Caution: Major Spoilers.
Not unexpectedly, the show Endeavour, which predates the long-running show Morse in chronology but antedates it in production, has Shakespeare in it from time to time. In one episode, a group of students put on a production of Julius Caesar, for example; other episodes have the occasional Shakespeare allusion or quotation from time to time.
Still, the twofold use of Shakespeare in Endeavour's final episode is at first shocking and then salutary.
In one of the final scenes, Detective Sargent Morse reveals his knowledge of the wrongdoings of his superior, Detective Chief Inspector Fred Thursday. Thursday has often been presented as belonging to an earlier, less restricted, more brutal age of policing, and Morse has nearly always called him up on it. Here, in their last meeting, Morse's anger at Thursday explodes into a Shakespeare quotation.
Not long after, the Shakespeare rings a more peaceful tone as the series comes to its end.
Here are both those scenes together in one extract:
Morse's bitter exclamation is a portion of a speech delivered by King Henry IV to Falstaff near the end of 2 Henry IV. In Shakespeare and in Endeavour, it is calculated to break the heart of its recipient: "I know thee not, old man" (V.v.47). For Falstaff and Hal, there's an end. But Morse, though angry at the injustice he perceives in Thursday's actions and his own covering them up, promises to work to keep Thursday's family safe.
The closing speech, delivered by Chief Superintendent Reginald Bright, is from The Tempest:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,(As I foretold you) were all spirits, andAre melted into air, into thin air,And like the baseless fabric of this vision,The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,The solemn temples, the great globe itself,Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,And, like this insubstantial pageant fadedLeave not a rack behind. We are such stuffAs dreams are made on; and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep. (IV.i.148–58)
I appreciated both Shakespeare quotations, but that's because I'm a Shakespeare scholar. I can also see that they are both a little too neat—a little too much like "We need a little Shakespeare here—what do you guys think will work?"
All the same, it's a great end to a great series. And now that you know the end, head back to the beginning and make your way back her to the end again.
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(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).
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