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Speaking of cruelty, what an exquisite contrast there was in ‘Uniform’ between the solid heroism of our gang and the foul arrogance of The Debonairs. While Morse, Thursday and Bright risked their necks for what’s right, England’s future leaders stamped on those of the poor for entertainment.
Heavily styled after Alex and his Droogs from A Clockwork Orange (a film released one year earlier in the Endeavour timeline) right down to the Kubrickian soundtrack and framing, the society boys were odious villains. All the better to drag them off their college lawn teddy bears’ picnic kicking and screaming. Their imperious attitude to Fred and co. fed into this series’ theme: the greasy machinery that insulates Rt Hon scum from punishment for their crimes.
Which leads to the question: just how far up does the Blenheim Vale child abuse scandal go? High enough to justify multiple murders, clearly. With Landesman located, all four of the known abusers are now dead, plus a handful of victims and unfortunate witnesses. Just whose orders are Division acting upon, and whose interests are being protected by the cover-up? Might there be any more clues to take from those surrealist paintings, which featured diverse subjects including a royal palace guard…
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The Beefeater may have been a plot point in the career of Jolyon Jolliphant (perhaps fiction’s most ridiculous name?) rather than a clue to our case, of course. The cast and crew of fictional 1970s crime drama ‘Jolly For Short’ were a very welcome addition to the episode, not least for ACC Bright’s enjoyable befuddlement at the identity of his uniformed constable victim.
Confusion was the order of the day for the Cowley men when it came to the world of television. Much fun was had making Shaun Evans and Roger Allam furrow their brows at the lingo and Equity procedure. Having the show within a show fondly reflect back the genre’s cliches (avuncular pipe-smoking detective leaves no stone unturned…) was a marvellous gambit. Actors making fun of actors is always good for a laugh, and this was done in style. All that, plus the jaunty theme music added useful light to the shade of those weighty Kubrick references.
(Just think – if Endeavour were to have stuck around for another few years, the Thursdays might have been sitting on their settee in front of an episode of The Sweeney starring a certain someone.)
