A Quick Guide Where to We Left Everyone at the End of 'Endeavour' Season 4
Endeavour returns for its fifth season with a new supersized batch of episodes beginning Sunday, June 24. Let's run down where all our characters stand heading into 1968.
The former Detective Constable Endeavour Morse (Shaun Evans) will have a new title when he returns to our screens, having passed his Sargent's exam at the end of last season. But while Morse will be facing changes in position, everything else will be in upheaval too. Let's look at where things stand from the fall of 1967, at the end of Season 4.
Both Seasons 3 and 4 covered the year 1967. The third season saw DC Morse and Monica (Shvorne Marks) breaking things off, romantically speaking, while his partner and boss DCI Thursday (Roger Allam) never really recovered from the bullet which is now permanently lodged in his body, which causes him coughing fits at inopportune moments. For Morse, this was a hard year, with everyone pushing him in several different directions when the only one he wanted to follow was wherever Thursday's daughter Joan (Sara Vickers) was heading. At the end of Season 3, Joan disappears completely, distressing her parents terribly. Meanwhile, Thursday successfully managed to get Morse to agree to take his Sargent's exam.
When Season 4 begins, it looked like he failed, but Morse's paranoia is such that he's semi-convinced someone is out to get him, especially when it turns out his exam "went wayward" and never made it to grading.
Morse: How are you?
Thursday: Wanna drink?
Over the course of four episodes, Joan turns back up a couple of towns over, as the kept woman of an abusive man. Thursday and his wife Win (Caroline O'Neill) don't push her to come home, not understanding that all she wants is for them to ask. With nothing tying him to Oxford, and a failed exam hanging over him, Superintendent Bright (Anton Lesser) spends most of the season trying to convince Morse to head off to London, make a fresh start at a new station, and try again. When Thursday joins in the chorus, Morse almost takes their advice. But then two things happen which derail that plan: Morse's Sargent exam turns up, and it turns out he passed, and Joan winds up in the hospital after her terrible boyfriend pushes her down the stairs when he discovers she's pregnant.
The Thursdays don't know Joan is in hospital, they're out of town because Thursday receives a commendation from the Queen, and anyway the contact number she gives is Morse's. The season ends with Morse standing over her sleeping figure while a doctor, who clearly mistakes him for her husband, tells him not to worry, these accidents happen and they can "try again soon." Hopefully, this is the wake-up call Joan needs to come home to Oxford. Even though Morse never marries, as far as we know, fans can still hope they find a way to be together, at least for a time.
