This episode opens with an episode of the comedy international 'sports' show 'Jeux Sans Frontières' being filmed in Oxford. The event shown features runners competing in giant costumes; the winning British runner turns out to be none other than Morse but he doesn't get to celebrate as the German runner has been shot and killed and a child spectator has been seriously injured. The plot quickly thickens as it emerges that the German was originally from East Germany not long after that discovery men from Special Branch turn up to take over the case. Morse refuses to let go as he has promised the boy's mother that he will find out who happened. Not long afterwards he is invited to meet a shadowy agency who point him in the direction of perfumer Sebastian Fenix. As Morse looks deeper he gets into danger as he has a run in with a Russian assassin and starts to uncover a spy ring operating in Oxford. While this is going on Thursday gets involved when he realises that his local newsagent is abusing his wife.
Turning a murder mystery show into a spy drama for an episode could easily have led to a disappointment but here it works nicely. There is a good sense of threat provided by a cold war storyline that obviously features the politics of the time but by remarkable coincidence feels fresh today as the episode was broadcast in the week that a Russian ex-spy and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent in Salisbury. The plotting feels like the murky world of Le Carré with shadowy agencies; apparently ordinary people and just a touch of Bond-like villainy with a suspect who keeps a deadly fish in an aquarium. The regular cast does a fine job; Roger Allam is on particularly fine form as DCI Thursday as he deals with the case of domestic abuse. The guest stars also impress; most notably Ellie Haddington who plays an elderly language teacher who is more deadly than anybody would suspect. Away from the police work there is some good character development as Morse's photographer girlfriend leaves him for a job in Vietnam and Thursday considers whether it is time to leave the police. Overall this was another fine episode in what has turned out to be a great season.
Turning a murder mystery show into a spy drama for an episode could easily have led to a disappointment but here it works nicely. There is a good sense of threat provided by a cold war storyline that obviously features the politics of the time but by remarkable coincidence feels fresh today as the episode was broadcast in the week that a Russian ex-spy and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent in Salisbury. The plotting feels like the murky world of Le Carré with shadowy agencies; apparently ordinary people and just a touch of Bond-like villainy with a suspect who keeps a deadly fish in an aquarium. The regular cast does a fine job; Roger Allam is on particularly fine form as DCI Thursday as he deals with the case of domestic abuse. The guest stars also impress; most notably Ellie Haddington who plays an elderly language teacher who is more deadly than anybody would suspect. Away from the police work there is some good character development as Morse's photographer girlfriend leaves him for a job in Vietnam and Thursday considers whether it is time to leave the police. Overall this was another fine episode in what has turned out to be a great season.