I talked a little bit about Morse and @astridcontramundam, @thewatcher98, and @fanficrocks had some great insights about about how Morse never seems to see himself as included within anyone's circle of love.

I don’t think though, that I was very clear about the last point I tried to make. I said:

“every once and a while it strikes me again that so much of this show is about a very simple premise: It explores the idea that love and connection are what make you most vulnerable to the evils of this world. At the same time, they are also the things that make life worth living and that give us strength.  So how do you live that terrible paradox—with both of these things being true at the same time?  And how do you respond when your love is used against you?”

The person I was actually thinking about most there was not Morse, but Thursday.

This is a man who at his core is a guardian. His primary mission in life is to take care of the people he’s supposed to take care of. He wants to love and protect. Especially these people...

But from the very beginning, his love is weaponized against him. His relationship with Mickey Carter and his desire to protect his family are used initially to drive him out of London.

Oxford is hardly more safe. Everyone seems to realize that threatening Thursday himself is pointless. You have to get at him through what he loves. And so they threaten his family and they threaten Morse.

And then they secure further leverage via his loan to Charlie which places both his job and his marriage--the very foundations of his identity--at risk.

What makes it all the more difficult for him is that he is constantly navigating between worlds--often opposing worlds.

He grew up as an East End barrow boy with an alcoholic father. He was raised to watch out for his own.  Now he’s a fairly well-off suburban father in academic Oxford with a job that in some sense makes him responsible for the entire community.

He was raised with violence, and by all accounts was involved in brutal campaigns and resistance work in WWII.  Fists were an accepted part of the game when he started policing. It’s not his first resort, but it’s a tool he uses.

Now Morse is trying to pull him away from that. Morse says he’s better than that--but he’s genuinely torn. What happens if the bad guy gets away with it because they didn’t have the nerve to “do what had to be done?”

One of the most poignant examples to me is when Charlie asks for the loan. While Win and Fred’s marriage looks dated to contemporary eyes, it’s notable for the time to see them making decisions mutually as a couple and to see them being fairly open in talking to one another.

But when Charlie asks for the money, there’s a sense that Fred’s immediately back in the world where he grew up—a world where consulting your wife about anything is akin to asking her “permission.”  It's also a world where saying no and refusing generosity to your brother would make you seem less of a man.

So which rules does he follow? The ones he and Win currently live with or the ones he and Charlie grew up with? Well, unfortunately, we know the answer.

S9 is I think the hardest example. So much of it is centered around the question of who Thursday is supposed to be taking care of—the victims of crime and the people of Oxford that he’s sworn to protect as a policeman? His immediate family—Win, Sam, Joan—and now Jim? His extended family—Charlie and the rest? His...whatever Morse is?

The bad guys are using everything he cares about to manipulate him and the cruelest twist of all is that he must seemingly choose one of his worlds to save and sacrifice the others. Which will he put first?