![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/6d7fb56d8bb3e7de7915d2106834c22fd4-Slow-Horses--episode-1--.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
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Slow Horses<\/a><\/p>\n Bad Dates<\/p>\n \n Season 5<\/p>\n Episode 1\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 4 stars<\/p>\n ****\n <\/p>\n \n The idea of Roddy having an attractive girlfriend is so alarming that it forces Slough House to hit the club and see what\u2019s going on. \u201cElections aren\u2019t idiot proof,\u201d says a campaign worker as he graciously accepts a cup of coffee and continues stumping for his candidate, the current mayor, Zafar Jaffrey (Ted Lasso\u2019<\/a>s Nick Mohammed<\/a>), in the opening sequence to this season\u2019s Slow Horses. When a sour-faced young man sits down on the bench in front of him, he immediately recognizes someone hostile to his cause. \u201cI know a lot of you are disenchanted with politics,\u201d he says. \u201cI was too at your age. But Mayor Jaffrey offers hope \u2026\u201d And with that, the stranger pulls a semiautomatic weapon out of a bag and opens fire, making the campaign worker the first of 11 people he kills before a second gunman swiftly dispatches him with a headshot.<\/p>\n Such a scene of mass murder and political violence rings eerily familiar in today\u2019s charged environment, and it offers a compelling opportunity (and plenty of pitfalls) for a series that\u2019s more often concerned with the bungling nobility of a ragtag spy operation and its dysfunctional relationship with MI5. To say the sequence is a cold splash of water is an understatement, but part of what makes it so effective is that short exchange between the campaign worker and the shooter. Intelligence organizations often invest a lot of resources figuring out a suspect\u2019s motives, but the victim here figures them out in a glance. When MI5 later comes back with a report on the shooter, named Rob True, he is an incel clich\u00e9: \u201cHe felt rejected by women, ignored by society, thought his British identity was being eroded, wanted the people around him to feel the pain he felt.\u201d A real yawner, frankly.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s a sick, effective joke in Slow Horses that in a world that now breeds Travis Bickle types on the internet \u2014 True frequented a site called \u201cthe Unseen\u201d \u2014 they could be easily weaponized by more powerful forces. It\u2019s like having a sleeper cell where the agents don\u2019t even know they\u2019re being activated. In True\u2019s case, he was activated and then deactivated, and there are surely many more such men who can be manipulated into the same violence. It feels surreal to live at a time when mass shooters are so common that they could themselves be used as human boxes of ammo for some shadowy organization. But here we are, seeing it happen on a reliably offbeat, escapist spy series.<\/p>\n Yet this shift to a much darker tone fits the mood of Slough House as we begin the new season. The fourth season ended with Marcus getting shot by a mercenary in the line of duty and River committing his grandfather, David, to a care home against his will. Now, Louisa has opted to take a six-month leave of absence that everyone but River realizes is a permanent break from the service. \u201cI can\u2019t deal with what I\u2019ve witnessed,\u201d she explains to River late in the episode, before pointing out that he, too, isn\u2019t allowing himself to process the feelings that are surely overwhelming him. For the run of the show, we\u2019ve understood the agents of Slough House are being plagued by their own presumed ineptitude. Now they\u2019re having to confront an act of domestic terrorism through frayed psyches.<\/p>\n Which is not to say that Slow Horses has turned into a bummer. Right after that opening shocker, we\u2019re treated to Roddy bopping along to Robert Palmer\u2019s \u201cSimply Irresistible\u201d with his headphones on, obliviously stumbling into traffic. Shirley tackles Roddy to keep him from getting struck by a van \u2014 the same van, we suspect, that was used to supply the shooter with his weapon and ammo \u2014 but he\u2019s more concerned with replacing his headphones than checking the local CCTV for the car that nearly flattened him. He really is that stupid and self-absorbed, and Jackson Lamb, who has a conspicuously minimal presence in this episode, is too checked out to care much, either.<\/p>\n The fun twist of \u201cBad Dates\u201d is that Roddy has the confidence to believe a gorgeous model-influencer type would go clubbing with him, but his colleagues see it as the most obvious red flag imaginable. When Shirley decides to tail Roddy, firmly believing that his near-death experience was not accidental, she\u2019s so shocked to see his date that it becomes a crisis for the entire agency. The chances that Roddy could score a babe like that without paying are precisely 0 percent. That leaves Catherine to beg River to take Shirley\u2019s claims seriously and rush to the club to protect the poor doofus from getting targeted again.<\/p>\n From the balcony, River and Shirley gaze upon the spectacle of Roddy and this mysterious woman dancing with an almost anthropological curiosity. \u201cMaybe she\u2019s in it for the sex,\u201d Shirley speculates before correcting herself. \u201cI think I\u2019d rather sleep with Lamb, but in a club situation, I can see why someone would use him as a human sex toy.\u201d Soon after, Shirley makes a typical Slough House mistake by tackling a perceived attacker from above before realizing he had a bottle instead of a knife. When River catches up to her in the bathroom, she whips out a small packet of cocaine and can barely summon an excuse to cover for the fact that she\u2019s using again. Losing Marcus has knocked her off the wagon.<\/p>\n Yet even that moment isn\u2019t as pitiable as the one that ends the episode, with Roddy angling unsuccessfully to bed his date (\u201cSo \u2026 is tonight the night? Where two become one?\u201d), only to be told that she wants their first time together to be special, as if she were a prim high-schooler deflecting the advances of an overanxious boyfriend. Roddy does indeed appear to be the target of a nefarious enterprise and his continued obliviousness makes him a good one.<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0When Ruth Bradley was added to the cast last year as Emma Flyte, new head of the \u201cDogs,\u201d she was poised to join Taverner as a Slough House tormenter, but she\u2019s doing her job in a straightforward and competent way this episode. We\u2019ll see what happens when the Roddy subplot collides with the mass-shooter subplot, but it\u2019s interesting to observe all parties operating independently of each other toward a common pursuit of justice.<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0The detail of the shooter deliberately leaving a cartridge behind for the authorities to see is a remarkable flex, an early indication that whoever\u2019s responsible feels they can activate other shooters with impunity and get away with it.<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0Roddy blanching at the implication that he pays for sex: \u201cSex pays for me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0Gimball\u2019s attacks on Mayor Joffrey (\u201cthe policies of this soft-on-crime mayor have turned this city into a war zone\u201d) sound awfully familiar as a political scare tactic, do they not?<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0A big welcome back to MI5 stooge Claude, who steps in it again by assuming Joffrey\u2019s Black chief of staff is his bodyguard.<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0\u201cI love that you\u2019re happy with waiting. It\u2019s so powerful.\u201d And with that, the mystery woman sends poor Roddy off into the night.<\/p>\n VULTURE NEWSLETTER<\/p>\n Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
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