Line #46 Recap/EndeavourS2E03Sway


1	->''It's never the one you haven't met. Only the one you can't forget.''
2
3	The department store episode.
4
5	November 1966. When Vivienne Haldane is found murdered in her house, she becomes the third victim of a serial killer who strangles married women with a silk stocking and removes their wedding rings after death -- though the women are unknown to each other. Separated from her husband, Mrs. Haldane had a secret lover, referred to in her diary as 'X'; like one of the other victims, she was seen getting into a green car.
6
7	The stockings are a unique brand, Le Minou Noir, and have only one retail outlet in Oxford, Burridge's department store. Here, Thursday is shocked to find that widowed Italian saleslady Luisa Armstrong is a former partisan he met in the war but believed to be dead. Morse interviews the stockings' supplier, shifty Joey Lisk, who later tries to force himself onto Gloria Deeks, an attractive assistant at the store who has many admirers.
8
9	With the discovery of a fourth corpse, the evidence seems to point to Lisk -- but when an employee of Burridge's is found dead, it becomes clear that somebody at the store is the real killer, and is trying to frame Lisk.
10
11	!!This episode contains examples of:
12	* BlindPeopleWearSunglasses: Talfryn Pugh, the blind piano tuner, wears dark glasses.
13	* TheCon: Jellicoe, the store detective at Burridge's, has one of these on the go -- he apprehends middle-aged women in the store, plants evidence on them and accuses them of shoplifting. When he threatens to call the police, they offer to pay him off, and he takes their money and lets them go. Things go awry when he picks Win Thursday as his latest victim; she calls his bluff, which results in Morse coming over to the store and uncovering the scam.
14	* ContinuityNod: The Diana Day poster [[RunningGag continues to get defaced]]. Back in [[Recap/EndeavourS2E01Trove "Trove"]], Miss Day had launched the summer collection at Burridge's.
15	* CreatorCameo: Creator/ColinDexter can be seen on the bus that Win and Joan catch.
16	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Norman Parkis is stated to have spent part of his childhood at Blenheim Vale, an institution that features in the next episode, "Neverland". This is also hinted at in the following exchange between Morse and Jakes:
17	-->'''Morse''': Didn't you go to Sunday School?
18	-->'''Jakes''': ''[grimly]'' You don't want to know where I went.
19	* DuringTheWar: Appropriately given that this episode is set in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday, several characters reminisce about what they did in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
20	** Fred Thursday spent part of it with [[LaResistance the partisans]] in Italy. Luisa Armstrong was one of them.
21	** Win Thursday was back on the home front. Fred was flown home specially for a meeting in London; while Win knows it must have been ''very'' important because was Fred wasn't an officer, she has never been told what it was all about.
22	** Charles Highbank was in the Merchant Navy. He fell in love during this time, although he never told the object of his affections about his feelings (possibly because he knew that said object would never reciprocate said feelings because he ''wasn't'' gay, although this is inferred rather than stated outright).
23	** Brian Quinbury was an RAF pilot. He lost a leg, but has never forgotten what flying felt like.
24	--->'''Quinbury''': I turned 20 that month. Can you believe it? Throwing a machine around the sky at 360-odd miles an hour. My son's a year older now than I was then. He doesn't even drive yet.
25	--->'''Morse''': It must have been terrifying.
26	--->'''Quinbury''': Later, perhaps. When the piano stops and the beer runs dry, but not in the moment. It happens so fast. Then it's over and you find yourself alone out on the edge of it. The light up there, my God, and this patchwork below. You fall in love.
27	--->'''Morse''': With what?
28	--->'''Quinbury''': England.
29	* GreenEyedMonster: The motive for the murders. Roy Huggins is out to get Joey Lisk because he had an affair with his wife. However, rather than just trying to kill Lisk, he finds out about some of Lisk's other lovers and ''kills them instead'', in the hope that the police will eventually figure out that Lisk is the link between the murdered women, and arrest him.
30	* {{Headscratchers}}: Just how much does Win Thursday know about what Fred got up to when he was serving overseas DuringTheWar? Particularly concerning his relationship with Luisa...
31	* HiddenDepths: The fact that Fred Thursday spent part of the war in Italy with [[LaResistance the partisans]] indicates that he was probably in Special Forces. Not even Win is entirely sure what he did.
32	* HolidayEpisode: Counts as this since, there isn't a subtrope for the uniquely British Bonfire Night (5th November) and Remembrance Sunday (the Sunday nearest 11th November, which in 1966 was 13th November).
33	** Expecting trouble on Bonfire Night, Bright has several constables go out on the town in "mufti" (ie. plain-clothes). This leads Strange to apprehend Lisk as he's trying to rape Gloria in his car.
34	** Appropriately given the references to UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, this episode is set in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday. Most of the characters are wearing [[UsefulNotes/ThePoppy poppies]], and a sales assistant at Burridge's is reprimanded for turning up to work without one.
35	* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Lisk appears to do this at the start, although it's soon revealed that he's talking to himself in a mirror [[ShoutOut in imitation]] of the Creator/MichaelCaine character in ''Film/{{Alfie}}''.
36	* MundaneSolution: At one of the victims' homes, a clue is discovered in the form of what appears to be a mathematical symbol that's been chalked on a wall. Morse and the less cerebral Jakes have different ideas about what it means; Morse reckons it's the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_symbol infinity symbol]], while Jakes thinks it looks more like "an eight that's had one too many". Turns out, Jakes is right -- it was from a box chalked with the number eight that had been put on its side and leaned against the wall, which ultimately helps to link Roy Huggins with the murder victims.
37	* RedHerring: Joey Lisk, all to obviously -- to the point where he could be considered a CreepyRedHerring. That said, the actual murderer ''is'' setting him up to be the fall guy.
38	* SchlubbyScummySecurityGuard: Mr Jellico, the store detective at Burridge Department store initially appears simply smug and humourless but is [[TheCon secretly running a racket where he picks random middle-aged women and accuses them of shoplifting. He then plants the evidence on them and threatens to call the police, terrifying them into agreeing to pay him off.]] His plans go awry when he picks Win Thursday as his latest victim, leading to her calling his bluff and Morse arriving at the store, who quickly uncovers his scam.
39	* ShoutOut: A few, as ever.
40	** There are plenty of nods to the work of Creator/AlfredHitchcock:
41	*** Gloria is very much a Hitchcock-style blonde femme fatale.
42	*** One of the characters is called [[Film/{{Psycho}} Norman]]. And he owns a [[Film/TheBirds stuffed crow]]. Also, the way in which he is killed (stabbed with a pair of long-bladed scissors) has echoes of ''Film/DialMForMurder''.
43	*** The murderer's ''modus operandi'' (strangling women to death with an item of clothing) is very reminiscent of ''Film/{{Frenzy\|1972}}'' -- as is the fact that he's trying to frame someone else, and that someone else duly [[RedHerring comes to the attention of the police]].
44	** Lisk, the smarmy love rat and RedHerring murder suspect, knowingly styles himself on the Creator/MichaelCaine character in ''Film/{{Alfie}}'' which was released in 1966 -- the year in which this episode is set.
45	--->'''Lisk''': You see, the way I look at it, when it comes to birds, there's two types of men in this world. Them that's got it and them that don't. Know what I mean?
46	** Other nods to Michael Caine include Lisk's taste in cigarettes (French ones, as smoked by Harry Palmer, Caine's character in ''Film/TheIpcressFile'') and the name of DI Chard (it's the name of Creator/StanleyBaker's character in ''Film/{{Zulu}}'', Caine's first big movie).
47	** The set-up at Burridge's may remind some viewers of ''Series/AreYouBeingServed'', especially given the presence of a CampGay sales assistant.
48	** The doomed wartime romance between Fred and Luisa has clear overtones of ''Film/BriefEncounter''.
49	** At his wedding anniversary party, Fred Thursday quotes from the policeman's chorus in ''Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance''.
50	--->'''Thursday''': "A policeman's lot is not a happy one", I'm told, but the lot of a policeman's wife hardly gets a mention...
51	** A character called Pugh who happens to be blind is a clear nod to Blind Pew from ''Literature/TreasureIsland''.

Context Recap / EndeavourS2E03Sway