#Endeavour pylon

[oeuvrinarydurian]

I tried to post this earlier and it ended up not posting, but I wanted to throw this in for my USA brethren for “Thank the Creatives Thursday“.

I apologize to the non—USA folks.

The drag is that I have access to the UK versions on my Google Drive, but I have no way of downloading the US version from Prime in an editable format, so I can’t give you the comparison. Let’s just call it generic. To its credit, it doesn’t try to emulate. There isn’t a cheesy piece of fake Zepplin. It’s a completely different vibe though. It’s the openings to “Sway” with the original Dean Martin music, and to “Pylon“ with the original Led Zeppelin. 

It’s a testament to Barrington Pheloung and Matthew Slater, and the care and craftsmanship the two of them employed. That’s original Slater music Morse is thinking about Joan and Fancy during, as he’s driving throughout the countryside in his little turquoise car. It’s just masterful what the two of them did musically for the show.

I love the show, but it’s an entirely different dimension with the music as intended. It’s just another layer of the onion that is our show. 

It’s six minutes. “Pylon” uploaded first for whatever reason. 

[morsesnotes]

Endeavour Morse + crouching

[too-antigonish]

Thursday in Pylon: Tell the truth and shame the devil

Sincle I've been thinking a lot about Exeunt, this scene in Pylon has been coming to mind a lot. Morse and Thursday have just come from the autopsy of Stanley Clemence, who has died from a heroin overdoese. Here's the dialogue:

THURSDAY: I let him down. His father, too. Arthur Lott fitted Phil Clemence up, and I sent an innocent man to the gallows.

MORSE: I’ve read the case files. There's something you should see. 

THURSDAY: Clemence's sample case. 

MORSE: He'd hidden it at St. Christopher’s. So Arthur Lott may have planted the evidence that got him convicted, but you were right. He was guilty.

THURSDAY: That's not how they'll see it upstairs. Or in the papers. You know how it works. If I fitted up Phil Clemence, who else have I fitted up over the years?

MORSE: But you didn't.

THURSDAY: You think that'll matter? They'll look at every single case I ever made. We ever made.

MORSE: Well, as it stands, nobody knows.

THURSDAY: We know. (latches case) Bury it now, we're no better than Arthur Lott. An Alice band, a hammer. It's corruption. No. Tell the truth and shame the Devil. I'll turn it in.

MORSE: Well, if you want to do things by the book, it's actually in my custody. So I'll take responsibility for it.

Thursday is clearly ready to turn himself in for what is basically collusion in planting evidence. Given that he's also willing to risk every conviction he's ever gotten, it's unclear as to whether or not his motive is justice or self-flagellation. Either way, he is ready to go down. But Morse keeps it from happening. He takes it out of Thursday's hands.

I don't actually have any grand insights as to what this ultimately means in the light of Exeunt, but it does make for an interesting contrast.

[librawritesstuff]

Morsetache Monday: The “WTF did we just see?!” edition

Bonus: watch how Evans turns over the slide at the end…

[fanficrocks]

Morsetache of courage

I've read the casefiles. There's something you should see.

Well, if you want to do things by the book, it's actually in my custody. So I'll take the responsibility for it.

After replacing the sample case where it was originally hidden...

[alias71]

Endeavour's Awesome 70s Flares

Shown to fabulous effect in Pylon:

But here's the question - is this Endeavour’s off-duty attire? In which case – awesome! Or, in an even more interesting scenario, is that his cop issue clothes without the tie and jacket??!!

Here he is walking with Strange in his uniform:

Same troos or not? And also, would Endeavour wear a blue shirt and black trousers casually? Doesn’t this just look like his police shirt:

What I’m getting at is, did his awesome uniform come with awesome 70s flares, or was Endeavour just being that adorably stylish on his day off?!

If it was the uniform, then it leads to another mystery... now I may just be missing something, but I can't actually identify this scene from season 6:

This is from the Masterpiece PBS featurette 'Endeavour, Season 6: The Cast on Shaun Evans as Director' (x).

Yes, it could be another season 6 episode other than ‘Pylon’ and I’ve missed it, but here’s my thinking – I don’t think he wore this in any other season 6 episodes as it was all dark shirts, slim trousers and ties later on, and I think it really indicates it is his uniform, making it ‘Pylon’. Now, if it is ‘Pylon’ then I haven’t come across this scene in the episode, meaning that it’s missing!

And to bring it all together, here are some bts shots where Roger and Shaun seem to be having a laugh about the flares!

Images © endeavourneverland (2018) Source: @te_angeli

So yeah, what is the story with Endeavour’s excellent clothing choices?! Anyway, I'm forever grateful for 'Pylon'. Morsetache forever!

[upthelagan]

Endeavour. Pylon.

[jessieren]

Am I using the excuse of Moustache Monday to gratuitously post clips* of notebook and tongue fidgets?

Yes, yes I am..

Any complaints?

*Posted the clip because the gif just wasn’t doing it sufficient justice

[shaun-evans-fanblog]

[morse-perez-and-davenport]

Shaun Evans and Anton Lesser on the set of Endeavour series 6 pylon ©Nasir Hamid

[konstantintreplev]

...He's senior officer. He's a fist with a warrant card.

Endeavour, 601, "Pylon"

[oeuvrinarydurian]

Clearly, I’m in a melancholy mood.

The desaturation of “Pylon“ is one of my favorite things about the cinematography of S6. Visually, it may be my favorite episode of all nine seasons.

It’s an entirely new cinematic vocabulary. It’s deeply emotive, with the absence of vibrancy, the cool tones, the greys, the flinty skies- it’s striking.

Without getting into a deep analysis, we have this very bucolic environment, with the color reduced, and we have Morse sticking out to a degree that is unusual, even for him. He’s not only isolated in terms of location and community, but even more so by being relegated to a dark, graphic uniform; masking his emotions even further with a colossal mustache. Physically, visually, he could not be less integrated into his environment. 

We’ve already discussed the shot of him in the wheat field with the Connemara in the background today, which is in fact, my all-time favorite shot. However, the third runner-up (2nd is the last shot of “Confection”, which really deserves its own post and will get one) is this, below.

There aren’t enough superlatives to talk about what’s happening here. The dinky police vehicle in that odd shade of turquoise, the massive dead tree, the distant car traversing the screen from right to left, his head down, his hands-usually so animated - limply at rest…if you went out of your way to find an illustration of despairing loneliness, absence and isolation, I don’t know that you could do any better than this. 

[morsesnotes]

If you were to pick 5 episodes of Endeavour to sum it up to someone, which ones would you choose?

You can interpret this any way you wish.

After probably too much thought, this is what I came up with:

The Pilot/Overture - It does a perfect job of setting up the format of the show, the characters, and introducing you to many key plot elements which are relevant right to the end.

Sway - This might seem like an odd choice, but there's so much great character development bubbling under the surface of this episode, and it perfectly captures the melancholic romance of Endeavour. You have the hectic/questionable atmosphere of Cowley station which emphasizes how low down in the totem pole Morse is, maybe the strongest written support cast in Burridges, Thursday's backstory and how Morse learning about it bonds them closer together, Joan and Win foreshadowing, and much more. Plus clever use of music and Morse overthinking the case.

Prey - The total opposite of Sway. Goofy, vibrant, and full of pop culture references, it shows how fun and entertaining Endeavour can be.

Lazaretto - This episode has one of the best murder mysteries imo, a bit of the gangster plotline, the murderer leaves you with complicated feelings, and it excellently lays out Morse's tragic love life.

Pylon - Morse/Thursday tension, police corruption, Morse isolated and compromising his morals for Thursday, that wonderful scene with Max, Strange coming into his own, Bright being a gem, a tragic case, gorgeous cinematography, the Morsetache, and an unsettling underbelly. Pylon has it all!

[too-antigonish]

Actually, the pelican makes more sense...

Mr. Bright's pelican, the bird that went from being an albatross around his neck to the very saving of his life.

It's quite a dramatic arc for a bird--although the pelican *is* a dramatic bird if ever there was one.

The pelican did, however, actually make some sense as a choice of mascot for a message related to PELICON crossings. There's a simple logic to it.

Quite a while back a friend sent me a link to a PSA that immediately reminded me of Mr. Bright's advert. The spirit is very much the same. Unlike Bright's short masterpiece, though, it seems (at least to me--maybe I'm missing something) to lack any logic whatsoever.

[librawritesstuff]

Crouching tiger, hidden Morsetache

(This combo works for me)

⬆️ Especially this one, because, well, the hair…

[fanficrocks]

Bewildered ‘stache!

He so totally has a “what-the-heck-is-going-on-here” look between the ‘stache and the eyebrows…