Coughed up a bullet???? - Endeavour (2012) Discussion

[–] Lily_Magnum 8 years ago

Yes the bullet was lodged in his lung. Pretty sure he made up the 3 weeks to live bit to let the Matthews boys think he had nothing to lose. I think the implication is that he's okay now that he's gotten rid of the bullet. He looked healthier in his last couple of scenes. Plus, they are filming series 4 now and he's in it.

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[–] film_flam_man 8 years ago

Not so sure he was making up the 3 weeks. Judging from the pointed shape of the billet fragment, it was probably doing very serious damage to his lung, and it may have been difficult if not impossible to control the bleeding.

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[–] merryapril 8 years ago

Lily_Magnum, I'd think a pointy piece of metal that large would do some serious damage to his lungs and airways but like you said he seemed to be in better health after he coughed it up! So I suppose this may just be an instance of artistic license. BUT, hasn't it been remarked upon, more than once, that he had a couple of bullets in his body, not just one?

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[–] Lily_Magnum 8 years ago

So I suppose this may just be an instance of artistic license.

I think that's it. Fred Thursday is so badass he can just cough up a bullet and get on with his day! 

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[–] karmie101 8 years ago

Yaaaas! Fred Thursday is totally badass! Loved your take on this! LOL!😀

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[–] A-Checkered-Life 8 years ago

Yes, SIR! Even suspended, you are the Man, Inspector Thursday!! You Rock!    

Bit of shrapnel left in my lung?! Not a problem! Daughter held hostage?! I'll be gunning for you AND the Better Man Will Win!

        

On the other hand . . . . what amazing timing for Endeavor to realize that Joan is special to him. The last ending was a true downer after the relief of the first ending. Definitely left feeling blue.

This show is so fantastic! Much as I love, Love, LOVE Sherlock, Endeavor is my Absolute Favorite!

A Checkered Life speaks of myriad diverse adventures being the rewards of endless curiosity.

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[–] Lily_Magnum 8 years ago

I love Sherlock too, but I think Endeavour has moved to the top of my list. The biggest difference for me is that all the regular characters on Endeavour are likeable! Sherlock has several characters that I don't like at all and the Xmas special kind of sucked.

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[–] patw_law 8 years ago

I too like this episode. And I like the quote about "the checkered past"

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[–] rebecca-1960 8 years ago

Agreed!

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[–] ronricho-337-128165 8 years ago

I actually believe that he could cough up a bullet and just get on with his day. He is, as Lily_Magnum so artfully put it A BADASS!

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[–] faremelli 8 years ago

Oddly enough, something like this was JUST covered in the Health section of the NY Times, in the Think Like a Doctor section- it's called "aspiration of a foreign body". Breathing in something small into your lungs can give you a heck of a cough, and maybe even ultimately kill you. Thursday didn't breathe anything in, but having a shrapnel piece in a lung has much the same effect, I suspect. And so when he coughed up the bullet piece, I knew at that moment that his cough was going to vanish and he would be ok (I was still on pins and needles for him though as the hostage situation was still underway at that point). He is a badass and I love whenever he's in a scene.

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[–] lennonforever (2453) 6 years ago

Oh yeah!! Fred is hard as nails!!!

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[–] ronricho-337-128165 8 years ago

Lily_Magnum I'm glad to hear that about Thursday. I was preparing myself for his departure but not very well. Much as I like Shaun Evans I like Roger Allam as much. Both the actors and the characters.

I really need to get some real friends. On second thought ......nah!

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[–] rebecca-1960 8 years ago

Ah, okay thanks.

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[–] Lily_Magnum 8 years ago

Here's a short bonus podcast of Roger discussing the bullet scene.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/podcast-book-club/podcasts/endeavour-bonus-brink-death/

Love the Doc Holliday comparsion!👍

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[–] ronricho-337-128165 8 years ago

This thread has been one of my very favorites on these boards. I have enjoyed the wit, wisdom insight and humour.

As an aside my Welsh Mother used to say, when referring to someone who was very angry they were "spitting bullets."

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[–] ShannonTriumphant 8 years ago

I thought it was a canine tooth! lol Then I wondered if he ever brushed his teeth. Yes, a bullet makes sense, though how he's running around beating people up with that in there beggars belief.

I am reminded of Roy Hobbs in "The Natural". [SPOILER!!!] After being poisoned by--well, nefarious people--so he can't win the pennant, he is taken to a hospital and his stomach pumped. The doctor explains that they found a silver (!) bullet, the result of his being shot 16 years earlier by a psychotic woman. He is told that it has been corroding the lining of his stomach and he cannot play one more game (baseball) or it could kill him.

Wouldn't Thursday's bullet have the same effect on his lungs? Or should I just go with the "he's such a bad-ass" explanation? ;P

I followed all the rules...and you followed none of them. And they all loved you more.

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[–] A-Checkered-Life 8 years ago

I am reminded of Roy Hobbs in "The Natural". [SPOILER!!!] After being poisoned by--well, nefarious people--so he can't win the pennant, he is taken to a hospital and his stomach pumped. The doctor explains that they found a silver (!) bullet, the result of his being shot 16 years earlier by a psychotic woman. He is told that it has been corroding the lining of his stomach and he cannot play one more game (baseball) or it could kill him.

Wouldn't Thursday's bullet have the same effect on his lungs? Or should I just go with the "he's such a bad-ass" explanation? ;P

Wow, Shannon, what a fascinating question considering how this conversation has been propelled from DI Thursday, The Oxford CID Bad Ass, to the corrosive impact of a shredded bullet in a middle-aged detective's right lung . . . .

I have just spent a half hour reading through a couple online journals by forensic pathologists and two blogs where dozens of men appear to have copious amounts of time to discuss firearm wounds and lead poisoning. The sum of this exploratory research is that lead could have been a serious threat to Thursday's life from that nasty fragment.

It was truly excellent timing on his unexpected expectoration of the shrapnel! 

This certainly a downtime for my favorite detectives, most of which has been brewing since Thursday and Endeavor went after those terribly superior officers at the end of Season Two. Quite frankly, if programming had returned with episodes similar to Seasons one and Two, I would have been extremely disappointed.

After the physical and psychological trauma both officers experienced, the writers presented us with (IMO) logical responses and behavior. If people want "suck-it-down-and-get-on-to-business", there are many dozen American shows to visit. Of course, there are just as many "totally-raw-in-your-face-reality shows on our networks. Neither are representative of actual life.

Having worked with families suffering wartime trauma and crisis, the story lines of emotional struggle that Thursday and Endeavor are traveling is truer to the center of the experiences with loss, anger, betrayal, hurt, withdrawal, tension, anxiety, fear, denial, and hope all playing their parts well within those two souls. These episodes have felt layered and real to me each week.

This Morse is as much an introvert as the middle-aged detective of the '90s, yet he is also open and curious about others. He has not yet devolved to a bitterness of "Life-is=all-about-ME!" His attention to others is so complete that I often found myself wondering at how much Shaun Evans was able to give such intense focus to life around him within a scene. And to still pay attention to the individual with whom he was performing. Amazing actor.

When he and Roger Allam are on screen together, or this season, not so much, the energy still flows between them. It has been a treat to take this sad, painful journey with time because the time always feels tangible, rather than two hours of ephemeral fluff and glamour.

Since many people in other threads have spoken strongly and unequivocally about disliking and/or hating this season, I want to cast my vote for the excellence in writing, acting, music, photography, and plots. I have not been disappointed in the least, nor have I seen this season as simply providing opportunities for Endeavor to grow towards the (im)mature DI Morse characterization of the late 1980s to 2000.

John Thaw so beautifully realized that often intriguing, yet mostly irritating, individual. Morse was so shallow that the only women who could find him wonderful were those in their final days of life. They did not have to endure his whining or condescension for too long. Someone on this board wrote a wonderful, completely apropos remark that Endeavor and Morse were so distant in personality and character that she thought they might only be distantly related. Something clever, yet succinct.

For those of you who are enjoying and our loving the Life and Times of Endeavor and Thursday, it is a pleasure to read the positive, thoughtful, curious, and hopeful comments! It is lovely to visit this board.

Thanks so much!

A Checkered Life speaks of myriad diverse adventures being the rewards of endless curiosity.

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[–] ShannonTriumphant 8 years ago

I did get off-track, didn't I?! Well, we all do at times. I liked this:

I have just spent a half hour reading through a couple online journals by forensic pathologists and two blogs where dozens of men appear to have copious amounts of time to discuss firearm wounds and lead poisoning. The sum of this exploratory research is that lead could have been a serious threat to Thursday's life from that nasty fragment.

Say...you're not the same guy who started the fad around "Sherlock", involving the analysis of the forensics of Sherlock coming back to life after his fatal gunshot from Mary? It turns it that that is a real thing, though quite rare, and not something that's understood fully. Still, cool, though!

Regarding the opinions about this series:

When he and Roger Allam are on screen together, or this season, not so much, the energy still flows between them. It has been a treat to take this sad, painful journey with time because the time always feels tangible, rather than two hours of ephemeral fluff and glamour.

That must be why I feel compelled to watch each episode; I still cannot decide whether I really like it--it's so different from the last two--or whether it's "fluff and glamour". Probably a bit of both, for me at least. I'll grant you that the cinematography was stunning.

I found Thursday's new darkness very riveting, causing Morse (just call me "Morse"!) to seem even more childlike and angelic...or downright shocked, especially when his mentor is beating people up. It was great to see this horror reflected in the eyes of Thursday's daughter.

I followed all the rules...and you followed none of them. And they all loved you more.

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[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] ejchri 8 years ago

The physical human body can do some amazing things. For example, it will try to push a stray fragment of embedded hunk of wood or metal or foreign bone, outward to the skin surface. For example, war or bombing injuries where somebody else's bone fragments, or some fragment otherwise, gets propelled into an adjacent person's body. Some people, myself included, have had silk sutures that were meant to be permanent internal sutures left deep inside (not surface sutures or staples which are meant to be removed), dissolved by one's own white cells. Once the silk suture was destroyed in one place, so that it was no longer a continuous ring, the body slowly pushed the silk through the muscles till it pushes out through the skin.

And yes, that's what the lung tries to do with foreign matter. The body tries to push it to the bronchial tubes and to then cough it out.

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[–] kkleeband 8 years ago

I have just watched "Prey" and my heart was in my mouth. I'm finding this series absolutely top notch in the writing department and the acting of Endeavour and Thursday is so believable and raw that it took my breath away. I was never a huge fan of "Morse" and watched it because my husband liked it, but I absolutely love "Lewis" and wish more series would be made, and I am now a huge, huge fan of "Endeavour"! This is one series that I would buy just to watch it again and again. There are so many layers that you see something new every time you watch it.

I also know from personal experience that the human body is amazing. After my breast reconstruction I had a 3 inch piece of stitching that was meant to be permanent work it's way out of my body. Luckily for me, the worst I experienced was an odd itch below a scar line and one day I felt a tiny hard end. It pulled out of my body with nary a problem. But I have also had a metal screw in my arm try to work its way out 2 years after its implant. It had to be surgically removed because it was dangerously close to my Brachial Artery. It did do permanent damage to my muscle.

So you see it CAN happen both ways. Strange but true.

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[–] Sook-Yongsheng 7 years ago

But it just seems that Thursday would have been told to go to the hospital, with that kind of extreme coughing.

I found it unrealistic that he just went around like that and nobody said anything -- not even his wife, his daughter, Morse, and their boss, chief superintendent Bright.

Or if they did say something they weren't more very, very concerned.

I'm surprised Bright didn't order Thursday to go to the hospital on sick leave.

45 Years: 9
Son of Saul: 10
The Witch: 8.5
Bridge of Spies: 8.5

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[–] Onetrickpony-1 7 years ago

Speaking of how badass Thursday is, therr was a scene in a prevous episode where he confronts a couple thugs that beat up Morse, they try to brush him off, and he says sommat like "Well then, I'm going to have to take off my hat." End of scene, but the implication seems to hae been that he roughed them up until he got the info he was aftar - as well as some payback for Morse.

Orr am I reading it wrong?

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[–] tovangar2-321-223220 7 years ago

Nah, you read it right

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