Recap / Endeavour S 5 E 06 Icarus

If I had found someone, then all this wouldn't matter at all.

The boarding school episode.

After learning that Cowley police station is to close, Morse goes under cover as a teacher at Coldwater School, with Trewlove posing as his wife. They are there to investigate the disappearance of John Ivory, a teacher at the school — something that is of particular interest to the police as the two officers who were investigating his disappearance have died in a car crash. Morse is intrigued to find that gangster Eddie Nero's son, Brett, is one of a group of snarky and sarcastic pupils.

A body discovered in the school grounds turns out to be that of Rowntree, a boy who was expelled for hitting Ivory. Morse finds that Ivory was not popular with other staff members, although the matron tells Morse that he was very protective of Stanlow, a pupil bullied as a weakling. In fact, Stanlow proves to be the key to solving the case.

Meanwhile, Thursday's retirement plans are dashed and the escalating turf war between Eddie Nero and Cromwell Ames results in further grief at the station.

This episode contains examples of:

• Almost Dead Guy: After the shoot-out, Thursday arrives at the scene to find a room full of corpses and a not-quite-dead Eddie Nero.
  Thursday: Drop the gun, Eddie.
  Eddie Nero: It's empty anyway.
  Thursday: Easy, Eddie. Don't talk.
  Eddie Nero: It ... wasn't ... me! [Dies, indicating, as he does, George Fancy's hitherto-unseen body]
• Bait-and-Switch: At the start, Bright announces that Cowley police station will close. We then see Morse arriving at a school to start work as a teacher. Has he opted to seek alternative employment? Turns out, no — he's under cover.
• Boarding School of Horrors: Coldwater is one of these, with the teachers seemingly as much or more at risk than the pupils...
• Career Versus Man: Trewlove and Morse discuss this in the light of her burgeoning relationship with Fancy.
  Trewlove: We're young. We have to put career first. Haven't we?
  Morse: Career won't hold you at three o'clock in the morning, when the wolves come circling.
  Trewlove: Do they come circling, Morse?
• Continuity Nod: When looking through Ivory's wallet, Morse finds a business card for Magdalen Cabs, the taxi firm from "Muse" which is owned by Eddie Nero.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Fancy has shades of this when he warns Morse to "remember what's what" when the latter is going under cover, with Trewlove posing as his wife. Morse is distinctly unimpressed.
• Deadpan Snarker: Max, as ever, has his moments, notably when confronted with Rowntree's corpse.
  Max de Bryn: No obvious evidence of foul play, but I think we can assume he didn't put himself in the coffin.
• Death of a Child: It's revealed that Bright and his wife had a daughter, Dulcie, who died young while they were still living in India. Which helps to explain Bright's protective behaviour towards Trewlove.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The (fictional) far-right group "Make Britain Greater" seems to have been named thusly in reference to more modern phenomena like Brexit and the Trump Presidency (this episode having been broadcast in 2018).
• Downer Ending: Oh yes indeed. The three story arcs of this series come to grim conclusions...
  • After several months of uncertainty about its future, Cowley police station closes, splitting the core team.
    Bright: I failed my men. The station gone. My brightest and best cast to the four winds and all is brought to ruin.
  • Fred Thursday has to postpone his retirement after his decision to loan money to his brother Charlie backfires spectacularly — the money's gone, and Charlie's been pushed into using his business as a front for fraudsters, meaning that in addition to a longer career than he's hoped, Fred's going to have to spend the rest of his life worrying about whether the cheque he wrote for his brother will be used to link him to the fraudsters. Win, understandably, is furious.
  • The turf war between Eddie Nero and Cromwell Ames ends with a shoot-out that leaves both men and their respective followers dead; George Fancy, who had been detailed to trail Ames, is also dead although he was killed by a different gun from any of the others who were killed.
• Due to the Dead: Happens when George Fancy's body is found among the bodies of the gangsters in the aftermath of the shoot-out; even Max the pathologist is visibly shaken.
  Max de Bryn: I'll start with George if I may. We don't want him lying in such company a moment longer than he has to.
• Foreshadowing: The fact that the opening music is a requiem (Haydn's "Requiem in C Minor" to be precise) may alert viewers to the prospect of a significant death in this episode. The sight of George Fancy buying what appears to be an engagement ring may indicate that it will be him or Shirley Trewlove.
  • The Nero-Ames Mutual Kill may end their storyline, but it creates a vacuum in Oxford's criminal underworld which will be filled by a new villain in Series 6.
  • Fred Thursday's precarious financial situation following his ill-advised loan to Charlie foreshadows more difficulties in his marriage and his flirting with corruption in Series 6. The loan itself and the reasons behind it will get a further mention in the show's last episode, "Exuent".
• Hope Spot: The episode ends with Morse asking Joan Thursday out.
• It's Personal: Following the murder of George Fancy, the core team vow to find his killer, even though they are about to go their separate ways thanks to the closure of their station ... thus setting up a Story Arc for Series 6:
  Strange: We might be down, but we're not out. I'll be damned if this is how it ends. We'll have justice for him, sir. Find who shot that bullet, whatever it takes.
  Thursday: Jim's right, sir. They can call us Thames Valley till the cows come home, but wherever we wash up, we're City men, each one of us. To our boots. To the last.
• Mutual Kill: The gang war between Eddie Nero and Cromwell Ames reaches its climax with a shoot-out that leaves both men, and most if not all of their respective followers, dead.
• Shout-Out: A few, as ever.
  • Trewlove, wanting to move to a First-Name Basis, says: "Do call me Shirley".
  • Brett Nero, appropriately enough, is reading Suetonius's The Twelve Caesars.
  • This episode draws heavily on two films set in minor public schools:
    • Unman, Wittering and Zigo (1971, based on a 1958 radio play) is about a teacher called Mr Ebony who joins the staff of a boarding school as a replacement for a man who died in mysterious circumstances, and comes to suspect that the pupils may have had a hand in his predecessor's death. Tellingly, the dead teacher in this episode is called Ivory.
    • If, especially in terms of the scene near the end when one of the boys takes a rifle from the CCF armoury, makes his way to the bell tower and starts shooting at staff and pupils.
  • One schoolmaster refers to a colleague at a previous school by the name of "Old Wilkie".
  • Morse's cover story when he is posing as a teacher is that he used to teach at Bamfylde, the school in R.F. Delderfield's novel To Serve Them All My Days.
  • When Morse arrives at Coldwater, one of the teachers jokingly welcomes him to "St Bastard's".
  • Trewlove putting in for a transfer to Scotland Yard could be an allusion to Herbert "Truly of the Yard" Truelove from Last of the Summer Wine.
• Title Drop: Morse tells his class to read from Ovid's Metamorphoses — specifically, the story of Daedalus and Icarus.
• There Is Only One Bed: Morse and Trewlove are posing as a married couple. As there's only one bed in their quarters, Morse — in common with many examples of this trope — sleeps in the bath.