May 1966. DC Endeavour Morse returns to Oxford City Police after a four-month absence from duty. Reunited with DI Fred Thursday, still reeling from the final moments of Series 1, the young detective's involuntary furlough has left him wounded - in mind, more than body. Another dazzlingly complex mystery is set in motion during a Broad Street parade, celebrating the might of Britain's military accomplishments. The festivities, soured by a rash student stunt, are thrown into sharp relief when a John Doe plummets to his death from a nearby council building. A clutch of business cards bearing multiple identities suggest the death was more than just a routine suicide. Endeavour flexes his gumshoe muscles to uncover the corpse's identity - a solitary pursuit that builds to a trip to London with troubling consequences. Whilst a concerned Thursday looks on, the fractured pieces of the kaleidoscope mirror the young detective's state of mind, as he pulls two seemingly unrelated cases into the fray - an anguished father searching for a missing daughter, and a smash-and-grab robbery of medieval artifacts at Oxford's Beaufort College.