Slow Horses<\/a><\/p>\nResurrection<\/p>\n
\n Season 6<\/p>\n
Episode 3\n <\/p>\n
\n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n
5 stars<\/p>\n
*****\n <\/p>\n
\n Familiar faces rejoin the Slow Horses \u2014 just as mysterious forces conspire to eliminate them one by one.
\n Photo: Apple TV\n <\/p>\n
The first two episodes of the current season were about as dark and sobering as Slow Horses has gotten in its six-season run. Grim developments arise surrounding the death of River\u2019s father figure and the reemergence of his malevolent actual father, Catherine potentially falling back off the wagon, Taverner under attack from far-right conspiracists, and the slight hassle of Russian assassins murdering anyone ever connected with Slough House. The past has become present. The payment on previous sins has come due. All that jazz.<\/p>\n
None of those realities have changed in this wildly entertaining third episode, and many of them have intensified, as you would expect leading into the back stretch of a six-episode season. But ever since the gang assembled at Blake\u2019s grave in response to the imminent threat against them, they\u2019ve essentially all been running for their lives, which completely changes the tone. Spy narratives tend to sweat through tense, knotty backroom machinations \u2014 like, say, Gary Oldman in the 2011 version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy \u2014 but with the horses flushed out into the open, there\u2019s a rollicking sense of adventure that plays to the show\u2019s strengths. Divided into small groups of two, three, or four, they have to improvise their way through the night.<\/p>\n
At least some credit for the shift in tone belongs to Olivia Cooke\u2019s return to the fold as Sid Baker, which is a reminder of the specific energy she brought to the first two episodes of the series before the character got shot and went dark. Her shock appearance at the end of last week\u2019s episode raises a ton of questions that she (and the show) are in no hurry to answer, despite River\u2019s (and our) curiosity about where she\u2019s been for three years and what\u2019s behind her return. When Sid puts on a kettle for tea and asks River if the milk smells a little off, he\u2019s aghast at her nonchalance, and the two barely get through a discussion about why Sid never told him she was still alive. The flirty\u2013frisky chemistry between Cooke and Jack Lowden, which Slow Horses had deftly established in season one, comes back so effortlessly in their scenes together that it feels fine to table the larger mysteries of Sid\u2019s disappearance for now.<\/p>\n
The \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell me?\u201d question doesn\u2019t inspire much of an answer from Sid, who is stuck on River\u2019s suggestion that her getting shot in the head was traumatizing to him. But that\u2019s really a fake fight between them, a little bit of banter to signal that he cares about her and feels guilty for putting her in a bad situation. The two can barely suppress their grins when River asks, \u201cSo you\u2019re alive? Just alive?,\u201d and the show leaves it at that. The moment he attempts to circle back to why she\u2019s suddenly appeared at his late grandfather\u2019s house, the assassins pull up outside, and they\u2019re on the move for the rest of the episode. Only a scene later, when Sid is checking back on a possible assassination in Kazan, Russia, does the mystery of her reappearance open up.<\/p>\n
As River and Sid dash through the mucky cow paddocks and fields extending out from David Cartwright\u2019s rural home, the remaining horses are off on their own side adventures in response to the threat. After departing from the service for what appears to be a cushy corporate job \u2014 everyone is wowed by the sleek Audi the private sector landed her \u2014 Louisa is so resistant to returning to Slough House that she refuses Catherine and Shirley\u2019s urgent requests for her to leave a meeting. When Catherine\u2019s hilariously muddling attempt to speak to her in wink-wink code (\u201cI\u2019m afraid your Uncle Blake has met with a serious accident. It\u2019s a grave situation\u201d) fails to rouse Louisa, Shirley opts for the blunter approach of declaring that people have killed poor Uncle Blake, which does the trick. The three of them peel off to check on Moira and discover that she\u2019s still alive despite the gas leak intended to lead to an \u201caccidental\u201d death. Louisa\u2019s return to the fold brings her into a rare partnership with Shirley, and the contrast between the two is comically jarring with the now-professional and polished-looking Louisa getting dragged into the muck of Shirley\u2019s dysfunction. Louisa had gotten off scot-free in a cushy corporate job, and now she\u2019s stuck in a car with Shirley, a barely sober Catherine, and Moira puking into a purse.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Lamb beelines to a children\u2019s home with a protection order for Reece Nesmith, the boy who partially witnessed Harkness murdering his father, which makes him a loose end Harkness will need to tie up. The urgency of the situation is lost on the home\u2019s receptionist, however, who tries to insist she cannot honor a protection order that hasn\u2019t been phoned in well in advance. (\u201cYou catch the bit about his life\u2019s in danger?\u201d Lamb asks.) Reece turns out to be a great foil for both Lamb and Roddy, who comes along for the ride as a kind of driver-babysitter and gets teased relentlessly by the boy, whose dwarfism seems to have toughened his defenses. Every time Lamb or Roddy try to diminish him, Reece comes back with a cutting one-liner that puts them in their place. Still, he does eventually give Lamb the information he needs about Harkness arriving at the apartment with money and his dad attempting to blackmail the mercenary over the stolen file from the park.<\/p>\n
Pointedly, the one loner in the episode is Taverner, who\u2019s dealing with significant fallout at the Park over her disastrous TV interview. At no time in the show\u2019s history has Taverner looked as vulnerable and out of sorts as she does right now, and her instinctual response is to lash out caustically at anyone who tries to question her judgment. That starts with Oliver Nash, the government overseer who\u2019s waiting in her office after she successfully avoids eye contact or discussion with anyone else in the Park. Taverner calls the interview questions a \u201ctabloid trick\u201d designed to give a false rumor some credence by asking about it, but Oliver isn\u2019t persuaded and leaves with a warning that there will be consequences.<\/p>\n
More intriguing still is the conflict Taverner has with Flyte, who may be her right-hand woman but isn\u2019t given to sycophancy. Flyte criticizes her boss for failing to give any notice to the Second Desks and her head of security about the interview, and she\u2019s forced to defend her decision to tell Lamb about Struan Loy\u2019s assassination because it\u2019s \u201cprotocol.\u201d But when Taverner snaps \u201cI am protocol,\u201d it spells the end of Flyte\u2019s time as head of the Dogs, and her reassignment with the other losers at Slough House, which she rejects. It\u2019s a stunningly impulsive swipe from Taverner, whose current difficulty at running First Desk has led to tyrannical fits that seem wildly out of character for a woman who\u2019s normally in total command of every situation. It\u2019s also a significant moment for Flyte, who started the series as a fierce loyalist and quick ascendant to the head of the Dogs but now is in a position where her principles have gotten her knocked off the perch.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got a leak that Julian Assange would be proud of,\u201d Lamb says to her later, after sneaking effortlessly into the garden area next to her home. The rivalry between Lamb and Taverner has been an ongoing feature of the show, defined at times by Taverner\u2019s eagerness to ship her problems downstream to Slough House and leavened at others by a grudging respect between the two. Taverner is not in the mood to get a visit from Lamb at this moment because she doesn\u2019t seem to have a handle on whatever skullduggery is happening in house. If Lamb and his team weren\u2019t currently fighting for their lives, he might have a laugh about it.<\/p>\n
\u2022 As American viewers, we\u2019re so used to law-enforcement figures being armed to the teeth that it\u2019s disconcerting to see MI5 agents scrambling for ways to defend themselves. In an American thriller, River and Sid would have had the drop on the Russian assassins when they turn up at David Cartwright\u2019s place pretending to be lost travelers, but instead, they quietly slip out the back. Then later, Louisa has to make a desperate plea to Dancer Blaine, the black-market weapons dealer, to pick up whatever pitiful handgun he can sell to her for self-defense.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Between her throwing up repeatedly and complaining about only technically being part of Slough House, Moira does her best to make Catherine, Shirley, and Louisa regret having saved her life.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Congrats to Flyte for telling off her boss, as few people get a chance to do when they quit: \u201cWith the greatest lack of respect, ma\u2019am, fuck you and fuck your job.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Wonderful exchange between Reece and Lamb about the boy\u2019s lack of sentiment for his miserable father. \u201cI just saw my dad get murdered,\u201d says Reece. \u201cI\u2019m upset. I\u2019m traumatized.\u201d \u201cOh yeah,\u201d replies Lamb. \u201cAnd I\u2019m a fucking ballerina.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 As much as Taverner doesn\u2019t seem to know, there are other things she absolutely knows, especially as they relate to Sid and the \u201cmovement order\u201d that accounts for her resurfacing. Sid\u2019s first priority may be to dodge her assailants, but she spends the episode urgently trying to connect with Taverner and ends it by putting herself and River back in danger while looking for a phone.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Great little one-off character here in Anne, a widow who hosts River and Sid while they hide from the assassins. Her extremely old-fashioned sense of office dynamics leads her to assume Sid was part of the \u201ctyping pool\u201d and to lament the death of workplace romance. (\u201cI think it\u2019s such a shame you\u2019re not allowed to have sex with your colleagues anymore. All those girls making a fuss about a bit of bottom-pinching. I mean, how are you meant to meet a nice boy if you can\u2019t, you know, go out with your boss?\u201d)<\/p>\n
\u2022 Never get into a farting contest with Lamb. Reece learns that lesson the hard way.<\/p>\n
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