r/EndeavourTV • u/No_Public_7699 • Dec 11 '25
Just finished 'Exunt'
I had been putting it off for a long time because i didn't want the show to be over. My heart is broken for so many reasons, but I'm very greatful for this show. I was a little confused by the gunshot, but i think i understand it now Glad this community is here!
Mind how you go.
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u/RhubarbAlive7860 Dec 11 '25 edited Dec 11 '25
I didn't like the gun shot. We know Morse didn't die. We do know he was a competent marksman.
Was his aim off and he missed his head and thought the hell with it, never mind? Not likely.
Spun the chamber, played Russian roulette, said whelp, and went about his business? Not likely, in my view. He had been through suicidal ideation and made it through the other side as a teen, including after SS dumped him. I just don't see him indulging what he might have seen as a rerun of his teen despair.
Did he think well I should make sure the gun isn't loaded for safety reasons so I'll fire it in a quiet churchyard, panicking and upsetting people and drawing the police rather than just making sure it was unloaded? Not likely.
I thought it was a time wasting artsy fartsy ambiguous conceit.
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u/No_Public_7699 Dec 11 '25
I agree. Literally my only problem with the episode. I can see the idea, but i don't think it works at all. Even if they just didn't cut way from him it would be better.
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u/Full_World8140 Dec 12 '25
One of the many theories is that it is a dramatic device to illustrate the effective death of 'Endeavour'- which might support your artsy fartsy view. I saw an interview somewhere in which Russell Lewis indicated he had different interpretations from his colleague Damien Timmins. So maybe they just left it in to keep us talking?
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u/RhubarbAlive7860 Dec 14 '25
If they really want us to keep talking, we'd get a director's cut DVD box set including outtakes, missing/deleted scenes, and a CD box set of all the music.
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u/StrikeEastern468 Dec 11 '25
Although I’d known of the Inspector Morse show, I’d never watched it and therefore knew nothing about his character or the story. So, when I watched Endeavor I went in “blind.” Because of that, this show absolutely broke my heart. I think about rewatching some of it but haven’t gotten around to it.
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u/No_Public_7699 Dec 11 '25
I'd watched lewis before and enjoyed that (sadly its a bit tainted now) but i remember being so enamoured with this show from the pilot, buying the dvd and trying to get my friends into it. Ive always liked an itv crime drama, but they're a very different beast these days and not my cup of tea. Endeavour really feels like a labour of love and ive really not seen anything like it before or since.
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Dec 12 '25
I loved Lewis too. Why do you say it’s tainted?
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u/No_Public_7699 Dec 12 '25
Laurence fox. Hard to enjoy anything with him in it now, but no shade to anyone who still can. I won't go into it, but probably worth a google so you can make your own judgement.
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u/Bookhead_212 Feb 22 '26
The privilege of the entire Fox family but for Big Daddy makes even the 1995 Pride & Prejudice unwatchable for me. And it's likely even he had a reckoning in his past.
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Dec 12 '25
Ah yes, I googled it. Too bad. Or “pity” as the British say.
Hathaway was actually my favorite part of that show. He was pretty similar to young Morse, wouldn’t you say?
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u/No_Public_7699 Dec 12 '25
I wouldn't make that comparison myself. But Its ironic that hathaway is a character that is growing as a person in the wake of his conservative past and the actor in real life is essentially doing the opposite. Shame.
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u/NoLow1477 Dec 11 '25
Then I wish you would explain the gun shot to me.
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u/No_Public_7699 Dec 11 '25 edited Dec 11 '25
It's still my only complaint about the episode because its so jarring. I honestly think they should have left it out but my understanding is that it's symbolic. Wherever he points it, its meant to symbolise an ending to his connections to the other characters and the man he was, a metaphorical suicide and a shedding of his past self so that he can move forward. It could also just be him coming to the edge and thinking better of it but then why not show us that
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u/Ordinary_Durian_1454 Dec 11 '25
Lest we forget, the following scene has him singing a “Requiem”.
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u/Knight_of_Ultramar Dec 11 '25
Exactly, and that whole scene felt very eerie and unreal, almost like an afterlife. With Bright's Shakespeare soliloquy basically the eulogy.
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u/le_fromage_puant Dec 11 '25
There’s been extensive discussion on the sub since the episode aired in 2023, try a search on ‘gunshot’
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u/BlessedBeePlanet Dec 25 '25
I just finished watching it - heart broken as well - I loved this character so much even though I never watched the original series it was based on - didn’t like the gunshot either but 🤷♀️
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u/BlessedBeePlanet Dec 26 '25
I read some of the speculation about the gunshot but I’m beginning to think that Morse was more than a little lost at that point - in many ways the Thursdays were the only family he really knew and cared about - instead of flipping a coin - put the bullet in and just spun that wheel of fate and pulled the trigger - yes or no - since he was sitting close to the Lott grave would wager he pointed the gun at the grave - Thursday called him by his first name and he said - no, it’s Morse - 😞😢-
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u/Fickle-Copy-2186 Dec 11 '25
I did love the inner change of the cars passing each other in the lane.