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It’s almost time to bid farewell to young Endeavour Morse. PBS has set a release date for Endeavour Season 9, which will be the last for the period mystery drama. 

‘Endeavour’ Season 9 premieres June 18 on PBS 

Shaun Evan as Morse with his hand on his chin in 'Endeavour.' Season 9 premieres in June 2023 on PBS.
Shaun Evans as Morse in ‘Endeavour’ | Courtesy of Mammoth Screen and MASTERPIECE.

Endeavour Season 9 will premiere Sunday, June 18 at 9 p.m. ET on PBS. The final season of the Inspector Morse prequel series will have three, 90-minute episodes. 

Shaun Evans returns in the title role, along with Roger Allam as Fred Thursday, Anton Lesser as Reginald Bright, and Sean Rigby as Jim Strange. Pennyworth’s Jack Bannon, who plays Thursday’s son Sam, will also return after being absent from the past several seasons. Other returning cast members include James Bradshaw, Abigail Thaw, Caroline O’Neil, and Sara Vickers. Endeavour creator Russell Lewis wrote all three episodes. 

Ahead of the final season premiere, PBS will air a documentary, Morse and the Last Endeavour, on June 11 at 9 p.m. ET. It looks back on Inspector Morse, which aired from 1987 to 2000, the spinoff Inspector Lewis, and Endeavour. 

Will ‘Endeavour’ Season 9 explain what happened to Thursday?

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Endeavour’s ninth season begins in the spring of 1972 and will see both Morse and Thursday facing major changes both personally and professionally. Morse is back at work after taking time away to deal with his drinking. But the growing closeness between Joan Thursday (Vickers) and Strange will create new challenges for him.

In the Endeavour Season 9 premiere, a murder in a college garden leads Morse to investigate a celebrated orchestra. But when a second tragedy occurs, he discovers a story the group would rather stay buried. 

In episode 2, Oxford is dealing with a crime wave, and a group of undergraduates is running wild across town. When a policeman dies, it sends shockwaves through Castle Gate police station. Then, in the series finale, a series of cryptic notices in the local paper provides clues in Morse’s final investigation. Meanwhile, Thursday is under pressure from a familiar face. 

In addition to the usual mysteries for Morse and his Oxford police colleagues to solve, the last three Endeavour episodes will presumably bridge the gap between the prequel and the original Inspector Morse series with John Thaw. Loyal fans may finally get the answer to one big question that’s been lingering since Endeavour premiered: What happened between Morse and Thursday? The older man is a mentor and father figure to the younger detective in the prequel, but he’s never mentioned in the original show. Hopefully, we’ll find out why the older Morse seems to have kept any memories he has of Thursday deeply buried. 

Shaun Evans said it was time to leave Morse behind 

While many fans are sad to see Endeavour come to an end, Evans knew it was time to say goodbye. The actor has played Morse for more than a decade. (The show premiered in 2012.) Though leaving the character behind is bittersweet, he didn’t want to overstay his welcome. 

“The story is all, and when it’s told, it’s told,” he told Radio Times ahead of the season 9 premiere in the U.K. “That time was coming, and you don’t want to repeat yourself. You shouldn’t stay just because it’s comfortable. You owe it to the audience to do it well and then call it a day.”

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