I'm just trying to keep an open mind. That's the job, isn't it?
The army episode.
After a fashion shoot at a military base near Oxford one of the models, Jean Ward, is found murdered. One of the soldiers whose job was to protect the models during their time at the base is Sam Thursday, Fred Thursday's son. Suspicion falls on him and Private Oswald, a black soldier who was also under instruction to protect the models, but Morse is not convinced.
Soon after, another murder — of the photographer from the modelling shoot — occurs on the base. However, it is not clear if there is connection as each murder has a different modus operandi. Suspicion falls on the unrepentant Nazi sympathiser, Lady Bayswater — who happens to be Jean's stepmother. With Jean dead, she stands to inherit the family fortune.
Meanwhile, Oxford seethes as a protest at a hair salon exposes rising racial tensions in the city.
With Win Thursday putting pressure on Fred to retire, their son under suspicion for murder and Joan getting arrested at the protest, all is not well in the Thursday home.
This episode contains examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Lieutenant-Colonel McDuff, on account of his being a Shell-Shocked Veteran.
- Always Murder: This episode has a body-count of four, three of which are the result of acts of murder. Aristocratic model Moira Creighton-Ward (alias Jean Ward), photographer Justin Farridge and Lieutenant-Colonel McDuff are all killed by Dr. Laidlaw, albeit in different circumstances, for different reasons and by different methods. Finally, Laidlaw himself gets blown up while chasing Morse through the minefield.
- Artistic Licence – History: Laidlaw is trying to recreate a battle from the Second Punic War (218-201 BC) using what are clearly models of nineteenth-century soldiers. Could be in-universe, although no-one (not even Morse) calls him out in this.
- Artistic Licence – Law: None of the police officers or protesters at the hair salon points out that the "No Coloureds" sign in the window would have been illegal in 1968, as discrimination on the "grounds of colour, race, or ethnic or national origins" in public places had been banned in Britain as a result of the Race Relations Act of 1965 (granted, it did not apply to shops refusing to provide services — that came later — but the sign is clearly visible from a public place, ie. the street).
- Artistic Licence – Military: Viewers with experience of armed forces in general and the British Army in particular may take exception to the following:
- The somewhat casual way in which uniforms are worn on the base does not appear to tie in with Army uniform regulations for the time in which the episode is set (or the time at which it was filmed).
- Sam's jacket doesn't have a stripe on it even though he's a lance corporal.
- A civilian is allowed to bring more than one loaded weapon onto the base. Granted, it is plausible that he would manage to sneak a pistol in, but not a rifle.
- There is a rather casual relationship between officers, NCOs and men, to the point where a private back-chats the sergeant major and is not punished in any way.
- To cap it off, there's an unfenced minefield located very close to the barracks.
- Berserk Button: Lady Bayswater presses Fred Thursday's by making disparaging remarks about World War II. He's barely able to control his temper.Thursday: That "unpleasantness", as you call it, cost me six years of my life and untold millions far more!
- Brand X: The King's Own South Oxfordshire Regiment is fictional; its nearest real-life equivalent would be the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (interestingly, the King's Own's cap badge indicates that it is also a light infantry regiment) note .
- The Bus Came Back: Fred and Win Thursday's son Sam, last seen getting on a bus to go and join the Army in "Coda", returns; he's now Lance Corporal Thursday of the King's Own South Oxfordshire Regiment. Amusingly, Fred's parting words of advice to his son back then were: "Don't volunteer for anything" — yet the first thing he does in this episode is volunteer (or rather, get volunteered) for the job of protecting the models.
- Chekhov's Gun: In this case, it's Chekhov's Minefield. Fancy inadvertently wanders onto it while the base is being searched, and it becomes crucial later on in the episode.
- Continuity Nod: A few.
- Morse is still in a relationship with Claudine, the Frenchwoman he met in "Passenger"; he seems more serious about it than she does.
- Noting his housemate's recent string of sexual conquests, including "that blondie one" (Strange having encountered Carol Thursday in "Cartouche" as she was leaving Morse's room but seemingly not realising that she's Fred's niece, probably because he never learned her name), Strange asks him to "leave some for the rest of us".
- Lady Bayswater mentions that her stepdaughter had run up gambling debts in "Bixby's club", referring to the character who appeared in "Ride".
- Contrived Coincidence: Jean just happens to turn up at the military base where Laidlaw is, and he just happens to look out of the window as she arrives. The fact that a senior officer on said base is rumoured to be her biological father also counts.
- Creator Cameo: One of the portraits in Colonel Champion's office recognisably depicts Colin Dexter.
- Dispense with the Pleasantries: Strange quickly gets fed up with Farridge's long-winded answer to Morse's question about his "personal and professional relationship" with Jean Ward.Strange: What DS Morse is asking is: Were you knocking her off?
- Dogged Nice Guy: Fancy, towards Trewlove.
- Everybody Smokes: Even Morse gets in on the habit thanks to his relationship with Claudine. This actually makes him more like the Morse of the novels, who was a cigarette smoker; this aspect of his character was Adapted Out for the TV series, apparently at the request of John Thaw (although Thaw himself was a smoker).
- First-Name Basis: Marcus X likes to insist on it. Morse, being Morse, is less keen.Thursday: Well, if we're on first names, Fred do you? This is Morse.
- Godwin's Law: Averted by the student who refers to Lady Bayswater as a fascist, given that she is an unrepentant Nazi sympathiser who was actually friends with Hitler.
- Headscratchers:
- What did Farridge hope to find when he went back to the army base?
- How come no-one at Lonsdale College had a problem with Laidlaw having all that Nazi memorabilia?
- How come the Thursdays are suddenly concerned about Sam when he hasn't even been mentioned since he left in "Coda"?
- How come Laidlaw (a civilian) has managed to sneak two loaded guns (one of which is a rifle which would not be easy to conceal) onto the base? And how is he able to shoot McDuff with a single shot, but fail to hit Morse despite taking multiple shots?
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Strange covers up the fact that Joan was arrested at the protest at the hair salon, releasing her without charge and implying that he will destroy any paperwork relating to her being nicked.Joan: I've given my name and address.Strange: You let me worry about that.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Moira Creighton-Ward, alias Jean Ward, might have been Colonel Champion's daughter as he was in a relationship with the first Lady Bayswater eight months before her birth. She was named for his mother, although he was never sure if he was the father or not, as the name could have been Lord Bayswater's idea of a joke. Either way, Colonel Champion would not have known that she was on the base the day she was murdered, as she was using her professional name.
- Mr. Fanservice: Morse, who is not wearing much in his bedroom scenes with Claudine.
- Nazi Noblewoman: Lady Bayswater. Some say that Hitler danced at her wedding; he is visibly in a wedding photo of hers that she has on display in her home.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: A couple in this episode.
- Lady Bayswater's maiden name, Charity Mudford, is a play on Unity Mitford, an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler — although she's more of a pastiche of Unity's sister Diana, the wife of British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley.
- Marcus X is evidently a British version of Malcolm X. Truth in Television perhaps, for Britain had a Michael X, a criminal and self-styled civil rights activist who became the first non-white person to be prosecuted under the Race Relations Act.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: The immigration debate between Nazi sympathiser Lady Bayswater and civil rights activist Marcus X mirrors a real-life Oxford Union debate involving Malcolm X in 1964.Marcus X: Long before many of your forefathers walked this "green and pleasant land", it was the Nubian who stood watch on Hadrian's Wall. The motion before this esteemed house calls for all settled immigrants to be returned to their ancestral lands. So, that being the case, I have to say: [turns to Lady Bayswater] "After you".
- Red Herring: As far as the murder of Jean Ward is concerned, there's damning circumstantial evidence against Private Oswald (he lost a beret which was found stained with blood), Sam Thursday isn't exactly in the clear, and Lady Bayswater had a clear motive but little by way of an opportunity. The question of the victim's parentage is quickly dismissed as having anything to do with her murder.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Lieutenant-Colonel McDuff is one of these thanks to his experiences in Korea which included injury, single-handedly holding off an enemy attack and imprisonment. He deals with it by heavy drinking, to which his fellow-officers turn a blind eye.
- Shout-Out: A few.
- The King's Own South Oxfordshire Regiment fought at Mboto Gorge, although the heroic actions of a certain Edmund Blackadder are not mentioned.
- One of Sam's fellow-squaddies is a Private Collier, who is nicknamed "Geordie" — a nod to Terry Collier of The Likely Lads who joined the Army in the last episode of that show.
- Sergeant-Major Davies is named for Windsor Davies, who played Sergeant-Major Williams in It Ain't Half Hot, Mum.
- Fred and Win Thursday took dancing lessons at the Stuart-Hargreaves ballroom dancing studio, another reference in this show to Hi-de-Hi!
- Before they dance, Fred quotes from Casablanca.Fred: Here's looking at you.
- During Thursday's confrontation with Lady Bayswater, mention is made of two British fascists, "Spode and Webley". Both are literary parodies of Sir Oswald Mosley — Roderick Spode from P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves novels, Everard Webley from Aldous Huxley's Point Counter Point.
- The first victim, Jean Ward, was a member of the Creighton-Ward family, meaning she was related to Lady Penelope. The family's manservant is also called Barker, a name not dissimilar to that of Lady Penelope's butler Parker.
- Hazel Radowicz describes Jean Ward — a picture of whom is on the wall of the hair salon — as "the face that launched a thousand snips", a pun on the famous line about Helen of Troy in Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.
- This episode's poetry quotes are of a suitably military nature — McDuff recites part of Henry Newbolt's "Vitai Lampada", while Thursday goes for Henry Reed's "Naming of Parts".
- Smoking Hot Sex: Morse and Claudine enjoy a post-coital cigarette. Which is also a pre-coital cigarette.
- Some of My Best Friends Are X: Hazel Radowicz may not want any "coloureds" in her hair salon, but she's not a racist, or so she says...Hazel Radowicz: You can't call me a racialist, not by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, I went to see Sammy Davis Jr. in Golden Boy at the London Palladium only three months back. I think that speaks volumes.
- Stage Name: In-universe; Moira Creighton-Ward models under the name Jean Ward, probably to avoid being associated with her family's Nazi-sympathising past.
- Stalker with a Crush: Dr. Laidlaw was this to Jean Ward, which is why he bought all of the modelling pictures of her that had adorned Hazel Radowicz's hair salon.
- Would Hit a Girl: One of the protesters at the hair salon gives WPC Trewlove a black eye.
