Endeavour Season 6: Everything You Need to Know
- 1.
Where We Left Off
In Season 5’s shocking finale, Icarus, Detective Constable George Fancy was killed in a gangland shootout. Fancy was the rookie assigned to a reluctant Endeavour Morse; he was in love with Constable Shirley Trewlove and had bought her an engagement ring before he followed crime boss Cromwell Ames into rival Eddie Nero’s pool hall, where he was caught in a murderous crossfire. But the fatal bullet didn’t match any of the guns recovered from the crime scene. His shooter got away and remains at large—another mystery for the Cowely crew to solve, as they all vow, in Strange’s words, to “find who shot that bullet. Whatever it takes.”
In other unfinished business from the Season 5 finale, Chief Superintendent Bright plans to resign. He feels that he failed his men; plus, with the merging of Oxford City and County departments to create the new Thames Valley department, Cowley station is permanently closing. Meanwhile, Thursday was forced to postpone his retirement when his no-good brother lost all the money—Thursday’s life savings—he’d been lent.
- 2.
Where We Pick Up
We pick up eight months after the events of Icarus. The men of Cowley are all scattered: Thursday, bearing responsibility for Fancy’s death, has been demoted, and now reports to Robbery’s finest, DCI Ronnie Box at the Castle Gate station. Strange is off living his best Freemason life on the surface, though in his spare time he’s making a George Fancy crime wall and striving to get the group back together again. Bright, once the department’s fearless leader, has been relegated to the traffic department. And Morse, assigned to a tiny rural outpost, is back in uniform, with only his substantial mustache to keep him company!
- 3.
Now, About that Mustache…
Everyone handles grief differently, and for Morse, the mustache may just have a small role. Shaun Evans described the facial hair’s genesis, telling RadioTimes.com, “[Writer Russell Lewis] said to me, ‘I’m thinking to really hit home after Fancy dies, and you’re out in the sticks on your own, that maybe there is a transition that takes place and you are trying to be something different. Or you can’t look at yourself in the mirror, and you’re trying to style it out in a new way’.” And after all, it is 1969…
- 4.
A New Era
It’s summer of 1969, and big events like the Apollo 11 moon landing are cultural markers of a rapidly changing world as much as the burgeoning heroin trade and Joan Thursday’s path to independence. But in a tumultuous world, some things never change: loyalty, corruption, passion…and murder!
- 5.
Shaun Evans Directs!
Though Shaun Evans has been directing TV over the past few years, Season 6’s Episode 2, Apollo, marks his first time directing Endeavour. How was his experience being on both sides of the camera? “Incredible,” Evans told MASTERPIECE. “The thing about combining [acting and directing] was that it makes you very precise about where you are and what’s required, both as an actor and as a director, and about articulating what’s required in an economical way, to tell this part of the story, to tell these scenes. And what was a revelation to me was that that can be done with minimum fuss if you’ve got a great team.
“So if you’ve got a wonderful team that you trust and you have enough time to prepare, you can achieve—and you know, we finished on time. Never did we go over, never did we really drop scenes, which is interesting—if you have enough time to prep something, you can achieve anything. It was an amazing opportunity.” We’re sure that when they see Apollo, viewers will agree!
- 6.
Watch the Season 6 Trailer
It’s going to be a game-changing season. Don’t miss the premiere on Sunday, June 16 at 9/8c on MASTERPIECE on PBS!
