Endeavour star explains why audience needed poignant Joan moment
Shaun Evans said the fantasy sequence was "really important" for both the character and the audience.
Of the many poignant moments in the Endeavour finale, perhaps one of the most emotional was the scene between the title character and Joan Thursday (Sara Vickers) on the latter's wedding day.
In the scene, Endeavour (Shaun Evans) finally confesses his love for Joan before the pair share a passionate kiss – only for it to be revealed that this is actually a fantasy sequence taking place inside the detective's head and he never did tell her how he really felt.
Speaking about the moment, star Evans has explained that it was "really important" for both the character and the audience.
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"It’s kind of unusual that we broke the language of the stories by seeing inside someone’s mind," he told Digital Spy.
"It was important to get those words out and for these men – a stratospheric generalisation here – who don’t say what they feel at the time, it’s important, and it's important for the audience, but also for him as well in that moment of dawning: 'No, f**k, this is what I want, if only I could have said it.'
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He added: "That moment, and the inability to say it, will haunt him for the rest of his days, I think."
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- Endeavour's Abigail Thaw: 'My dad would have approved'
Evans continued that there were "many conversations" about whether or not to include the scene, all the way up to the final editing process.
"In the final edits it was in, and then it was out, and it was in, and then it was out," he explained. "And I just felt really strongly that it would be less if the scene wasn’t left in," he added.
As well as featuring this moment between Endeavour and Joan, the feature-length finale also revealed why Morse never speaks about Thursday in the original series, and included a touching tribute to late actor John Thaw who played Morse between 1987 and 2000.
Prior to the episode airing, Thaw's daughter Abigail – who played Dorothea Frazil in all nine seasons of the show – said that she liked "to think that Dad would have given it the nod of approval".
Endeavour's season 9 finale and all episodes are available to stream on ITVX now. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on.
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