User blog:Officer Candy Apple/Pure Evil Proposal - Lester Sheridan

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The only contender in the whole franchise who didn't kill anyone... BUT HE WOULD SELL CHILDREN HE MOLESTED.

We've been discussed about those PE contenders from Endeavour who had killed people and/or been associated with murders. However, what if I introduce you another contender who ISN'T a murderer?

What's the Work?

Endeavour

(Series 6)

The Series 6 of Endeavour is set in 1969, one year after the tragic death of DC George Fancy, who tried to stop a mass shootout between the criminal gangs of Eddie Nero and Cromwell Ames, which also killed both of the crime lords in process. Overall, like the second half of Series 5 before it, Series 6 is much darker and grimmer than Series 3 to 4, which are much lighter in the series.

In this story, the Cowley boys were at their lowest, with Morse being disilluioned by Fancy's death and Joan Thursday's rejection towards him. With the corrupt Alan Jago and Ronnie Box taking over the newly formed Thames Valley Police Department, Bright was sent to traffic division, and Thursday had to cooporate with Box to improve the chasm between him and his wife, Win.

Meanwhile, the region was still full of incidence caused by drug abuse. Above all, Strange was still determined to find whoever killed George Fancy, and tried to persuade Morse to rejoin the party.

"Pylon"

"Pylon" is the first episode of Series 6. The death of a schoolgirl brought Endeavour back to Oxford after he spent another depressive months after George Fancy's demise. When he refused to accept that the main suspect was guilty, Morse had to uncover the truth and rescue another victim of a real kidnapping before it is too late.

Who is He? What Have He Done?

Dr. Lester Sheridan was seemly a friendly and kind historical researcher and psychologist, but deep down he was a morbid pedophile. He kidnapped and molested the children, before taking photos of children being drugged to sell them to his other partners.

Three years before the story, Sheridan kidnapped the ten-year-old Emily Bayard and used his method upon her, drugging her with sedatives and repeatedly molested her (despite his claims of never doing so). To evade capture, he also made Emily to pose as his daughter and forged the photos into Victorian Age photos, putting them together with the photos shot by Lewis Carroll to shield himself and his fellow partners. He also kept some photos for pure entertainment.

Three years later, in the present day, Emily's progression into the teens had made her lost Sheridan's "favor", and as such he kidnapped the nine-year-old Rosie Johnston from the local villiage fete. During the investigation of Anne Kirby's death and Rosie's missing, Sheridan was questioned to be a suspect after the police discovered the photos he collected, but Sheridan evaded the suspicions by proclaiming those photos were taken by Lewis Carroll, who was also famous for his photography of children (like Alice Liddell, whom the titular protagonist of Alice in Wonderland is based upon).

Nevertheless, Morse later discovered that the photos were actually fake, since he discovered that one of the photos had the same mirror, statue and furnace to those in Dr. Sheridan's house, which Morse initially visited after Anne Kirby went missing. It was revealed that Sheridan used special technology and skills to alter those photos, making them look like they were shot in 19th century, but in fact, they were shot in 1960s. After rescuing Emily from Sheridan's house, Morse, Thursday, Alan Jago and Ronnie Box tracked Sheridan down and soon found his hiding place, where he sedated Rosie and prepared to take more fetish photos.

When being confronted by the police, Sheridan showed no remorse over what he did and revealed that he sold children's photos to a group whom he claimed to be "hobbyists" that shared his freakish taste. Morse then pointed out that Sheridan planned to sell Emily to the highest bidder as their sex slave after she became a teenager, whilst making Rosie her substitute. With a sadistic smile, Sheridan only lamented to Morse that Emily was utterly perfect and nice, much to everyone's disgust.

Enraged, Thursday punched Sheridan on the nose out of disgust and tried to beat him up, but Morse went to calm him down. Sheridan was soon taken away by the police. Both Emily and Rosie were sent back to their respective parents.

Mitigating Factor

Completely none. Sheridan didn't think he had done anything wrong and showed morbid obssession over his crimes. He even called his partners in crime as "hobbyists" and men who shared his taste, showing sadistic grin to the police. When Morse revealed what he tried to do with Emily, Sheridan merely lamented about how nice and perfect Emily once was, and was completely relishing in morbid obssessions until Thursday delivered Sheridan what he deserved, a punch on his nose. No wonder why even Box and Jago are disgusted.

Heinous Standards

Non-Murder Deaths

"Pylon" is an interesting episode in both Endeavour and the entire Inspector Morse franchise, because there was no real murder in it. Besides, merely murder is just moderate villainy in this franchise unless it is presented to be a part of one bigger conspirancy and/or being presented in an extremely horrid and brutal way. There are two dead body counts (though it'll be three if you count a framed criminal, who was executed in a flashback of Thursday) in "Pylon", but neither of them are murder victims.

The first was Anne Kirby, the deceased schoolgirl, who was actually killed by accident. Mrs. Skynner, a novice driver with occational paralysis, had accidentally ran over her with her car. She and her husband did try to save Anne but to no avail, so Mr. Skinner put Anne's corpse in the field with flowers around it, so that he could both pay respect and let the police find her.

The second dead body was Stanley Clemence, the main suspect over Anne Kirby's death, but he was actually framed by the corrupt cops and later died of drug overdose after he escaped from hospital. His father was framed by Thursday's partner in the past and was executed, but it was only shown in the flashback and was a subplot about Thursday's once-trustworthy partner, who never had any appearance in the present storyline except a silhotte in the flashback.

Needless to say, their deaths are treated as secondary subplots to demonstrate the corruption within the police force in Thames Valley, with even Thursday's former assistant was amongst them.

Sheridan's Crimes

As a result, the only true on-screen crimes in this episode was Sheridan's crimes. The main plot of this episode had eventually revealed to be what happened to Emily Bayard and Rosie Johnson, and what was behind the double kidnapping of two teenagers.

Dr. Lester Sheridan, being the kidnapper of two children, actually counts as a unique case of Endeavour since he isn't a murderer. Still, what he did is utterly awful, even for the series standards.

Sheridan is a pedophilic kidnapper and child rapist, who took fetish photos of little girls and sell them to his partners for profits, whilst keeping some for himself to watch. Not to mention that he drugged his victims before taking photos of them, adding to his years of molest, abuse and imprisonment. It had caused his first victim, Emily, shown to be extremely malnorished and exhausted. As a result, despite his claims to Thursday of never harming Emily, Sheridan is clearly lying.

Besides, being a pedophile and child rapist is already horrid enough even for Inspector Morse franchise, considering these two kinds of criminals are rare in this franchise. What is more, Sheridan isn't a part of the Freemasonry, which means his relatively lack of resource (comparing to other corrupt officials and serial killers) due to being a one-shot villain. However, what makes Sheridan unique from other PE contenders is his attempt at sex trafficking.

While he didn't kill any of his vtictim, Sheridan decided to sell Emily as a sex slave to any of his partners who paid him the highest price, once Emily had grown up and didn't fit his "morbid" taste. That is no better, if not even worse, than murdering her. He also didn't give up on his crimes, since he kidnapped Rosie (who was even younger than Emily when she was kidnapped) three years later, in an attempt to make her Emily's substitute so that he could repeat his "business" all over again.

Verdict

Whilst he didn't KILL anyone, he did a lot worse than standard murder. A yes for me.