late wife's pistol is an aversion; it does turn up later on in the story, and is assumed to have been the murder weapon for a short time, but it doesn't get fired.

* ComfortingTheWidow: Dr Prentiss tries this on Helen Cartwright shortly after the murder of her husband.

* TheGhost: Mrs Bright, who (we learn) likes to play bridge. She will eventually be seen, but not for several series.

* PapaWolf: Wallace Clark killed Dr Frank Cartwright to protect his son Derek, who he knew was engaging in minor criminal activities. He was afraid that Cartwright, who had been blackmailed into supplying the amphetamines that killed Margaret Bell, would go to the police which would in turn incriminate Derek further. Wallace did not know that Cartwright was unaware that Derek was the man blackmailing him, but he couldn't take that chance.

* SeriousBusiness: Mess with Mrs Bright's bridge night at your peril.

** Morse reads Creator/AlfredLordTennyson's The Lady of Shalott to Pamela.
* SympatheticAdulterer: Morse sees Pamela, a lonely and troubled young woman who had an affair with her sister's husband Frank Cartwright (and had his baby as a result), as one of these.

** Chief Superintendent Crisp and DS Lott have presumably resigned from the police force.

** Dr Stromming has probably left Oxford, given that his wife murdered his underage lover.

* AlwaysMurder: Margaret Bell is initially thought to have died of natural causes. That turns out not to have been the case — although this trope is still subverted as the man who supplied her with the amphetamines that killed her had not intended for this to happen as he was unaware of her heart condition. The second and third deaths in this episode — a doctor shot in a public toilet and a vicar shot in his church — are more obvious cases of murder.

* DamselInDistress: Pamela Walters, a single mother who suffers from epilepsy and has been poorly treated by her family because of this. Thursday correctly identifies that Morse (the only person to express sympathy for her plight) has something of a blind spot where seemingly vulnerable women are concerned; is the first time in the show that this particular aspect of Morse's character is explored, and it won't be the last.

* CallBack: Morse is shown listening to a Rosalind Calloway record. She was the murderer in [[Recap/EndeavourS1E01Endeavour the pilot episode]].

* GroinAttack: Pamela's conviction for assault was for doing one of these on an attendant at the mental institution she'd been sent to as a teenager. Her side of the story, which was not believed at the time, was that he was trying to rape her.

* AlwaysMurder: Margaret Bell is initially thought to have died of natural causes. That turns out not to have been the case — although this trope is subverted as the man who supplied her with the amphetamines that killed her had not intended for this to happen as he was unaware of her heart condition. The second and third deaths in this episode — a doctor shot in a public toilet and a vicar shot in his church — are more obvious cases of murder.

The periodic table episode.

* TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry: Sloan's daughters, Helen and Pamela, have this dynamic. What it ultimately boils down to is that responsible Helen resents the fact that irresponsible Pamela is not only the more attractive of the two, she had a baby while Helen did (or perhaps could) not.
* TheGhost: Mrs Bright, who likes to play bridge. She will eventually be seen, but not for several series.

* ThinkingOutLoud: Morse does this when he uses his knowledge of the Periodic Table to decipher the Rev. Monkford's [[DeadManWriting blackboard message]]. The numbers refer to chemical elements, which spell out the name of the killer.

* SherlockScan: Morse does this with the bicycle found by the public toilet, to the disbelief of Bright.

** This episode introduces Strange, who will become Morse's boss. Here, he's a uniformed Constable; his first name, never previously revealed, is given here as Jim (after James Grout, who played him in said original series). Their first meeting is somewhat awkward, and they later have a disagreement over the importance of rules and regulations while reading up for their sergeant's exams -- foreshadowing their sometimes-turbulent future relationship.

** Did Frank Cartwright know who was blackmailing him? Derek Clark could easily have done so without ever meeting him face-to-face. Wallace Clark even admits that he didn't know if Cartwright knew this or not, but he just couldn't leave it to chance as Cartwright could have easily gone to the police after realising that he had supplied the amphetamines that killed Margaret Bell.
** Does Helen Cartwright know or suspect that her sister Pamela's child is actually her husband's son? She and her father, Sir Edmund Sloan, seem to have taken Pamela's story of her having married a man who was subsequently killed in a car crash (leaving her a pregnant widow) at face value even though, as Morse proves, the story can be discredited with a fairly normal bit of detective work (the man existed and died as stated, and there are even newspaper reports of his death, but Somerset House has no record of him ever being married).

** How exactly were the police able to contact the gas meter man's superior at night, and how did this lead to Mrs Bright's bridge night being ruined? One would have thought they wouldn't have been able to get hold of the superior until he turned up to work the following morning, following which the meter man would've been apologetically released after a night in the cells.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Bright, when he points out that Morse, a mere Detective Constable, shouldn't be Thursday's bagman as that's a job that's supposed to be done by a Detective Sergeant. He also believes that Morse is just too inexperienced to be a detective -- an attitude that's reinforced by Morse making two big mistakes, namely arresting an innocent man (the gas meter man) and overlooking the fact that Pamela Walters, a suspect in the murder investigation, has a criminal past.

* RunningGag: Morse has picked up the pattern in Win Thursday's sandwich-making, and is therefore able to tell Fred what's in his sandwich before he takes it out of the wrapper.

* ChekhovsSkill: Although Morse comes across as disdainful to it, reading up on the law (essential if he wants to pass the sergeants' exam) does pay off, as he is able to use what he learns to threaten Sir Edmund and Helen into not taking Pamela's child with them to America, specifying the exact law they would be breaking by doing that. He also helps Strange get the paperwork right to ensure the (presumably) successful prosecution of the gas meter thief.