'Endeavour' Season 6, Episode 1 Recap: "Pylon"

Endeavour Season 6 opens with Morse back in uniform and the disappearance of a child in Oxford.

Morse: It's not how things turned out, is it? It's never how these things turn out.

When Endeavour Season 5 ended with a promise of transfers to Thames Valley, most fans assumed Season 6 would find the show back where it started in the late 1980s. Not so fast. Only Strange wound up at Thames HQ and he's been shuffled off to do paperwork. Morse got sent to Woodstock CID, only to have the place close out from under him, and is now stuck doing uniform work. Thursday butted heads with his superiors over George Fancy's death and got busted down to Thames Valley's Castlegate station as a DS for his trouble. It's even worse for Bright, who got stuck in Traffic, forced to make safety spots for TV. (Ageism sucks, but that commercial is amazing.) Worse, the hoped-for romance between Morse and Joan isn't happening either. She's moving on with her life and training in the Welfare office.

The case that will eventually bring the gang back together begins with the disappearance of Ann Kirby, who went missing off the bus on her way home from primary school. Frazil is covering it, but she doesn't have Morse to turn to for info. He's dealing with drug addicts sleeping on church porches, a burglar who made off with some antique snuffboxes, horses going mising off of the Tingell farm, and a whole lot of regret. At least the horse turns up... leading right to Ann's body.