Ludo Talenti

Planning

Wealth

Sabotage

Uxoricide

“ Ludo: I've killed no-one. My hands are innocent of blood. Spotless. Just like my conscience. Buying the life insurance policies was my little wheeze, certainly, but it was fate that spun the wheel... with a little help from my glamorous assistant. We all have our entrances and our exits, Morse. Our parts to play. Even you.

Morse: Why? What was my part?

Ludo: You were my useful idiot. My pet policeman. „ ~ Ludo revealing his true nature to Morse.

**Ludovico "Ludo" Talenti** is the overarching antagonist in the Series 7 of *Endeavour*. He is the husband of Violetta Talenti and one of the (former) best friends of DS Endeavour Morse.

Ludo is also one of the two core culprits throughout Series 7, alongside the Towpath Killer. He was behind a series of seemly accidents that occurred throughout the Series 7, which happened cocurrently with the Towpath Killer murders.

He was portrayed by Ryan Gage, who also portrayed Alfrid Lickspittle in Peter Jackson's *The Hobbit* film trilogy, Micolash in *Bloodborne* and Adolf Hitler from *Red Dwarf* (specifically in the episode "Cured").

## Overview

Through his company, Ludo bought life insurance policies from people needing a quick pay out, in return for him receiving the full payment when they die. Waiting until the policy is full, he then engineers several "tragic accidents", killing them and giving him the profits. Amongst his victim, there was Mrs. Carrie Bright, the wife of PCS Reginald Bright.

Unlike the Towpath Killer, who was the target of the police already in the first two episodes, the attention on whoever that caused any "accident" was only brought in front of Morse in the season finale despite those so-called "accidents" happened correspondingly with the Towpath Killer's case.

After the real Towpath Killer's death in the series finale, however, Ludo's true nature was gradually disclosed in the same episode, and he became the Series 7's final antagonist.

## Biography

### Early life

Nothing was known about Ludo's past even with what he proclaimed, since he was purely a con artist. All he ever did was to deceive and manipulated Morse. According to Ludo himself, his own version of past involved in living in an area occupied by Nazi Germany, and he was deeply traumatized after witnessing a German soldier killed a woman and took her necklace. This story had no flashback to support it.

After graduation from Oxford University, Ludo had a scheme in mind to gain money through fraudulence. He found Violetta, who was still a homeless teenage girl on the street and forced her to marry him and become his accomplice, starting his scheme together.

After establishing his fraudulent company known as California Amity Redemption and Disbursement, Ludo pretended to help people in buying life insurance earlier. He had them paid in a reasonable fraction of the total profits. When they had died, however, Ludo would be paid in total price in return. The price was high, with even the fraction worth about 3,000 pounds. Then, Ludo and Violetta worked together to spend time with his victims, being bonded with them whilst setting up unfortunate events to kill them, so that he would be paid the profit.

Furthermore, Ludo's action also indirectly set off the Towpath Killer's event. Among his victims, there was a man known as **Mr. Aspen**, the owner of a firm, who fell to his death whilst fixing his roof when his ladder snapped. It was revealed that Ludo sabotaged Mr. Aspen's ladder by removing one of its rungs. After Mr. Aspen's death, Carl Sturgis - later known as nobody but the Towpath Killer - seized the chance and stole Aspen's mansion and made it his base for killing. This is the only time that the two series of cases ever intertwined.

### False accidents

There was no indication of how long this went on in total, or how many innocent people died due to this series of scheme. In the first half of 1970, however, there were already six newly reported deaths in Oxford because of the scheme. If this was never bad enough, Frazil informed Morse that there were more similar deaths around other nearby towns and counties as well.

During a concert organized by him, Ludo got closer to his friend Morse following the latter being pick-pocketed. He later manipulated his friendship with Morse in order to seemly bond with him, though he was unaware that his wife was in a love affair with Morse after the duo met each other in an opera house, while watching Verdi's *La traviata* in the 1969's New Year's Eve. To set his meeting with Morse and later Thursday, Ludo killed a dancer by electrocuting her in a bath, before he and Violetta taking over his victim's house to meet with Morse.

After killing Mr. Aspen and the dancer, Ludo continued his schemes. In one case, he acted as a painter whilst secretly replacing his victim's bolt on balcony with rusty ones, causing his attempted victim's wife to fell to her death. He also rigged a glazier's pulley system which caused him dead by falling when the said victim was working afterwards.

In the meantime, Bright bought life insurance for his ill wife from Ludo, who had took care of Mrs. Bright as a caretaker for months, using fake kindness to be close to them before rigging Mrs. Bright's Christmas light bulbs, causing its malfunction and setting for Mrs. Bright's death months later.

### Later schemes

One night, in Matilda college, Ludo snuck into the campus and killed his next target, Dr. Nancy Deveen, by luring her onto a ladder which was rigged, causing her to fall to her death and making look like an accident, as if she was trying to reach a book on the shelf. Morse had discovered that the room's lights was off, which drew his suspicion that it was actually a murder.

However, in the meantime, Ludo discovered the love affair between Violetta and Morse. He was enraged at first and tried to kill the man who befriended him, but Violetta calmed him down and said a dead police officer would cause too much attention. Ludo reluctantly agreed and decided to set a confrontation between them, so that he could continue to have Violetta by his side whilst killing Morse. He even deceived Violetta into believing he would spare Morse. They left Oxford and returned to Venice.

### Final confrontation

After the demise of Sturgis and Mrs. Bright, Morse discovered the connection between those "accidental" victims, before discovering that Ludo was the mastermind behind all of this fraudulence that costed countless life. Morse left Joan a note, left Thursday his evidence, and left for Venice, confronting Violetta for her working for Ludo and manipulating him.

After the brief confrontation with Violetta, she left for Ludo. Soon, in a cemetery, Morse confronted Ludo face to face and accused him for doing heartless things and murdering people. Nevertheless, Ludo denied the fact that he killed anyone. Instead, he claimed that his conscious was clear and it was fate and Violetta who spun the wheel. Ludo even blamed all of his victims instead, saying it was his victims' fault for not having any second thought.

Furthermore, Ludo also revealed that Morse was nothing but his puppet, with him stirring the friendship between Morse and Thursday by sending Violetta into Morse's life. Morse demanded where Violetta was, and Ludo threatened Morse to follow him into the mausoleum, or she would not live to see another day.

### Death

Morse had complied and followed Ludo, finding Violetta there. Ludo then held Violetta as his hostage, revealing her true identity as a homeless young girl before he picked her up and forced her into following his service. Ludo threatened Morse to drop his weapon, or he would kill Violetta. Morse was forced to follow Ludo's command.

After being released, Violetta tried to persuade Ludo to escape as the plan was trying to scare Morse, not to kill him. However, Ludo coldly declared that, "Plans changed." He fatally shot Violetta with no hesitation as she tried to defend Morse from the bullet, before trying to kill Morse when Thursday arrived, secretly following Ludo into the place in order to rescue Morse.

Ludo ran away to the side of canal, chased by Thursday who fired at him. After he cornered Ludo, Thursday demanded Ludo to drop his weapon. However, Ludo instead tried to kill Thursday, forcing the latter to take action quickly and shot Ludo again and again, killing him. Ludo's corpse then fell into the water and disappeared.

## Quotes

“ There speaks a devil sick of sin! „ ~ Ludo Talenti

“ You really don't have a clue, do you? She's a fraud, Morse. Every word she's ever told you was a lie. When I found her, she was fifteen, barefoot in the back streets of Naples. I've given her the world. You don't even know her real name. „ ~ Ludo revealing Violetta's true identity to Morse and hypocritically calling her a liar.

“ Plans changed. „ ~ Ludo right before he killed Violetta and attempted to kill Morse, also his final words before he was killed by Thursday.

## Etymology

When Ludo jokingly concurs that his name is "like the game", he is being more meaningful than the others realize. "Ludo" is the Latin word for "I play", and he has indeed being playing a game - an especially vicious and deadly one - with Morse throughout the season. He tells Thursday that the name is short for "Ludovico", a common enough (if usually rather upper-class) Italian forename.

However, "Vico" means "I conquer" in Latin - he is, in other words, playing to win. Devotees of the fiction of Anthony Burgess will recall that the brainwashing technique employed in his famous novel *A Clockwork Orange* is called "the Ludovico Technique"; it transforms the behavior of the novel's violent protagonist, and it might be argued that Morse's customary behavior is similarly altered by Ludo and Violetta.

Just as his sexual obsession with the latter leads him to compromise his usually-stern principles and to betray what he regards as a friendship, he also becomes overtly arrogant and condescending to his colleagues and even (inadvertently) reveals confidential police matters by bringing files home with him in direct contradiction to both regulations and Strange's warning.

Burgess was, in naming the technique, also thinking of the Italian philosopher and historian Giambattista Vico (1668-1744), who argued that the movement of history is often circular - and just as this "Endeavour" season begins in Venice on New Year's Eve, it ends there exactly a year later.

## Trivia

* In the real-life, the life insurance scheme would not have been permitted under British law in 1970. It was not until the mid 1990s that viatical settlements were permitted in the United Kingdom.
* It was never detailed how many people Ludo killed throughout years, but he already had caused 16 documented fake accidents and 7 onscreen deaths throughout his appearance in the span of a year. It may well possibly mean that Ludo has the largest number of body counts in the whole *Inspector Morse* franchise thus far.
* Ludo and the Towpath Killer are the first duo of *seen* arc villains in *Endeavour* that shares no relations to each other. Both have their own separated influence throughout the same season, and the only Big Bad Ensemble that are dealt with personally by Morse. The previous arc villains, except those that were unseen and not confronted, are either leaders or at least a vital part to a long-running story arc in each seasons.
	+ Reginald Bright (pre-redemption) was originally antagonistic towards Morse's investigation and skills.
	+ Clive Deare was a part of Oxford's police corruption and was responsible for Peter Jakes' traumatic past, and being the shelter of pedophile ring led by Gerald Wintergreen and Josiah Landesman.
	+ Series 3 has no definite arc villain and is only focusing on separate criminals on each episode.
	+ Whilst Roy Morton serves as the arguable main antagonist in Series 4 (and not being a part of Freemasons), his role is limited in Thursday Family's subplot, instead of having a part in the Series 4's main storyline, which surrounds Morse's rigged sergeant exam. The Freemason members are responsible for Morse's rigged sergeant exam, but it never specified who was directly responsible. They are never seen or personally confronted, and thus they only serve as overarching antagonists of Series 4.
	+ Eddie Nero is the center of Thames Valley's drug crisis for being the most powerful mob leader in the region at the time. While Cromwell Ames aims to challenge Nero in a bitter rivalry throughout the whole season, his vital influence only started to spark in the last two episodes, and he was still less powerful and influential than Nero, thus making Ames the Series 5's secondary antagonist.
	+ Alan Jago was responsible for killing George Fancy in the Series 5 finale, before exploiting the drug crisis and Nero's assets for his own gain, causing even worse drug abuse, murder, drug overdose and incidents throughout the series. He is also behind the Cranmer House's collapse by working with Clive Burkitt and George McGryffin as their benefactors.
* Although sharing the spot of main antagonist with the Towpath Killer without working with each other, Ludo's characterization is much closer to the previous arc villains (like Deare and Jago) that is influential, manipulative and deceitful, whereas the Towpath Killer's characterization is instead much closer to the series' homicidal culprits of the week.