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Slow Horses<\/a><\/p>\n Incommunicado<\/p>\n \n Season 5<\/p>\n Episode 2\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 4 stars<\/p>\n ****\n <\/p>\n \n Even the Park is interested in finding out what is going on with Roddy and his \u201cgirlfriend.\u201d Wait, is it possible that Roddy has a girlfriend?<\/p>\n Slow Horses is a twisty show, but the assumption that Roddy had been hoodwinked by a glamorous woman far out of his league seemed about as safe a bet as possible. Even Jackson Lamb, who\u2019d been reluctant to endorse Shirley\u2019s suspicion that Roddy was targeted deliberately by a van that nearly killed him, admits that Roddy\u2019s romantic relationship was finally enough to pique his interest. \u201cIt\u2019s dodgy,\u201d he tells Roddy about Shirley\u2019s concerns at his apartment, \u201cbut none of it raises my Spidey senses as much as hearing a real live woman is happy to spend time with you.\u201d Certainly after the final scene in last week\u2019s episode<\/a>, where Tara primly resisted Roddy\u2019s advances before calling the goon squad on him as soon as he departed, we could safely believe he was being duped.<\/p>\n And yet, maybe he isn\u2019t. We now know for absolute certainty that the same terrorist group responsible for the Abbotsfield shooting is indeed going after Roddy, but the motives remain obscure. Yet Roddy, who\u2019s as embarrassed as a man like him is capable of being (which is to say, still not that much), firmly insists that what he has going with Tara, his girlfriend, is real. And tonight\u2019s episode winds up backing him up on two important fronts: One, when River and J.K. Coe are sent to pay Tara\u2019s apartment a visit, they\u2019re greeted by a knife-wielding older woman and her son, who claims she isn\u2019t there, but we see her peering down from a bedroom curtain as they depart. She looks scared, a sea change from the confident, slinky young woman who\u2019d been clubbing earlier that night with Roddy. Two, we know that the terrorists like to coerce and weaponize people unconnected to their organization to do their bidding. Tara could fall into that category, just like the Abbotsfield shooter and the trio of eco-anarchists who are deployed later in the episode.<\/p>\n So there are plenty of juicy questions on the table for future weeks of the season, but it should be said that putting a character like Roddy at the center of Slow Horses has given season five a rousing comic boost. It seems odd to admit that after the season opened with perhaps the single most disturbing event in the show\u2019s history, but focusing on the Roddy situation has given Slow Horses a necessary counterbalance in tone. As much as the spy games are triggered by real-world violence and the occasional loss of a character like Marcus, there\u2019s some dedication here to maintaining its deft, light, escapist appeal. Without Roddy occupying so much screen time, perhaps the events so far would leave too sour a taste. With him, the show is zipping along as confidently as ever.<\/p>\n Picking up right where the premiere left off, Roddy enters his apartment, hears a noise upstairs, and grabs the closest thing to a weapon he owns, a giant novelty sword with colorful LED lights at the shaft. (It\u2019s not really clear if it\u2019s sharp enough to do much damage, but when he does swing it later to repel an attacker, he smacks him with the broad end rather than the blade.) It turns out that Lamb has stopped in to babysit him, finally convinced that Shirley\u2019s worries about him were justified. Roddy\u2019s wildly overeager attempts to turn his bedroom into a love nest give Lamb an opening for a few solid zingers about his waterbed (\u201cmust be like sleeping in a bouncy castle\u201d) and the cheap bottle of bubbly he was saving for that special someone (\u201cFor losing your virginity? It would be vintage by then.\u201d). Even amid his colleagues\u2019 concerns, Roddy hasn\u2019t noticed anyone following him, which probably accounts for his limited role at Slough House as a tech guy.<\/p>\n With Lamb in the apartment and Shirley scanning for suspects outside, the stage is set to apprehend anyone who comes hunting for Roddy, but in typical Slough House fashion, the operation is a bit of a shambles. Even with all of them in place, Shirley misses the masked attacker sneaking his way up to the apartment door, and Lamb\u2019s attempt to blind him with bleach creates a chaotic struggle that wounds the assailant without containing him. Shirley\u2019s last-ditch effort to beat the man into submission at a nearby skate park fails, leaving the terrorist group, still operating out of the same white van, to terminate their connection to him on their own. Loyalty does not appear to be one of their core values. They specialize in disposable fanatics.<\/p>\n Typical of any Slow Horses season, the collaborative spirit has once again eluded the factions at Slough House and the Park. While the Roddy situation has given Slough House its own angle on the Abbotsfield massacre, the Park is conducting its official investigation, with Emma Flyte tentatively taking the lead. (I say \u201ctentatively\u201d because Taverner hasn\u2019t been impressed with Emma\u2019s work so far and suggests she stay at the office until she does something right.) While unwinding with a Big Gulp pour of red wine at home, Taverner gets a visit\u00a0Peter Judd MP (Samuel West), the oily right-wing politico that Slow Horses author Mick Herron once compared to Boris Johnson<\/a>. Judd informs her that the weapon used at Abbotsfield was stolen from a cache at a gun fair. In exchange for a helpful itemized list of this and other missing weapons, she has to agree not to embarrass the company by making its identity public.<\/p>\n The conflict between Slough House and the Park turns into a political theater that Lamb cooly anticipates. Taverner wants to show she\u2019s serious by having her agents storm Slough House with guns, whisk Roddy away, and keep the others under watch in the building. Lamb barely looks up from his desk when they come barging in. As this dysfunctional intra-agency rivalry plays out, meanwhile, the terrorists have enlisted a social-media-savvy dupe to plant a bomb in a sprawling oil refinery. What do the Abbotsfield shooting, the refinery bombing, and Roddy Ho have in common? That\u2019s a pattern that so far defies logic, and everyone seems too preoccupied by other dramas to make the connection.<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0Lamb & Co. planting themselves as the hippest, bougiest high-rise bar in London proves to be a great hideout plan, given their association with the musty, cluttered, fart-choked spaces of Slough House.<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0Important detail to remember: The high-powered rifle used to kill the Abbotsfield assassin is the same one used to shoot up Roddy\u2019s apartment from the street. Unlike their American counterparts in the action genre, the Brits will reuse weapons rather than tossing them out like disposable diapers.<\/p>\n \u2022 Whelan\u2019s vanity and gullibility makes him a perfect target for Dodie Gimball, the wife of the populist mayoral candidate and a tabloid columnist itching to exploit MI5 for political gain. Her stooge makes easy work of him in the park during a supervised jog.<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0After Roddy likens his personal magnetism to \u201cthe twin moons of Tatooine,\u201d Lamb hands him a pen and notepad to write down what he remembers about his relationship with Tara: \u201cEvery detail is important, apart from the shit you were telling me just now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022\u00a0Solid quip from Taverner, who\u2019s annoyed by the bearded doofus spoiling her evening: \u201cCan we get this over with? That\u2019s something I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard often from ladies this time of night.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Roddy\u2019s efforts to mask his location on the lease are foiled by his attempt at a hypermasculine pseudonym: Clint Wolf.<\/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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