The Sopranos Season 4 end episodes 45 to 52

Now to the latest episodes of the Sopranos which brings to an end the 12 episode Season 4. Previously we learned that Tony had acquired an interest in a Horse Pie -O-My (44) which Ralphie was said to have acquired, the thoroughbred begins to win so that Ralphie ingratiates himself by ensuring Tony makes good winnings. Tony became so caught up in the horse that he takes Carmela to see the creature at its stables and commissions a large portrait of himself with the horse. His affection grows to the extent of protesting at the use of the whip in a race despite demanding more and more winnings. He stays up all night with the horse when it becomes ill after Ralphie calls Tony after having not paid the vets Bills. Tony settles the account but becomes more obsessed with the horse. I have given this story top billing because it demonstrates that on one hand we have the ruthless killer and hard man crime boss earning a major living from crime which involves stealing from others yet he is has a soft centre in relation to an animal.

Tony continues to have a volatile relationship with his psychiatrist accusing her of failure when he discovers that his former girl friend Gloria Trillo had killed herself by hanging. He is able to understand the guilt he feels for his treatment of her but not that he will only feel better if he stops his whoring and getting involved with challenging women as well as ending his criminal activities. He has a frightening nightmare about Gloria. However she is soon forgotten when Tony is attracted to the girlfriend of Ralphie and they begin an affair. It is Valentina who persuaded Tony to have a portrait of him with the horse Pie O My painted. She responds to Tony’s advances because she dislikes Ralphie masochistic fantasies which Tony learns was also one of the reasons why Janice threw him out. This is also part of Tony wanting to always t be powerful and in control.

Tony is devastated when he learns that there has been a fire at the stables and that Pie O My has to be put down. He discusses the loss of the horse with Dr Melfi and she comments on his different outward emotions and reactions between the animal and people. In relation to people he becomes angry and goes into denial. He gets angry at this and says going to see Dr Melfi is a waste of time and money.

He announces he is ending the relationship once more at a subsequent session and Dr Melfi expresses concern pointing out the progress he has made no longer having life threatening panic attacks. She urges him to get into contact if problems arise. The precipitating cause of his reaction is her refusal to explain the meaning of a dream he brings to her. He is in a car (Calling all Cars) episode 50, sitting at the back with his wife the Ralphie the driver of his father’s Cadillac and Carmela sitting next to the driver. There is a caterpillar at the back of Ralphie’s head which turns into an attractive butterfly. Sitting next to Tony is Gloria Trillo one of his recent mistresses and then another Svetlana Kirilenko.

Immediately Tony leaves the office Dr Melfi announces to her psychiatrist counsellor that she has been released from her most troubling and personally challenging client. Tony then has another panic attack when on a brief visit to Miami. As with his wife you know that they have become so important to each other than the link with Dr Melfi is unlikely to ever be broken permanently.

While there are moments of affection between Tony and Carmela and they still share a marital bed, under the influence of her priest and having attended individual and joint sessions with psychiatrists she has become more disaffected especially as she transfers her affections to Tony’s driver and hard man Furio who he brought back from Italy after his visit there to take over enterprises previously controlled by Uncle Junior. Carmela encourages Furio to arrive early and come in for coffee, or some home baking when he calls and later when he needs work undertaken on his home. She mentions him when in bed with Tony although Tony does not mention appear to see the significance. She arranges to see Furio for a meal with his girlfriend. Furio calls on her on the pretext of having left his sunglasses.

Her feelings come to the fore when Furio goes back to Italy following the death of his father. Tony remonstrates with him on return for being emotional. Furio admits to Carmela he has nothing in common with his family anymore or his background in Italy and that his future is in the USA. Carmela has talked about him getting a regular job career as a dental technician for example.

She discusses her feelings with her psychiatrist who urges her to take no action but this appears only to act as a spur. She has her haircut to make her look younger which angers Tony because she has changed her appearance without his permission. Furio who has broken with his girl friend senses the come on and backs out. He is shocked by Tony’s behaviour when they make a visit to the native American run Casino and Tony is clearly having an instant relationship with a buxom house girl. Tony had commented to Dr Melfi that he could have bought a fast car with all the money he had spent $300 a session a week and with that he would have a blow job. Tony needs to get back for an important meeting so having spent $15000 at the tables a helicopter transport to the airport is provided and at one point we are led to believed that Furio is about to push Tony into the rotating blades, Furio backs out and when Tony asks what is going on, Furio says he got hold of Tony because he had got too close to the blades. Immediately afterwards Furio disappears and Tony appears is angry on learning that the man has packed up and gone back to Italy, Carmela, fearing Tony is responsible for the departure finds that his home has been cleared of all possessions and she is devastated. She becomes angry with everyone including her daughter Meadow and son CJ as well as Tony, finding fault at every opportunity. Meadow begins to work out the position and in a conversation with Tony where it is evident he does not realise what has happened.

Previously Carmela nags Tony about what happens to her and the family if Tony goes to prison or he is killed and presses him to make official provision. Tony is in fact secreting huge amounts of funds around the property and made other arrangement through his Counsel and a Russian contact for such a situation. He resists the pressure from Carmela after realising his wife and family will benefit from the Trust only through his death and he will not have access to the funds if his circumstances dramatically changed. Eventually going through one of his feeling guilty phases he gives in and signs the papers for the Trust creating a good atmosphere between the two for a short lived while. Carmela discovers where Tony is stashing cash and takes some money assuming he will not notice and which she invests in stocks and shares. When C J comes into the room one day Tony asks if he has been in the backyard alerting Carmela that Tony is aware some of the money is missing adding to the tension which is growing between them. In part this is because she has become aware that Tony is seeing someone when she finds a broken fingernail within his clothing (Mergers and Acquisitions(47))

Their getting into trouble son CJ settled down in a new High school again after his expulsion and threatened sending to an army training establishment after establishing a relationship with an attractive girl Devin with his mother ensuring that the two are not allowed time together when at home. When he visits Devin’s home he finds that her family is even wealthier than his.

C J has revealed to his friends that his father runs a Pole Dance club the Bada Bada and they go off in search but fortunately he is confused about the location and end up elsewhere. He is told off for staying out after the family imposed curfew.

He tries to find somewhere to be alone with Devin through his sister Meadow who has become a leading volunteer is a law/welfare and support, as well as doing well on her courses and making friend with Ivy Leaguers from normal middle and upper class families. She moves into shared accommodation with other Ivy leaguers and Tony and Camilla help with the move and settling in party to meet the other house sharers and their families. One of the parents comments how lucky her son is to have Meadow in the house because she is such a good cook, and is a model because of her work at the centre as well as getting high grades for her work. She knows more about their daughter than they do. Meadow has a new boyfriend who comes for a good family and is going to skiing with him at the family holiday home.

Mother and daughter have their annual birthday meal together and after a good start it develops into an argument. Meadow states that the problem is that she has become everything that Carmela wanted having had to drop out of college to marry Tony and that she now resents her daughter. Tony attempts to be a peacemaker and reminds Carmela that she has created the wonderful human being her daughter has become. This only serves to underline the misery Carmela now feels with the departure of Furio. Worse is to come when C J accuses his mother of treating him as a child and not recognising that he has become a sexual active young adult because she is aging. Tony has suggested to Meadow that he mother is possibly reaching the menopause. Meadow is surprised to learn that her father has been in therapy and also attending joint session with her mother. The impression gained is that she is seeing her father in a new light. CJ remains CJ as a subsequent event will demonstrate. This leaves three members of Tony’s immediate family to cover.

His sister Janice has commenced to take an interest in the widower Bobby Baccalieri and his two children after throwing out Ralphie. Seeing other women take an interest in the loyal gang member with a soft heart and good father she pretends that some lasagne prepared by Carmela is her own. She successfully gets Bobby to return to work for Uncle Junior who gets him to strong arm a union official to fix votes. She hopes this will stop him grieving for his wife. Tony approves the relationship which brings brother and sister together and they remember good family times. The relationship develops between the two

Janice begins to believe she has found a new good relationship unaware that Booby is grieving hard for his wife and visiting her grave daily. His daughter questions what happened to the birthday cake she saw in his car when he collected her from school. Bobby by admits that he buried it alongside the grave and Janice realises he is far from moving on and that her position is precarious.

The Court Case against Uncle Junior is continues to his growing disquiet at the way it is going and how he is being portrayed in the media. When he leaves court one day in (Whoever Did this) (48) he falls down the steps and hits his head. He is anxious to leave hospital as quickly as he can but Tony has the idea that Junior should use the accident to his advantage and claim that mental instability renders him unfit to plead and therefore encourages Junior to pretend he has lost part of his cognitive functions and is confused. He prepares for the various Tests the Court will require before it accepts the position. Arrangements are made for him to have a nurse to care for him and this is arranged by Tony through Svetlana the Russian with one leg who Tony arranged to care for his mother and who had the conflict with Janice who at one point stole her special leg.

As might be expected Tony cannot resist making with the woman but she then decides not to have a continuing relationship because he is likely to be too much trouble. The Uncle Junior plan also goes wrong when the official doctors determine he is fit to continue and the Trial judge anyway insists on going ahead. This causes them to go to plan B which is to get at a Juror.

Tony’s nephew and protégée Christopher backslides on his commitment to live in girl friend Adriana to give up drugs while she is concerned that the live music bar she has been given is being more and more used as an alternative hang out for members of the extended crime family. Having forced to spy for Christopher and his associates by the Feds she becomes paranoid at being found out, hurt and killed but no one has any idea this has happened although with the court case they assume they are being kept under close surveillance. Meadow has taken the lamp to university where the bug was planted to overhear the conversations in the basement. For some reason the Feds have decided not to mount another operation to replace the listening device.

After watching TV Adriana believes that if she and Christopher are married she will not be able to testify against him. A marital lawyer explains that this will only apply after they marry and therefore does not cover what happened beforehand and this has separately been discussed within the FBI who make no objection to the marriage as a consequence.

The most important and far reaching development of the series to date happens when Tony reveals to Christopher, who is full of drugs that he proposes to make him his eventual successor and therefore a confidante above his official number two. He says he wants Tony to bring the family into the 21st century. Christopher is so hyped up he comments that they are already in the 21st century a point which Tony fortunately overlooks. Soon Christopher is called upon to show he is worthy of the trust been shown.

Things go from bad to worse for Ralphie. When he has the care of his son for the day the boy plays with the son of a neighbour who is unsupervised shooting real arrows into the air and asking the son to allow these to fall on a hand held target. Off camera the son misjudges the flight of an arrow and his chest is pierced. Although the child survives he lives in a state of coma which understandably aroused much anger on the part of her ex wife and makes Ralphie feel great guilt to the extent he goes to visit a priest. Worse is come when Tony is called out to the fire at the stables and sees his horse destroyed. When Tony breaks the news that the horse has died Ralphie appears disinterested and tells Tony that his son is showing signs of improvement. Tony believes that Ralphie caused the fire after taking out $200000 insurance and asks if he has been contact with the man who they arranged to set fire to the old restaurant of Artie Bucco to avoid a murderous hit being staged there. The two men fight and in his rage over the death of the horse Tony kills Ralphie and then contacts Christopher who is in a drug haze to help him get rid of the body.

Tony is concerned about the state of Christopher which is not helped when the young man points out that one of their own captains getting whacked could be a problem. Tony tells Christopher that he is the only one who knows and therefore any problem is with him. Tony does not feel as guilty about killing Ralphie as some of his other victims because of what the man did to one of the strippers at the Bada Bada.

In the tradition of the Sopranos end of series it is in the penultimate episode that issues which have been simmering hot up and in some instances explode. We have already had the death of Ralphie as yet one more of the originals gangster crew is killed usually the hands of another members rather than by someone outside or the intervention of the law.

There is no personal concern or regret at the disappearance of Ralphie who it will be remembered alienated h the New York Under Boss Johnny Sacks because of a joke made about his wife and indeed it was Tony attempt to broker peace reminding that conflicts within the families are settled by sitting down and negotiation and not by unilateral action such as Whacking in the episode- The Strong Silent Type (49).

Paulie Walnuts is released from prison full of anger that Tony and his other colleagues have not visited him in prison for fear of being targeted even more than they are present. He ignores the fact that he has been given no show jobs at the new development site which Tony runs in association with one of the New York families. He is not appeased by the coming out party at the Bada Bada

The release of Paulie leads to information coming to the family of a way to defraud the US Federal Government of millions of dollars through buying up run down and inexpensive properties and doing them up for re-letting This leads Christopher into a black ghetto neighbourhood where drug dealing predominates. It also has implications for relationships with the New York family where Sacks lives with his wife in a grand country house within the New England territory controlled by Tony(Watching Too Much Television) (46). Paulie need for more money arises from deciding to place his mother in the top retirement complex where Tony had placed his mother Livia. When Paulie finds that his mother is not going to be able to join regular social activities with former friends who are also in the home, Paulie begins to lean on their children and including the use of his crew to persuade a reluctant son to exert pressure on his mother. He also maintains an association with Sacks who implies to the New York boss is appreciative of his contact and that Soprano is not highly regarded.

There is now a move by the New York boss via Sacks to gain more money from activities controlled by Tony, The first is the housing fraud. When Tony refuses to contribute a portion of the profits, Sacks arranged for the man who does the official property assessments for the government funding application to switch to them or be beaten up. The man is then beaten up by Tony’s crew for not fulfilling his undertakings to them. This is a regular occurrence for anyone who works for the Mafia.

There is also a request for an ongoing percentage of the new Hotel/apartment complex which is progressed with the main structures completed and the fitting out in process so when negotiations fail another union official comes along and calls a full strike from his members because there is no union Labour on site. When Tony is persuaded that a sit down settlement is the way forward he goes down to Miami to see the son of the New York Crime boss Carmine for assistance with the father and Sacks. Carmine and his son play golf with Sacks in an effort to broker a deal. When Tony arrives at the sitdown he finds the New York boss is not present and the terms are the same as before so he walks out. However there is an exchange between Sacks and Tony suggesting that they ought to take action to end the reign of Carmine

Tony has expressed concern that Paulie is not delivering the same weekly tribute as his other captains. Paulie attends a wedding where he approaches the New York boss and finds that he has no special position. He therefore decides to regain the confidence of Tony by breaking into the home of one his mother‘s friends when he thinks she is out. She returns and threatens to call the police so he has to kill her. However he is then able to impress Tony with the amount of his tribute that week.

Tony was at the Bada Bada club when the large portrait of him and the Horse arrives and he orders it to be burnt. When he is not there Paulie says it is worth $25000 and takes it home and hangs it up in his living room. The pictures seems to grow in size which each camera visit and to have a haunting effect on Paulie.

It is Christopher who becomes Tony’s main concern. In a drug and drunken state he sits on Adriana’s dog without realising what he is doing and when she returns she finds the dog has a broken neck and is dead. When she protests he beats her up so she turns to Carmela for help and Tony is furious saying that if Christopher had not been kin he would have whacked him. They bring in a Counsellor who gets everyone to write down the negative way that Christopher has behaved and when he is in a sound condition they confront him with the home truths on the basis they will do this in a non judgemental way. However when Christopher refuses to cooperate they lose their temper and beat him up so that he ends up in hospital.

The Feds have already told Adriana they have arranged a place for Christopher in a rehabilitation centre because in his present condition he is of no potential use to them as a witness. Tony insists he is admitted as a voluntary patient and lets him know that he has one of his men at a nearby motel with the authority to whack him if he attempts to leave before he is considered ready. The sequence is an amusing one. There is a similar light hand aspect when Janice brings around Bobby and his children for an evening meal and insists that C J stays in to entertain the children. Devin comes round for coffee and CJ takes her two his room on their own until Carmela finds out and takes the visiting children up insisting that they play a game with them. C J‘s solution is get out the ouija board and frightens them pretending their mother’s spirit is with them.

This then is the setting for the final episode of the series. (Whitecaps)52 when as is custom some matters are resolved while other are left for season five.

Adriana collects Christopher after he has been declared rehabilitated under observation from Tony’s appointed minder. Also keeping watch are the Feds. Adriana had admitted to Christopher that she is unlikely to have children because of an abortion that when wrong. Christopher had seen marriage as a means for starting a family and is devastated but eventually forgives her. There sis the impression that they are starting out again in contrast to what happens between Tony and Carmela. Everything else is placed in perspective. Things start off well when Tony says he wants to buy a beach home on the Jersey shore -Whitecaps. He takes Carmela and the family to see it saying he is buying as a future holiday home for his children to enjoy and Carmela is thrilled at the development although worries about the cost. There is a further complication in that the house is under sale to someone else and Tony uses the influence of his position to persuade the owner to sell to him and Carmela says it is a good investment because of size and location reminding of her career attempt as a Home sales agent.
The disaster strikes as one of Tony previous mistresses rings Carmela in a disturbed condition and spills the beans on her relationship with Tony. This is Irena who was taken up by another member of the Crew who Tony beat up because the man had dared to have a relationship with the woman even though they had broken up, The beating up caused the man to separate from Irena which was the catalyst for her desperate call to the house and speaking to Carmela. This is the last straw for Carmela so that when Tony returns home he runs over his golf clubs which have been thrown into the driveway and where Carmela is throwing out all his clothes and possessions from upstairs windows, She demands that he leaves and will get a restraining order when he refuses.

He does leave and goes to Irena’s place where he finds Svetlana who explains the background. He goes off and stays at Whitecaps. Tony tries to back out of the purchase because of the changed circumstances but is held to it.

Meadow and Carmela fight over the situation with Meadow raising the relationship with Furio which Carmela vehemently denies. Meadow demands to know why Carmela was prepared to eat shit for years until now and storms off.

Meanwhile Tony has set on forcing the owner of the property to back off from the purchase and return his $20000 deposit. He load his home cinema speakers onto his boat and offshore plays as loud as possible disrupting a lunch party the owners are having. Tony repeats this including at night until they give in.

Tony returns home and tries to exert his rights but Carmela stands her ground. A J helps Tony clear out the pool house cinema so that he can stay there. However this does not work and the couple continues to row going over the history of their marriage and Carmela admits she her only recent happy moments have been the visits of Furio. Tony nearly punches her but punches holes in the wall instead and she calls him a fucking hypocrite. A J pleads to go and live with Tony but Tony says he must now be a man for his mother. Meadow wants them to return to Counselling and thinks over the extent to which she has taken her parents and home for granted. Tony tries to ring Dr Melfi but puts the phone down when she answers. She tries to ring him back but finds the number is now blocked. Carmela and A J watch Tony leave the home. There is something final about this, or so it seems.

Meanwhile Uncle Junior get his mistrial when the threatened Juror fails to agree the verdict. Uncle Junior appears far from elated with the result and takes it out on his crew member Bobby Scalerico whose relationship with Janice appears to have taken a turn for the better. Junior appears to spike this wanting attention from Bobby.

Johnny Sacks admits to Tony his hatred for the way his boss has treated him over the years and Tony tells Christopher to take out a contract on Carmine to make it look like a one of car jack killing.. He arranges for the two men involved in taking his car when he went into their neighbourhood for drugs to do the killing, Meanwhile at the race track Johnny advises Toy that his boss wants to settle so they arrange a meet. They settle for 15% instead of 40% much to the horror of Sacks. Carmine expresses sympathy over the marital break up and Tony commends the man’s son. The behaviour makes Tony wonder if Carmine has got wind of the hit on him. Tony calls off the hit and Chris meets the two men and kills them. Sacks lets his tongue rip about the behaviour of his boss and says Tony can trust him and should not have backed out of the assassination and take over deal. Tony keeps repeating that Sacks should not be saying this now to him. It is possible to read from this how things might go in season six.

Morse as young man and John Thaw

This week has so far proved a challenging experience commencing with a common cough cold, spending the night being tested at the General Hospital, thought my washing machine had broken down discovering two programmes about the character Morse and one about its actor creator John Thaw, watched on TV the two local Premiers Clubs have brilliant wins, together with a number of films and listening to excerpts of the most the most popular 300 classical work on Classic FM radio formed by amalgamating all the annual public voted lists at Easter for the past sixteen or so years. There were some surprising results and I was able to name a choral work of sublime beauty, heard previously but never identified.

The washing machine problem is the easiest to write about as only a change of fuse in the wall plug was required. Did not panic and was only delay from commencing the weekly wash by a few minutes.

I will only briefly mention a programme recorded on Sunday evening about the life and work of John Thaw, the actor who played the City of Oxford named Detective Morse created by Ted Dexter and which proved to be a great joy, but I will delay writing in depth having ordered an inexpensive biography and also a book written by his second wife about their relationship. John was married to former contemporary drama student at RADA and she admitted they had married too young. He maintained contact with their daughter and this continued when he married his second wife, the actress Sheila Hancock, who had become a widow with a daughter who he adopted. The couple had a daughter themselves and one of the joys of recent times was to experience a programme in which two former wives and their three daughters spoke with such loving affection as well as disarming honesty about someone who continued to have a positive impact on their lives. John was very fortunate to have enjoyed relationships and the company with five remarkable women who will be as much the subject of my writing when additional information becomes available information becomes available.

The only other aspect which I will mention now is that I did not approve of the role which brought him and Denis Waterman International fame as two “act first and talk latter” detectives in the Sweeney (1975 to 1978) although by then he had appeared in five other TV series, made half a dozen films for television, appeared in nine films and nine stage plays including one with Laurence Olivier in 1962. I disliked this form of policing portrayed in the Sweeney in part because had been brought up with viewing the police through the eyes of Jack Warner who filled cinema theatres with his performance as George Dixon of Dock Green in the Blue Lamp and which led to the TV series Dixon of Dock Green in which he ended each episode with “Goodnight All” portraying the ideal community orientated police officer which politicians extol today. The character was very different from Morse who had been an undergraduate at an Oxford College for two years, drove a classic Jaguar car, listened to grand opera day and night, supped pints of real ale and had read widely.

The series came to an end after 13 years because the author of the original novels decided enough was enough and Morse dies. There was a follow up series in which his assistant Lewis was promoted to Inspector and he was joined by a young man who had graduated from Oxford but was also something of a loner. He comes close to a relationship several times but there is always a development which prevented normal progress.

I had mixed feelings about the decision to create a successor series with Lewis but the combination of the seeing the city of Oxford where I lived in five locations in five years and the inclusion of another serious, sensitive and educated man as the Assistant to Lewis meant that by the second series I came to appreciate the work for what it was.

It was only during Monday afternoon that I discovered there was to be a two hour drama to mark the 25 years since the first episode of Morse was aired. It would feature a young Morse arriving to work in Oxford for the first time. There was an excellent article in the Guardian previewing the event although the majority of respondents were horrified at the prospect. I therefore watched more from curiosity than expectation. I was impressed and moved, and the one off ticked all my boxes and wrote to the Guardian expressing the hope that if my reaction was shared ITV would commission a series.

Shaun Evans looks younger than his 32 years and his performance was uncannily a young Morse working as a detective constable in a concrete town who is drafted with colleagues to help the city who were looking for a 15 year old school girl who had gone missing at weekend. He and another colleague are assigned to the city team directly engaged in the search and he is asked to circulate flyers on a door to door search to find out anyone has any sighing of the young woman.

We are introduced to the sights, the atmosphere of academic Oxford and to his love of Opera. We are aware from a scene when he takes lodgings that he had an adult relationship which ended unhappily for him. He also believes from studying the available reports that the missing girl possessed a number of poetry books was of interest and this is reinforced when he visits the household and finds that the books are expensive editions. He also finds crosswords cut from the local paper used as book marks but with only one word completed. This latter aspect is not immediately drawn to the attention of viewers but I noted the clue without appreciating the significance.
Morse concludes from the completed entries that the crossword is being used to arrange assignations in places around Oxford at a time on the Saturday evenings. His theory is ridiculed by the sergeant assistant to the Inspector until the body is found at the destination of the last crossword. His enquiries lead him to speak once more to the close friend of the dead girl at the school, and visit the garage where her boyfriend works without progress being made.

Before the body is found he is asked to investigate the apparent suicide of a student on the banks of the Isis a tributary of the river Thames and this brings him to his former college where he meets up with a former fellow student, now a Don, and on his way to becoming a Professor. He was attempting to visit the young man’s Tutor and on learning that the man is not in college goes to his home where he finds that the wife is a former international Opera soloist whose work continues to mean much to him. When the husband returns he appears shocked at the news, but mentions that the student had been a falling off work over the previous six months. At that point there appeared to be no connection between the missing and now confirmed murdered girl and the student who committed suicide.

We have previously been advised that the girl had been scheduled to go out with a friend from school that refused to answer questions about their relationship and movements and we were alerted that this girl appeared to hang around a garage dealer of Jaguar Cars. The famous Red Jaguar driven by Morse is sitting as a new model on the forecourt and the Detective Inspective also uses a Jaguar which young Morse drives when asked bring in the Inspector one morning because the Detective Sergeant is late in supposedly sick. Thus young Morse acquires his interest in the Jaguar car.

(Morse has also visited the lodgings of the dead student and discovered he shared these with another student from Australia who had also mentioned the change in the behaviour of the deceased over the previous six months).

Once the body of the girl is found the Detective Inspector then takes Morse with him rather than his Sergeant to the mortuary where the pathologist reveals that there had been no sexual interference but the girl had a pregnancy expertly terminated (indicating money and influence) and the Detective Inspector asks Morse to Interview again the friends of the girl at school and also the Local Newspaper who published the crosswords. That there was no sexual interference is a clue because the girl was naked with her clothes around her.

It is necessary to turn a blind eye that young Morse is being asked to undertake inquiries on his own that would have been undertaken by Morse senior, either on his own or with his sergeant present, although in fairness in Lewis the sergeant is given a more independent role than Lewis was given by Morse. Morse at this point is only a Detective constable however.

It is therefore Morse who undertakes the task of visiting the Oxford Mail and asking the editor about the author of the weekly crossword written under the name of OZ. The Editor is played by one of the daughters of John Thaw and comments to the young man that his face is familiar to her. She cannot give the address as the crosswords have been submitted voluntarily and anonymously, arriving by post each week, except for the past week when they were delivered by hand by a young man and unfortunately the person who had seen him was away on holiday. However Morse remembers from one of his visits to see the tutor of the deceased student an artefact with reference to a classical phrase or person, I cannot remember which, under the name of Oz and therefore visits the Tutor again to confront him with the discovery of the relationship between the crosswords and murder. Morse was a noted crossword addict throughout the TV series so this aspect also has resonance.

The tutor admits that he is the author of the crosswords and that he had a relationship with the girl. This came about when he and the former contemporary of Morse at the college were debating the possibility of working class young people being able to enter Oxford if given the right opportunity. The two men had seen the girl at some function and made a bet that the Tutor could not get her into the university Pygmalion/My Fair Lady Style. It was this aspect of the story which struck a chord with me because those of us who attended Ruskin College and Platter Hall as colleges of further education passing an approved Oxford University Diploma were eligible if our examination and tutorial records were good enough to be given up to three interviews at an Oxford College and if approved by a college would be invited to enrol as an undergraduate on a bursary for an honours degree, taken over three years but only required to undertake the second Public examination as the first examination which included a paper in Latin would be bypassed because of the Diploma qualification.

While admitting that he had commenced a relationship with the girl he explained that he had prepared the crossword for positing in the usual way which he had handed to his wife. He had gone to the meeting place arranged for six and waited but the girl had not arrived. It emerged that the girl had a relationship with the deceased student until six months ago when with the relationship with the tutor she had broken the one with the student account for his change in behaviour. It also emerged that the wife had forgotten to post the letter and had given it to the student to take into Oxford for them when he had come to the house for a tutorial. Moreover the crossword which the paper had published was that intended for the following week suggesting it had been removed from the the author had prepared in advance as was his custom. It appeared to be an open and shut case that the student had arranged to meet the girl, murdered her and then taken his own life.

There was another aspect the story which emerged from the interviews with the closest friend of the dead girl. This girl continued to be uncooperative but another girl at the school approaches Morse to say that she was the close friend until the now murdered girl had taken up with a trio of girls who were boy crazy. The unhelpful girl eventually admits that she, the murdered girl and other friends had been invited to a party held at a country house, but the murdered girl had left early to meet someone. The girls at “the parties” are organised by the owner of Jaguar car dealer. The attempt by the Detective Inspector and Morse to get cooperation from the Car dealer is thwarted as he refers to Masonry and influential friends including the head of the detectives. The investigation is further thwarted when they visit the County House where the “party” was held and they are confronted by a government security officer who tells them firmly to lay off this aspect of the case. The story is set at the time of Christine Keeler affair of girls provided at a country house Party at home of Lord Astor at which she met War Minister John Profumo who denied in Parliament having an affair with the girl who also an affair with a senior diplomat at the Russian Embassy and a West Indian Drug trafficker.

The Inspector and Morse get a similar reception when they go to see a well known local criminal who has escaped justice because of influential friends in the past and who appears to be the organiser of the parties. The episode had opened with the party and that an evident influential figure departs immediately for London the girl , subsequently murdered is reported missing.

The outcome of the attempts to block inquiries is that the Inspector makes another visit to the Garage owner, asks Morse to go to the car to collect his tobacco and then when Morse returns the garage owner has been beaten up and is giving two large packets from the contents of the safe. Morse strongly disagrees with the tactics being used. Later Morse is summoned to see the Chief of Detectives; Morse had noticed that the girl in a photo on the desk is that of the close friend and party goer of the murdered girl. The girl cooperates with information on the understanding her father is not told. Now Morse is asked to give evidence against the Inspector but refuses and told to return to his normal duties at his home station. Morse hands in his resignation.

Morse is also upset because his case that the killer was the Tutor has been shot down when a member of the public comes forward to say that he saw a girl wearing the dress shown in photos at bus stop very early in the morning on the road by the woods where her body was found. The time of death had previously put in the evening

On arriving in Oxford Morse was teetotal but under the influence of the Inspector he had commenced to drink beer, now he become intoxicated and goes to visit the former opera singer to say goodbye and to get her to autograph a long play record. He makes a pass which she politely side steps emphasising the love for her husband.

Although leaving he had continued to mull over the case and that the dress found next to the body of the girl appeared smaller than her natural size. He went to phone in his thinking about the dress when it also struck him what had been written on the arm of the dead girl. They had first thought it was the partial number of a vehicle and then a partial address but inquiries had proved negative. Now he realised it was a telephone number although incomplete. He had someone at the party had given the reference to girl.

Back at the office the resignation had been handed back. The Inspector had shown the head of detectives the photo of his daughter naked at the last party. The head of detectives and the Sergeant are also implicated in turning blind eye to the parties, corruption and other criminality through their Masonry association.

The plot thickens as they say. The car dealer is half beaten to death by the older sister of the dead girl. It is revealed that the sister was in fact the girl’s mother who had become pregnant when she a school girl and she had left home and her daughter brought up by the grand parents as their own. The father was the car dealer. He survives the attack but in a vegetable state.

Morse tracks down that the telephone belonged to the London home of an Oxford Member of Parliament and Government Minister but when the Inspector and Morse visit he denies any involvement and throws them out. Later the same security man who had warned them off when they visited the party venue visits the Minister and gives him an ultimatum to resign or commit suicide on instruction from the Prime Minister Harold (Wilson).

Morse had then checked the clothing retailers in the City to try and find out who had bought the undersize dress for the dead girl and his finding shocks and distresses him although why is not immediately revealed. I had guessed the situation already.

The former opera singer is giving a concert for charity at the Oxford Playhouse, attended by her husband sitting in a box and Morse had enquired and been told that tickets had been sold out long before. Now he and the Inspector visit the theatre to arrest the woman for a double murder, that of the girl and that of the student she attempted to frame.

The student and the girl had become lovers but the relationship had ended when she was taken up by the tutors and their experiment bet to do a Pygmalion /My Fair Lady. His wife had realised her husband was then having an affair with the girl. She had first replaced the crossword for the week with the one for the following week which had a different place. The girl had first gone to the party, met the Minister and accepted the telephone number and then gone to meet the tutor. However it was the wife who had turned up and strangled the girl. The following morning she had met the student who was in fact her lover and killed him making it look like suicide. She had stayed at the bus stop near where body of th girl lay the following morning was wearing an identical copy of the dress found by the body of the girl and a wig having removed the original outfit which she later burned along with second dress and the wig. She had stood at the bus stop until she was sure she been seen by a passer by before returning home. She commits suicide in police custody. Morse agrees to withdraw his resignation and take up the offer of a move to the City with the promise of help for accelerated promotion.

While there are moments of questionable credibility the strength of the characterisation of Young Morse is such that I remain impressed and hope there will be a series. In fact this point is made in the Guardian on line during the day and Wikipedia that the commissioning of a series as a no brainer having attracted the second largest number of viewers for the holiday weekend at over six and a half million

I end here to have lunch go and see the film about the life of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher