'Endeavour' Season 8, Episode 1 Recap: "Striker"

Even as the opening flashes of the Endeavour premiere set up Season 8's larger mystery, the overarching theme is Morse and his drinking problem. The new season opens with Thursday confronting a couple of rough types in an alley alone, needing backup, while Morse drinks and Strange listens to the local football game. Morse is passed out drunk the following day, while Thursday impatiently waits for him to show up and has to ring him out of a stupor once the case gets started. If that weren't enough, both Bright and Frazil are concerned about how Morse looks, as his nose gets redder and his eyes more sunken, and he drinks on duty more than once.

Bright: There are some blows you don't come back from, not really.

Dorothea Frazil's paper The Oxford Mail received a threatening call from someone claiming to be with the Provisional IRA. If Jack Swift (Julian Moore-Cook), the Oxford Wanderers striker who's been a target due to his Black heritage, plays the next game against Cowley Town, he'll be shot. Bright assigns Morse as Swift's bodyguard because he knows Morse couldn't care less about football. Morse is annoyed as he wants to be investigating the bombing, but not as annoyed as Swift. But the coach Dan Lofthouse (John Hollingworth), insists. Morse asks if Swift might have noticed anything off, but the striker's got nothing other than thinking he saw an old friend. However, they are being followed.