Recap / Endeavour S 5 E 05 Quartet

All this with the cloak-and-dagger mob? It's not my idea of coppering.

The spy episode.

October 1968. During a televised international games tournament, one of the German competitors is shot dead. A member of the Swiss team is suspected, although the competitor who was meant to represent Switzerland in the same race as the German is subsequently found dead in his hotel room.

It's not long before Special Branch takes over from the local police. Shortly afterwards, two mysterious men approach Morse and point him towards perfumier Sebastian Fenix, who employed Pfuscher (the dead German) as a translator.

Despite warnings, Morse investigates alone, discovering a spy ring in Oxford and a link between Fenix and the sale of secrets to the Soviet Union, also involving a respected academic. Thursday meanwhile deals with a turf war and a domestic abuse case which ties in with Morse's sleuthing.

This episode contains examples of:

• Ambiguous Ending: For Elsie Dozier. She's in the clear for killing her husband and is unrepentant about her Communist beliefs, but after Morse leaves we see Millie Bagshot and the two Special Branch men approach her shop. Whether they intend to interrogate her, arrest her or just kill her is left unstated.
• Ambiguous Situation: The question of whether the KGB hitman who murdered Pfuchser (and, presumably, Wefeli) is the same person who attacks Morse and is killed by Millie Bagshot. Also, it is not entirely clear how Pfuscher's spare hotel room key ended up in Fenix's fish tank.
• Always Murder: Oh yes indeed. Five bodies in this episode, all murdered. Karl Pfuscher was shot by the KGB before he could expose the NEWS spy ring to the British authorities, while Werfeli (the Swiss competitor) was killed so Pfuscher's assassin could take his place. The unnamed assailant who attacks Morse is shot by Millie Bagshot. Mullion shoots Professor Richmond before he can confess to Thursday and Morse. Joe Dozier is killed by his wife Elsie, although Fred Thursday, aware that Joe had been physically abusing her for years, is happy to say it was an accident.
• Badass Boast: Fred Thursday, when Morse accuses him of playing God after he covers up Elsie's killing of Joe.
  Thursday: God was out. He left me in charge.
• Call-Forward:
  • When Morse and Fancy search the hotel room, a seemingly innocent observation by Fancy prompts Morse to find what he’s been looking for — which echoes the working relationship between Morse and Lewis in the original series.
  • A more subtle one is the newspaper cutting with the headline "Hans, knees and boompsadaisy" which alludes to a Valentine's card that Morse reads in the original series episode "Death is Now My Neighbour".
• Chekhov's Gun: Chekhov's umbrella, in this case. It's a Parasol of Pain.
• Continuity Nod: A few.
  • On the wall outside the Doziers' shop is an advertisement for Grimsby Pilchards, the fictional product which was endorsed by Diana Day in Series 2.
  • Julian Calendar, the TV chat show host from "Canticle", returns as the host of Jeux sans Frontières.
  • Fred Thursday has a telephone call with his brother Charlie, who appeared in "Cartouche". Although they have rather pressing things to discuss, Thursday subsequently tells Morse that Carol said to say hello.
• Continuity Snarl: George Fancy is in the British team for the games tournament, but sprains his ankle shortly before his race, leading Morse to take his place. There is no hint that he’s Playing Sick, but he is walking perfectly fine for the rest of the episode.
• Contrived Coincidence: Max DeBryn happens to be in the crowd for the games tournament, and so is on hand to help deal with the injured child who is inadvertently shot by Pfuscher's killer.
• Diegetic Switch: The music played over the opening credits — Handel's "Zadok the Priest" — is revealed to be a recording that Professor Richmond is playing (and air-conducting) in his office.
• Dirty Communists: Operating in Oxford since before the Cold War, it seems. Professor Richmond of Beaufort College was a talent-spotter for British intelligence, but was secretly working for Moscow, and sold out everyone he recruited. His fellow-agents were Mullion (the college porter) and Joe and Elsie Dozier. Pfuscher, who had himself been recruited by Richmond, is killed by a KGB assassin during a televised sporting event.
• Domestic Abuse: Joe Dozier beats his wife Elsie, who claims to have walked into a door, fallen down the stairs, etc. She later kills him, and Fred Thursday, who knows what's been going on, is happy to say that it was an accident.
• Doomed by Canon: Morse's relationship with Claudine comes to its inevitable end when she goes off to report on Vietnam. He tries to make light of it.
  Morse: You know me. Easy come, easy go.
• Double Agent: Karl Pfuscher was one of these. He was recruited by British intelligence while at Oxford but subsequently turned by the Russians, who had his details because the man who'd recruited him in the first place — Professor Richmond — was actually a Russian mole. He then turned against the Russians after his Czech girlfriend was killed when the Red Army went in to crush the Prague Spring, only to be killed himself before he could inform British intelligence about Professor Richmond's true allegiance.
• Drowning My Sorrows: After Claudine leaves, Morse heads straight for the nearest pub. Joan Thursday finds him there.
  Joan: You shouldn't drink on an empty stomach.
  Morse: That's exactly when you should drink.
  Joan: Drown your sorrows?
  Morse: Just marinade them a little. It's what they're for, isn't it? Sorrows.
• Foreshadowing: Averted by Claudine's assertion that sometimes, things are exactly as they seem. In this episode, not so much.
• Headscratchers: A couple:
  • How is it that the usually highbrow Morse has been persuaded to go anywhere near the games tournament, let alone take part as a last-minute substitute?
    • He was probably talked into it by Strange and Trewlove, in order to support George Fancy in the tournament. They probably dragged De Bryn along too.
  • Why would the KGB go out of their way to kill one of the Swiss competitors in order to kill Pfuscher during a televised event, when they could have presumably had the latter killed in a much less public fashion without the need of having to kill someone else in order to get to him?
• Hero of Another Story: Millie Bagshot has evidently been an effective intelligence officer for years, and is operating in what's very much a man's world.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Before joining the Oxford Mail, Dorothea Frazil covered the Korean War and wrote a book about her experiences there.
  • Morse was quite the bridge player in his student days, according to Professor Richmond.
• The Men in Black: The two Special Branch agents are tall, well-dressed, and never say a word on camera, which makes them all the more sinister. They show up late in the evening while Max is examining the murdered Swiss and West German Jeux sans Frontières team members, and the next morning, Max says they explained they were taking over the investigation and removed the bodies and the other pieces of evidence. They show up again as Mullion is taken into custody, and one final time along with Millie Bagshot after Morse confronts Elsie Dozier over being a Soviet mole.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Millie Bagshot's name references real-life intelligence officer Milicent Bagot.
• Red Herring:
  • Although Pfuscher worked as a translator for Sebastian Fenix, this has little to do with his murder; Fenix is of interest to British intelligence thanks to his shady dealings with the Russians, which are hinted to include the sale of chemical secrets in return for raw materials for his perfume business, but the fact that he briefly employed Pfuscher appears to be coincidental. The KGB killed him because he was going to expose the NEWS spy ring.
  • Pfuscher's East German background, which Max found out about when checking out his dental work, had nothing to do with his death.
• Shout-Out:
  • Pfuscher is murdered while taking part in the European 'silly games in silly costumes' programme Jeux sans Frontières ("Games without Borders"), which happens to be being filmed in Oxford; Morse is representing the British team as a last-minute stand-in for the injured Fancy. To British audiences, Jeux sans Frontières would be better known as It's a Knockout.
  • When Joan Thursday asks Morse how he's getting on living with Strange, he replies: "It's hardly the Yellow House". This refers to the Yellow House in Arles where Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin lived for a short time; their relationship was a stormy one and they often quarrelled.
  • A drawing by Pfuscher leads Morse to a house on Sebastopol Terrace, which is where Eric and Hattie live.
  • The Doziers clearly resemble the Garnetts from Till Death Us Do Part; the actor playing Joe is made-up to resemble Alf Garnett, and even uses his derisive "Silly moo!" catchphrase. In addition, his long-suffering wife is called Elsie, just like her sitcom counterpart. Unlike in Till Death Us Do Part, though, their rather dysfunctional relationship is very much not played for laughs — although some viewers may find the idea of an Alf Garnett expy being a commie spy amusing.
  • According to Bright, finding Cromwell Ames should be easier than finding a certain elusive literary figure:
    Bright: Good God! It's a machete-wielding West Indian with a distinctive facial scar we're trying to find. In Oxford! It's not The Scarlet Pimpernel!
  • The poetry of William Wordsworth (specifically, "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802") is used by Pfuscher to indicate where he has hidden the material he was bringing to his British handlers; Morse's poetic knowledge enables him to find it, with a little help from Fancy.
  • Also quite a few espionage-related ones, appropriately enough...
    • "Vespertine", the name of Fenix's perfume, clearly echoes Vesper Lynd, James Bond's love interest in Casino Royale.
    • Morse and Claudine's punting trip has echoes of James Bond and Sylvia Trench's similar outing in From Russia with Love.
    • The stairs near the Albert Hall where Morse follows Singleton were used in a scene in The Ipcress File.
    • Sebastian Fenix acts like a Bond villain — he's got a tank of deadly fish in his office, and tells Morse that his secretary can make him a martini.
    • Pfuscher is said to have come from Werfen in Bavaria — the town where the Schloss Adler is located in Where Eagles Dare ^note  in actual fact, Werfen is a village in Austria where parts of Where Eagles Dare were filmed, with the local castle, Hohenwerfen Castle, appearing as the Schloss Adler . Appropriately, he booked his second hotel room in the name of "Smith".
    • Thursday's response to Morse's updates about his meeting with Singleton and the attempt on his life:
      Thursday: Chasing down Communist spies? We're meat-and-two-veg coppers, not Danger Man! Leave the do-or-die stuff to Special Branch.
• Shout-Out to Shakespeare: The episode begins with a quote from Henry V.
• Spy Fiction: This epiosde is mostly of the Stale Beer variety, with a Bathtub Gin chaser and a dash of Bleach.
• Story Arc: There are new developments in the following:
  • Fred Thursday's financial problems, if his side of the telephone conversation with his brother is anything to go by, are still in evidence although at the moment he is still on course to retire.
  • The turf war between Eddie Nero and Cromwell Ames escalates, with Ames's men attacking a pub run by Nero and a confrontation between the two men.
  • Following the formation of the Thames Valley Constabulary, the fate of Cowley police station is still hanging in the balance.
• What Could Have Been: An in-universe example: As a student, Morse was subject to an MI6 recruitment attempt by Professor Richmond. His career could have taken a wholly different path ... which, given that Richmond was actually a KGB mole, would likely have involved him being 'turned' by Moscow, as happened with Pfuscher.