You know, there is a line. I just hope you're on the right side of it.
The tower block episode.
When a librarian is gruesomely murdered at the Bodleian, Morse and Thursday have little to go on besides a set of muddy boot prints. With the two main suspects having their own motives for killing the librarian, Morse digs deeper into their backgrounds, tracking a trail that appears to connect to seemingly innocent college bequest. Bribery and corruption in police and local government have a connection between the murder and a local tragedy (in the form of a collapsing tower-block), which ultimately leads to the truth about who killed George Fancy.
This episodes contains examples of:
- Big Damn Heroes: At the climax, Morse is standing alone in a deserted quarry, facing off against Box, Jago, Burkett and McGyffin. As Jago tells Morse that he's going to die alone, a police car rolls into the quarry and out step Thursday, Bright and Strange who take their places beside Morse, saying they don't abandon their own. As Jago boasts that he can kill all of them and get away with it, there is the wail of police sirens approaching. Bright calmly announces that while Jago might have some corrupt influence over uniform and CID, his reach does not extend into the Traffic Division.
- Bound and Gagged: The bad guys kidnap Max in order to lure Morse into an ambush. When Morse arrives at the quarry, Max is bound and gagged and lying in the back of a builder's truck.
- Brotherhood of Funny Hats: McGyffin and Burkett try to use their positions in the Masonic hierarchy to influence fellow-Mason Jim Strange. It doesn't work.
- Buried Alive: On examining Binks's body, Max finds concrete in his victim' sinuses, mouth and lungs, meaning he was still alive when the killers dropped him into the wet concrete of Cranmer House's foundations.
- Call-Forward: A big one. The house that Morse and Thursday visited in "Pylon" gets visited by the police again after two of the squatters die of drug overdoses. Cleared of squatters, it goes on the market. At the end of the episode, Morse buys it and moves in. It's the house he lives in throughout the original series.
- Character Development: This series has seen Jim Strange becoming a rather more mature officer than previously, thanks to his desire to get justice for the late George Fancy; the deviousness and subtlety displayed by Strange in this context hints at his future senior position. Even the cleverer Morse has still not realised that it was Strange's manipulations which led to him being transferred from rural uniform duties to Castle Gate CID.
- Chekhov's Gun: Bright's road safety broadcast with the pelican, seen at the start of "Pylon", turns out to be one of these. Just as the bad guys are closing in on him, a group of schoolkids spot "Pelican Man" and mob him for autographs. Not wishing to deal with Bright in front of multiple witnesses, the bad guys back off.
- Constructive Body Disposal: Burkett and McGyffin disposed of Binks, the borough surveyor who discovered they were embezzling funds meant to go into building Cranmer House, by burying him alive in the foundations. His body is found a year later after the tower collapses as a result of them cutting corners by using unsafe building materials.
- Continuity Nod: Thursday speaks to Morse of his concern about the investigation leading to "another Blenheim Vale".
- Corrupt Politician: Clive Burkett, a city councillor who was elected on a promise to provide more housing in the form of tower blocks, but was happy for a few shortcuts to be taken in their construction in order to cut costs and help himself to the money saved.
- Crooked Contractor: George McGyffin, who worked with Burkett to embezzle money intended for the building of Cranmer House, using cheaper and sub-standard building materials as a result. When the borough surveyor found out, they had him killed.
- Dirty Cop: Ronnie Box's corruption is explored further; he tells Thursday that he didn't start out that way, but one kickback led to another until he was in over his head. In the climax, he takes a step toward redemption by gunning down the even more corrupt DS Jago.
- First-Name Basis: This episode is the first time that the audience learns that Max De Bryn is on first name terms with Morse, as Max introduces himself on the phone by his first name (in the original series, Morse always addressed him as "Max", but in Endeavour he has hitherto addressed him as "Dr De Bryn"). However, it's not clear if Morse has reciprocated this.
- Heel–Face Turn: Fred Thursday turns away from corruption and gives Ronnie Box his bribe money back. Later on, Box himself does one of these, shooting and killing Jago when the latter threatens Thursday — although he himself takes a bullet.
- The Man Behind the Man: Turns out, DCI Ronnie Box is not the leader of the corrupt faction within CID. That would be his bagman, DS Alan Jago.Thursday: [to Box, on finding out that Jago's actually in charge] Is he working you with his foot, or what?
- My Greatest Second Chance: Unstated, but still there. Back in "Neverland", Strange had to make a choice between the Masons and the police, and chose the former. This time, he's faced with the same choice, and goes for the latter.
- The Reveal: The gun that killed George Fancy in "Icarus" had been used in a robbery in Reading several years previously; it was subsequently stolen from police evidence by Alan Jago, who then used it to murder Fancy in order to facilitate his takeover of the Oxford heroin trade following the Nero-Ames Mutual Kill in that episode.
- Ripped from the Headlines: The collapse of Cranmer House is clearly based on that of Ronan Point, a tower-block in East London. It partially collapsed in May 1968, about 18 months before the events in this episode take place. Four people died and another 17 were injured in the collapse. As with Cranmer House, the Ronan Point collapse was initially ascribed to a gas explosion, but its chief cause was later found to be alarming structural deficiencies. As a result of the Ronan Point tragedy, building laws were changed and made more stringent.
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Burkett offers to get Bright's terminally ill wife on test program for an experimental cancer drug in exchange for burying an investigation. Bright coldly turns him down.Burkett: What are friends for?Bright: You are not my friend, and you never will be.
- Shout-Out: A few, as ever.
- When interviewing Nicholson, who's writing a paper on Edwardian erotica, Thursday replies that he's "more of a Holly Martins fan". Holly Martins, an author of Western fiction, is the protagonist of The Third Man.
- Deborah Teagarden could be related to Aurora Teagarden, the protagonist of a series of crime novels by Charlaine Harris.
- The glasses-case found on the body from Cranmer House is from Dinkley Opticians. Dinkley is the surname of Velma from Scooby-Doo.
- Councillor Burkett's secretary is a Miss Lansbury.
- Skewed Priorities: The Bodleian staff seem more concerned by the fact that a colleague of theirs has been killed in the stacks by a man with muddy boots than the fact that, well, a colleague of theirs has been killed in the stacks.
