The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Slow Horses’ Season 4, Episode 5: Person of Interest

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

Jo and Rob present a faulty PowerPoint to recap the fifth episode of ‘Slow Horses’ Season 4. They open with a few more listener emails before discussing Molly’s chilling interaction with Frank Harkness, Roddy’s highly-anticipated girlfriend reveal, and the caliber of the 'Terminator' franchise (1:33). Along the way, they unpack Lamb and David Cartwright’s contentious relationship and how Standish fits in with them (33:49). Later, they talk through their expectations for the upcoming season finale (49:08). Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producer: Kai Grady Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Look, it's not that confusing. I'm Rob Harvilla, host of the podcast 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, except we did 120 songs. And now we're back with the 2000s. I refuse to say aughts. 2000 to 2009. The Strokes, Rihanna, Jalo, Kanye, sure. And now the show is called 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, colon the 2000s. Wow.

That's too long a title for me to say anything else right now. Just trust me. That's 60 songs that explain the 90s, in the 2000s, starting Wednesday, October 2nd, preferably on Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Borris Head. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Borershead just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means

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Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango, Yuzu chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great, sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sales signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. I'm at the PrestiHTV podcast feed. I'm Joyna Robinson. I am Rob Mahoney. We're here to talk about the Penn Ultimate episode of Slow Horses, Season 4, Episode 5. We'll get into all of that in a bit. We've got some emails from you all. Thank you so much for your incredible emails. Our time. Hope at gmail.com is how you can reach us.

And I guess you should just mention up the top, we're going to be back next week with a double installment of prestige because we'll be doing the slow horses finale. But then, Rob, what else are we doing next week? We're also doing the bad monkey finale. It's finale season, Joe. It's adjective animal season. Slow horses and bad monkeys from Rob and Joanna.

So double finale pods next week from us on the feed. So stay tuned. Get caught up with bad monkey. It's such a fun show. you won't regret it. Speaking of, I mean, like, should we hit some of these email questions we have from folks

before we dive into the episode? On the TV recommendation front, our listeners, Andy and Sarah, were like, oh, we've been catching up on slow horses. We burn through it. We love it so much. Now it's almost done.

What should we watch next that will satisfy us the way that Slow Horses has? And, like, Rob, do you think there's possibly a show out there that can hit the same way Slow Horses does? Yeah, bad news. I don't think so.

Okay. I don't know if you have this experience, Joe, but like the very precise, not just like action comedy and spy espionage and comedy, but the British sensibility and like the very particular comedic tone of slow horses.

Yeah. It's not something you find spliced together in this sort of genre mismatch very often, which I think is what makes it so good, but also makes it really hard to recommend things that are connected. I really agree. So here's our recommendation.

I've got two. I've got two. I think if you like smash them together, you can get one slow horse. On the spy front, I would recommend London Spy, which is a miniseries that came on a couple years ago with Ben Wishaw,

which isn't like perfect all the way through, but is for that sort of London spy and also like hapless sort of bumbling about idea, that is something I really enjoyed, at least most of. I think it's like dropped the ending a little bit, but I enjoyed it a lot up until then.

And then for the comedy, I would say something, like the thick of it, the Armando Inucci show. And Will Smith, of course, comes from, you know, the Armando Yanucci family. So, and that leads me under my next question. Our listener, Eric, asked if there were any other, like, TV analogs to Jackson Lamb and outspoken, says offensive things, but we like him anyway, kind of guy.

Eric mentioned House from the television series House. He mentioned Archie Bunker. He mentioned Walter Bishop from Bridge. I will just say he was like, who else would you nominate this group? I will say Peter Capaldi's character in The Thick of It,

one of my all-time favorite insult slingers. Yes. Most Peter Capaldi characters, honestly. Correct, correct. So that would be my, I'm just, this is a double wreck for, I'm thick of it.

What would you say, Rob? Certainly like a men of a certain age quality to some of those character prompts. And also, I would say something different from Jackson and Lamb is like, Some of those characters have like a neurodivergence thing that gives them an avenue to speak their mind very plainly and very overtly and create some awkward social tension

that I think those shows play with. That's not the case with Liam, at least as far as we know the way the character is portrayed. On the other beat, like Rust Cole from True Detective, I think, is in this vein, but aged way, way down in terms of like saying the very, very quiet parts very directly and very abrasively. I think he has some of that in him. But more like dreamily and metaphorically.

sure, wistfully, hallucinogenically, perhaps. Yeah, perhaps. I also thought in Mad Men, Roger Sterling has this role sometimes. I love Roger Sterling. Usually with a smile and a drink in hand. Yeah. And it's a little more genial and like office bantery than this,

but if you're actually paying attention to what he's saying, he's throwing some sharp stuff out there. Okay, love it. Our sign to pop at gmail.com, if you want to nominate other TV assholes. I mean, are there female versions of this character? I guess you could say Selena Meyer on Veepe because that is sort of like in the,

like almost any character on Veepe, I think fits into this. But like, yeah, more often these are male characters, older white male characters usually. Yes. But I would love to hear some nominations for some women for sure. On the TV recommendations, if you liked Slow Horses front, one thing that's coming to mind for me that could work, and I think your mileage may vary on this show,

I'm actually catching up on it right now and I'm really enjoying it is the recent Amazon Mr. and Mrs. Smith in terms of the spy element a little more interpersonal, a little more rom-com isn't the right word, but romance played for laughs, or at least like a sexual dynamic played for laughs.

I think there's something there that could tickle your fancy if you're into slow horses, though, maybe not exactly a one-to-one com. You were not a fan... Well, I like some of it. I was quite mixed on it. There was some of it I really liked,

and then some of it I didn't. This could be the perspective of someone like me who is speaking from seeing like four episodes of this season. So perhaps it doesn't land the plane so well. No, I don't, I think it's a little like, it's a little bit more like up and down, less like falling off the cliff in terms of life. Maybe you'll just like love the whole thing.

Okay, comment from Max, who says, spoken as a fellow adherent to press TV in the streets, hardback tomes about war and our basketball on the sheets. Just know Rob that there are dozens of us, dozens. So this is a response to Rob's very brave stance that he needs. does not read fiction. Kai and I did follow up on this over the weekend

when we saw Rob and stunned, shocked and amazed and stunned, but I still respect you, Rob, you're still a good person, I think, so. I don't believe anything you're saying at the end of that sentence. You're never going to look at me the same way again, and I don't know how I'm going to deal

with that, Joe, but one way I do know that I will deal with it is I will still continue to not read any novels of any kind. If I can at all help it. Here's something Rob did tell me. He said maybe if he heard a book recommended from three discreet sources that he trusted, he might read it. So if you're Rob's family and you're listening or if you're connected in some other discrete way to Rob's life, let's conspire together to get Rob to read a novel in 2025. And maybe it's Shogun, who can say? Okay.

Also, Matt has a MBA question for you and I promise to our listeners who don't follow the NBA that this is a stand-alone question, which is this. First of all, are we allowed to do this? Are we allowed to talk about both sports and pop culture on this podcast? We work for the ringer, so yes, I think we are, but I'm going to let it be you who runs the answer to this. Matt says as an almost exclusively fiction reader, I'm on Team Joe when it comes to book consumption, but this one is for Rob.

Is it just me or does young Frank, young Frank Harkness, who we see again in this episode, look eerily like Gordon Hayward, obviously without the assassin sex cult. So with or without the assassin sex cult, do you see and will you tell me who Gordon Hayward is? I'm so glad you asked. Gordon Hayward's a very complicated

figure in the NBA. Really good, really versatile player who got very injured. And so has a kind of complicated career that people have a hard time parsing and I think got kind of forgotten in the public consciousness because he was in and out of the lineup all the time. Recently retired, quite young, because of those

injuries. Also like maybe not the most NBA-friendly political leanings. And I think part of the reason why Gordon Hayward is being identified here is he has a very similar haircut to young Frank Harkness, which is to say... Does he have a beard? Sometimes has a beard later in his career, certainly. And so the beard haircut, which I will say, you know, that haircut also has a certain affiliation in terms of what kinds of people typically style their hair in that way.

I see what you're saying. It's not what you want, but honestly, Honestly, I do kind of see it. I kind of see it, too. Plus, whoever they got to play, Young Frank Harkness is exceedingly tall, or at least shot to look that way. So, okay. Again, I'm not trying to comment on an actor's looks per se, but the character.

Young Frank, does he look like the kind of charming, a handsome, like, sociopath you would throw your life away for? Like, is he that alluring? I mean, it's tough to say because he looks nothing like young Hugo weaving. No. But he does look like he could grow into what Hugo weaving currently looks like in terms of like a stronger build, you know, the beer, like the imposing. Because young Hugo weaving was like quite like skinny. Like, you know, he was in like Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

Like that's the sort of stuff he was doing. Even as Agent Smith. It's like, you know, a quite like sort of, not frail, but like, anyway. But the Riz on Hugo Weaving, no matter what, he looks like, has always been sort of catastrophically strong. Yeah. So I think if he's got the weaving Riz that if I am River Cartwright's mom, who doesn't give a shit whether or not her dad is still alive, I might be susceptible. The weaving Riz. I support it.

I think we should trademark that. Honestly, like, Riz isn't quite the right word, but even this older version of Frank that we get in this episode, he does like a little like, come at me, bro, when Molly starts rolling up to him in his wheelchair that's like, this guy, he just has a theatrical sense that makes him feel like the biggest force in the room. And I could see certain people being drawn to that.

Before we go sort of like, I don't know if we're going to go beat by beat in this episode, but I want to offer you, Rob Mahoney, an opportunity to do one of your favorite things, which is zoom in on some stuff. Oh, yes. So let's start first and forth. You just mentioned Molly. Let's start first and foremost. You love to play room detective.

And we talked to showrunner Will Smith on a previous episode sort of about this idea of what the set decorators, how seriously they take this prospect of going home with the spies. So we go home with Molly in this episode. And we've seen her as queen of her domain in the filing, in the archives. what did her home decor, and we get this really chilling line from Frank about she's built her own dungeon, all of that.

What did you make of the choices they made in terms of decorating her? Very lovely apartment. Yeah, I think off the top, Molly's got pretty good taste. Yeah. You know, the color palette is immaculate. I think the art selection, very strong.

It also does not surprise me in all to find out she is one of the only people in this show who can keep a plant alive. that tracks to me. So I'm seeing a lot of corroborating character detail. And of course, the dungeon thing is more symbolic of the way she's isolated herself. And I think that part of the characterization with Molly was really effective, right? It reminded me of the Americans in a way of finding these characters on the periphery of the story

and understanding how they can be twisted and corrupted to become assets, right, of these spies who have all of these elaborate games afoot. All of that said, I'm a little confused by something. some of the character beats in this episode overall, including the fact that do we think Molly would be foolish enough to give away the addresses of spies to basically like someone on the phone who has some corroborating detail, but I don't know, she always seemed much more cynical and discerning

than apparently what she has done. I agree with you. I think the implication here is like, you know, we've been on high catfish alert for Roddy. I both agree with you and also find it heartbreaking to get this interior look at a character who we think of as such a badass. Again, like in her domain, when she's in her kingdom that she has control of, she is that badass. But at home, someone who is the implication leading a lonely existence, that she would be

vulnerable to something like this. I both agree it's out of character, but also maybe a side of the character that we were previously unaware of. And I think what's interesting about her decor, To me, it struck me as a lot of, I don't know, world art, art from around the world. And that could be two things. It could either be, you know, because he said the, I think he said something like the good old days. So is the backstory of Molly, and book readers might know this, but we don't know this. Is the backstory of Molly like she was a one so much more active agent? Like, you know, I don't know the circumstance that put her in the wheelchair, but like, was she someone who went in the field?

She won someone who traveled around the world and filled her apartment with these, like, beautiful artifacts that she collected from around the world. Or, and I think more devastatingly, is she someone who hasn't and doesn't travel, but curates all of these objects in her apartment, this metaphorical dungeon, this isolation, the way she's isolated herself from the world, but surrounded herself with these trinkets and tokens of a more traveled person. Both are pretty devastating to me. I love the use. of Molly in this episode as like something that we've talked about a lot is this idea of like

a character who's been simmering in the background and then gets like pulled to the fore. So pulling Molly to the four in this episode and then based on what we've been talking about about the way death works in this show as sort of random and brutal, I was completely fooled. I was like for sure Molly's

going to die here. Seem that way. You know, like I know that that's what they were trying to make us believe, but oftentimes when shows do that and they're not the kind of show to follow through on that kind of stuff. I'm like, you're not going to do that. You'd never do that. But this one, I'm like, no, slow horses would definitely kill a Molly if they wanted to. Without a doubt. And I think they also do a great job of creating the sense of danger and threat from Molly's perspective. In a way that only she can experience this scene in that way. And even the way Frank is shot is very much

like looking up from the way she would see him, like the kind of imposing way he's hovering over her door. It's like, this is a terrifying guy. And especially for someone in Molly's position, she does not have options here. She is really stuck and really at his mercy in a lot of different ways. And that's a terrifying thing for a character that, as you said,

we've seen be so steely and so strong. And here it's just, it's all vulnerability. Watching her, but like attempting to hold on to the like shreds of Bravado. Completely. The way that she's first shot

is like we see her before she gets to her apartment and then we see that it's like this overhead shot of the apartment. So she looks almost like a little like a rat in a maze, you know, like the corridors look tall and narrow. So that idea of like a self-created dungeon and or a trap that she's already in, that she doesn't even know,

like she's already fell in. I really, I liked all of this. I have a question for you about the, so in the end, he's like, you know, as he says a couple times, I've got a message to deliver. But like, so he leaves five envelopes. Yeah, five messages to deliver. Let's be specific in our language, Frank. Frank. Okay. So Claude Whelan is. the name we know. Jen Frazier. I'm sorry, I'm trying to read the screenshot in front of me. Natalie.

I think it's Jean Frazier. Gene Frazier. Natalie. Hensley? Hensley. Jim Landford and Mike Peterson. Yeah. Do any of those other names need something to you?

They don't. But they all sound vaguely plausible. Like I know someone with like half of the name. Yeah. I can fill in the blank and the other half sounds vaguely fair or accurate or realistic. So, you know, some guys we know in a way, even if we don't No, know them. Okay.

So Mike, Jim, Jean, and Natalie, let's see if they have a role to play in the finale, or if this is another one of those seating forward to another season kind of moments that we'll meet those characters in a future season. Do you have any thoughts as to what is in Claude's envelope? Well, we just found out some blackmail about Claude. We certainly did. Pretty easily accessible.

So, like, I would guess it's blackmail. But I, you know, because like I don't know what's going to happen in the finale, but like if Frank gets apprehended but then, you know, slips loose because he's got like one of these messages, you know, can get him a get out of jail free card or something like that. A lot of escape hatches here for sure. At least five of them. So, yeah, that would be my guess as to what the messages. Do you have any other ideas? I feel like that's the one that they're leading us to. But maybe it's not even quite that information.

Like maybe it's very pointed asks of these people or messages specifically to these people. Claude's involvement is what makes me think there's not some greater historical subtext that we don't know. Because how would Claude and Frank Harkness have ever interacted before other than having some kind of blackmail leverage on him?

Claude of the AAA platform. Okay, the AAA platform. Yeah. One of the A's is just the doing the activating. I know. I was like when he said it, like, oh, no, I missed a day. And then I went back and I was like, no, it's just the verb.

You can't do that. It's fucking perfect. Is that more perfect? Or is the input needed of his PowerPoint presentation that he tried to put together for Diana Tavanaugh. That's maybe one of my favorite jokes this entire season was just like that visual, him fumbling and her being like, I don't need a PowerPoint. And then the follow up when Gide, when Gidey comes in and she's like,

do you have a screen? I can hook those up too. And she's just like, no, we're not doing it. doing that. All the Clod stuff this week, down to the fact that he looks much more like disheveled than usual. And by that,

I mean, maybe he has like three hairs out of place. But for him, that is Haggart season. Yes. I really enjoyed Baby's first PowerPoint. I really enjoyed all of these elements. It was just a total delight.

I love Clot. Do you think he stayed up all night working on that deck? Days. Yeah. Yeah. And watch like several YouTube tutorials and how to get the like images

to sort of slide into the frame and stuff like that. That's where you underestimate him. This is a guy who has been making decks his whole life. That is his whole ass job. So big week for Claude's deck in many ways, I guess. Would you, how much money would you pay to see the AAA platform presentation? I mean, based on his previous attempts at like a little stump speech,

God, I would love to see it. That should be a season extra if we could have that, please. Okay, so speaking of Claude and being. having Haggard or not, we get this information from Roddy. I mean, this is going to bring us to our next sort of like, enhanced freeze frame moment of the

episode. But we find out that Claude Codin Galahad has a fondness for sex workers and that Roddy has put this together for Moira. The entire time, though, that he

is like dealing with Moira, he is engaging in a chat with his girlfriend who we have been hearing about all season. So, Rob, would you like to do a dramatic reading of the conversation between Roddy and his totally real flesh-and-blood girlfriend, Kim? Joe, I would love nothing more than to read this text exchange.

Will you play the role of Roddy Ho, please? I feel like only someone of your talent can capture this. Let me get appropriately jacked Like his avatar Give me like six to eight months To really hit the weight So then I'll come back to you But in the meantime we can go ahead and lay down the track

Okay Yo impeccably beautiful Things are looking hopeful in my world Now that I've heard your sweet voice All caps, LOL You're very thoughtful Roddy It is such a pleasure to converse with you So informally

Well Kim I think you must be some kind of magician because every time I talk to you, everything else disappears. Well, you have great taste, Roddy. Do you have any favorite snacks you'd recommend? Joe, I didn't know you had this in you. I got to be honest. Just destroying the assignment. I like how his follow-up to this too when she, and by she, I mean, the chat bot,

which off the top, Roddy has cleared the catfishing allegations. He is not the one who has been had here. only the one who is so lonely and so undiscriminating that he has been talking to a chat bot for weeks on him thinking that it's his girlfriend. I mean, he has been had, just not in the like, you know, global ramifications. I don't know, don't you think this is like a fishing scheme?

Like eventually she's going to ask for his, like, will you pay, it's a very John Hawks and true detective, will you pay for me to come? No. And he buys or a sad bottle of pink champagne. It just sits in the fridge and he sings a sad song, you know? I saw ex machina. Anyone is susceptible to this kind of manipulation.

Co said it's a very small percentage of people who get Duke by this. That is true. And she doesn't have an Alicia Vikander avatar. Yeah. So his response to the snacks question is, when you say snack, do you mean chocolate or more like a light meal? Well, Chikadoo, perhaps. And then she says, I don't believe that when considering snacks that there's a need to limit oneself to just crisps or light meals. Embrace the snacks.

She seems very charming. I support all of this. Oh, I get it. I see where he's coming from. This is the last message for her. He says, like a true lady should be about her man. She says, yes, you are indeed a man. I can also see this as stated on your profile.

The fact that that is delivered, that bit is delivered as he's, like, being told that this is a chatbot is just brutal, brutal stuff. There's no denying. Like, he can't deny what is so very clear. So, yeah, RIP Rani's, relationship with the chatbot, or maybe, you know, maybe this is exactly the kind of person he's looking for. Yeah, I don't see a reason why he needs to stop.

Readable and submissive chatbot. But like, what did you make of this? Was this a satisfying resolution for the Roddy as a girlfriend? I would like to bottle and keep forever close to my heart all of Moira's facial expressions as she was clearly clocking both the chat and his avatar over his shoulder on the computer screen. And we should say Kim's Avatar, which I don't think a human person would ever use. What's Kim's Avatar? Did I miss it? It's like a weird, stilted, like,

are you familiar with, like, a Brat's doll? It looks like a, it looks like a slightly altered Brats doll. Are you familiar with the Brat's doll line? I am. The larger Brats are versed. I didn't know, I didn't know if you were plugged in like that. Yeah, yeah. The real ones know.

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Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. our girl, Emma, flight in this episode. We were just celebrating at the end of last episode that she finally got her man, she got her win.

I've been waiting for it. How would you assess her performance inside of this episode? It's not a great episode for showcasing her competence, but it does help us understand the character a little better. And I think specifically some of the things that we may have read as incompetence or read as being new in the job are really, I think, her being very skeptical of the people around her. in particular Diana Tavernor, right?

The idea that the communication issues that they've been bumping into are not because she's not running things up the chain of command in the correct way. It's like, why would you possibly trust this woman? And fair, you know? I totally get where she's coming from that perspective. The result is that it leads her to be very isolated

and operating with incomplete information in a lot of situations. On the good spy, bad spy front, I actually think her handcuffing river to the car handle is probably the right move, but of course it ends up really biting her in the end

at being a horrible decision in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, I just wish she were quicker with like, I don't know, the bolt cutters or something like that to get her to tell her. But he does try to help, by the way, even as he's kept to the car,

here's what I'll say about Emma. Before she gets her head brutally rammed into the side of an SUV, she does get some punches off on Patrice in a way that like none of those garbage men certainly did. And neck tattoo didn't. You know. So I was just sort of like,

okay, Emma, and then she went down. But I was, you know, for a second, I was hopeful that maybe I was like, it's your time to shine. Okay, I guess not. But fitting the larger Terminator discussion we get in this episode, that's kind of how it felt, watching her sock Patrice in the face. It's like, he didn't seem super-faced by whatever she was dished out. He's on some extremely strong painkillers. pharmaceutical gray, like, elephant

painkillers. I'm sorry, I don't want to breeze past this, though. Do you want to go back to the discussion of the very fine franchise that is the Terminator between Markets and Rodney? I don't know that I personally would call it a very fine franchise. I don't know how you feel about the Terminator movies. I mean, T2, absolute perfection. The first Terminator,

pretty good to quite good. Other than that, even the ones that people defend, look, I've seen them all. I've made time for dark fate. I did that in my life. I know why you made time for Dark Fate. Why is that?

Are you not a Mackenzie Davis fan? Of course, and honestly, she's quite good in it. Yeah. But is that movie, some shining example of franchise filmmaking? Not really. The first two Terminators are absolute classics. Your disrespect of the First Terminator will not stand in this court. It's fine.

But it's, okay, I'm spluttering. I'm like absolutely plummixed that you don't read fiction and you don't have respect of the First Terminator. It's the template for so many things that came after it. Absolutely. You can't deny it's impact. Okay, fine. Yeah, but it's like, you can praise the cookie cutter or you can eat the cookie.

And I want the cookie, you know? What's the cookie then? T2. T2. T2 is the cookie. Yes, and then I'll give it up for the Sarah Connor Chronicles, the TV show, and not much else. So, yeah, I'm with you. It's not like a, I would still call it a good franchise, though, even though it only has two good installments, because, I don't know, Jurassic Park only has one perfect installment.

Is Jurassic Park a good franchise? Okay. Maybe I just ran headlong into the SUV of your point. Or at least the Jurassic Park Jeep of my point. One of the two. Oh my God. We're back in the car. All right. So did you get enough Louise in this episode? You love Louise. You've been missing her. We got a bit more of her in this episode. She not only rides the bus with Marcus and Shirley.

Tries to do some leading, some organizing of the crew. How did you feel? I mean, love to get her more involved. And I would say overall, even though some of the character beats didn't always work for me. We got back to something so fundamental to slow horses, which is a bunch of spies in a room, dishing it out, bantering. Like Emma makes a point of saying, like, is this really the time for some cheeky banter? My answer is yes, always yes. Please again and again, come back to it.

And this season has been a lot of all of our core characters being split up, running various ops, running various errands, trying to secure various people who may or may not be in France. finally the slow horses are back in one place for the most part and even just getting River and Emma in the back of a car going back and forth felt a little refreshing because River's been really on his own island and so Louisa getting a chance to try to do something a little different try to hurt some cats

I really enjoyed it and I really enjoyed the difficulty of getting the slow horses on the same page because I think it illustrates some of the disparity in their personalities I think it helps us understand part of what makes Lamb so good at his job in a way, which is like he's almost so intimidating to so many of these people. And they do have a clear respect

for him. He's almost the only guy who can get them in tow. I would say honorable mention, Catherine Standish, who can, you know, crack the whip now and again and get some people to file things away in boxes. But Louisa is growing into this sort of role. You know, clearly she wants

to do more and can do more. The question is, can she get any of the low horses to come along with? with her. Well, what I like about this is like the follow-up, it's a follow-up to our first episode of the season where she's talking to River about how desperately she wants to leave. And

I think also this role, this dynamic that she and River and Catherine are like the only adults in the room is sort of, I think, how at least she and River feel about each other. Like, we're the adults, we're the season one veterans. And then there's like Shirley and Marcus

co-doing whatever it is, he's doing, tearing you apart psychologically, I suppose. Very chatty this week. Goes from nothing to like, you can't shut this guy up all of a sudden. It's warming up. It just took a little time to get comfortable.

Just needed to pull one knife. And now he's like, okay, I have a context for where I am. But I mean, I think without River there and with Catherine gone for much of the time, Louise is like, fine, I'll do it myself. Like, I guess it's got to be me. And it reminded me a lot of the end of season one

when like, you know, River and Lamb, the A team are like out doing this. Then you get Louisa and Min and Catherine and Roddy are in the like cafe. Like, what can we do? You know,

and Moira is similar. Like, Catherine in that moment was like, I can make some calls. And Moira does a similar thing where she's like, there's a database. Actually, there's a database of back alley doctors

and I can make a call and get us of information. So yeah, I like that spirit. And there's also, this episode was big on the reminders whether it's Frank, you know, dressing down Patrice for getting had by them or whatever, reminders of what fuck-ups the slow horses are.

Completely. Of their reputation. As we barrel towards the finale, we're usually the slow horses manage to pull something off. So we'll see what happens for them. True to that. And I would say validating the idea of these people being fuck-ups. Marcus says in this episode, what has to be among the dumbest things ever uttered by a slow horse,

which is I borrowed some money against a gun. he is in so deep he cannot even think or speak straight although he like the retort about whether Shirley's Coke is fair trade I did enjoy very much I don't have a lambshank that's my lame shake is my name is Marcus asking Shirley if her Coke is fair trade very very good doesn't seem too bothered by the fact that you know dancer may not sell his gun to a gang but might to the mafia yeah gentlemen's what is it gentlemen's armed collectors

gentlemen collectors is it boutique arms dealer what okay speaking of your your absolute fave, love your life, surely. Here's, here's Co's assessment. You have anger and intimacy issues. You can't work in a team, but normally you take personal responsibility, you channeling your own self-loathing and criticizing Marcus is gambling.

You're a deeply unhappy person. Rob, would you care to respond to this tech? I didn't know his peer-a-vowel season. I urge him to issue it through the proper channels. Yeah. You know, let's get an HR person in the room. Let's get the manager on site. Like, these are testy conversations to have.

and I'm all four, you know, colleagues given feedback to each other. Is it accurate? I see no lies here, to be honest with you. But this is why we love her because of all these things. Sometimes you have no choice but to stand someone with anger and intimacy issues, Joe. Every day, Rob, every day.

He also said, right, to your point about him being chatty, he says, there's something going on in this room. This is a dealist unit with no sense of purpose. Everyone here has checked out and been renting off. And I just wrote down, hey, that's the premise of the show. Good job. I actually would push back on. on the checked out bit.

I think there are varying levels of checked out, but for the most part, I think Marcus and Shirley want something to do. They're just bored with the lack of activity, maybe. Sometimes, I guess. Then, like, just sometimes I feel like they're just ineptly wandering around. I feel like it doesn't apply to Louisa.

Oh, certainly not. But I feel like Shirley and Marcus are really at, like, of all the characters are at Lucentz. More this season, because, like, last season when they showed up at the sort of like compound and, like, had to, to get guns and rescue people,

that did seem to be like a sort of put me in coach. I want to do something. Maybe not the most proactive employees, perhaps. Speaking of proactive moves, I can only respect Jackson Lamb's tactic of taking David Cartwright. He's referred to as the OB, the old bastard, I think quite often in the book.

So most emails we get about him are like, we get emails from people being like, it's funny to hear you call him David because nobody in the book calls him David. I was like, I'm sorry, it's his name. But when he takes David, the old bastard, to his dead wife's grave, and uses that as sort of a pressure point

to get information out of him. Speaking of peer review season, Rob, do you care to comment on Jackson Lamb's tactics here? Pro move. Effective. And I think, look, I think there's lots of reasons, as we alluded to in a previous episode, of why he likes having and wanted Catherine Standish around

and to, like, sit in on some of the meetings and stuff. They also have just like a really good, good horse, bad horse thing going on here. I wrote good, come, bad cup, but good horse, bad horse is way better. It plays, right? I'm going to tear you down. I'm going to remind you that both your wife is dead and you believe that your grandson is dead. And then Catherine comes in with the little arm pat. Can I take you down linguistic alley with me for a second etymology alley?

That is my favorite alley. Do you know the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard? I don't. A graveyard. I just as I was writing in my notes I was like should I call this a graveyard or a cemetery A graveyard is next to a church and a cemetery is independent of a church just a fun fact for you in the future if you ever need to distinguish between it's spooky season if you ever need to distinguish the graveyard and a cemetery which season comes to prestige was there for reference a church in the

background here I don't remember there was there was this is a graveyard thank you for the clarity on this matter like to be honest on the linguistic front I was very worried we were going to get dragged into a Louisa Giff and GIF conversation. What do you want to say? British accents sure are funny, you know. It's real goofy what they do over there. What do you say when you talk about a GIF? A GIF.

It's technically correct and emotionally incorrect or up, and I think you know that to be true. Okay, I'm keeping a list. Doesn't read fiction, disrespects the Terminator, pronounces it Jif. Disrespects or accurately rates the Terminator, you know? Who's to say? genuinely do email

Arstime the Pope at gmail.com if you are also a like Supreme respect for T2 I'm okay with the Terminator I'm okay honestly like never revisiting it I will just go to T2 every time I need a Terminator fix

and I'm at peace with that we got an email we had an email from listener there's a friend when we were watching Terminator my friend wants me to comment there's a showdown at the end in the sky net sort of factory

and I think it's a Pat and Oswald bit, but he just talked about like, they called it a Sparks Factory where they just like mixed sparks. So I called it the showdown at the Sparks Factory. Oh, yeah. It's either a magma factory or Sparks Factory. Those are the only two factories in Terminator World.

What are we making? Okay, our listener Meg wrote in with some like deviations for the book that she's not particularly loving this season. And so I thought we would just like consider them. We are not book readers, obviously, but just sort of think about this. Okay. So she points out that in the book, you know, in this, what did I call it a death squad, right?

Frank Harkness's whole thing is a death squad. Yes. I believe in the book, again, I don't have all the context. This is based off what Meg wrote here, that the Frank Harkness's idea started as like a sort of good and pure idea that went off the rails a little closer to like our idea of what usually happens in a cult. Right? It's usually like, we're going to fix the world. and then, oops, you're emotionally abusing three of your sons in order to do assassinations around the world. But Meg writes, thought process of taking a legit idea, running in a completely off-the-rails crazy direction is so much more compelling as a story,

and makes so much more sense in what it actually created in the Robert Winter's character, why David Cartwright was involved at all, and how initial mistakes and compromises keep snowballing into full tragedy. It also gives more shape to the Frank Harkness character. The way he has written this season in the show makes me surprised he's not twirling his mustache in some scenes, and the whole Arab royalty saw scene didn't play for Meg. So, again, without us having the full context of how it's actually laid out in the book, and I would only guess, we don't know, but I would only guess that a reason to simplify it is because we're looking down to six-episode season and perhaps to give the whole, like,

a gnarled backstory of perhaps when David Cartwright first got involved with Frank Harkness, it was, again, I'm just guessing. But yeah, like a cleaner association. And then as Frank Harkness goes off the rails, perhaps David Cartwright tries to extract himself. Then Frank's like, guess what? I met your daughter. So send me a Volvo full of passports, please.

So what do you think of this point for me? Again, without the full content. I would get why as a book reader that might irk you. I think as someone who's just watching the show, I don't mind separating that sort of ideological. framework for what Frank is doing and his whole crew is doing. To something that is, to your point about the abusive dad element here, almost so much more emotional, it's like he has, there's something coercive and something attractive and appealing about him that is bringing these women into his orbit in the first place, at least based on the information we've been told, including David's daughter, whether or not that was a play by him or not.

Like, she signed up and wanted to keep signing up for that. She sure did. And I think the exchange we get with Patrice Really worked for me This like manipulative monster where it's like I'm not going to punish you by hitting you But I'm going to hit you for expecting to be hit And then I'm going to come in with like this weird warmth

And overwhelm you completely And so this idea of these kids who are growing up in that environment Not because they have some like manifesto reason For wanting to change the world And if anything, Eve who we know is Robert Winter is like him going off script and having this weird ideological bombing is kind of what started all this mess in the first place. And so we've had in previous seasons lots of characters who believe things very steadfastly, lots of villains who are coming in with very clear reasons for, I want to do this because

I believe X. Yeah. I kind of find it almost refreshing to have someone who is just cravenly opportunistic and is like, I'm in this for the money. I'm a mercenary who has a death squad, but that death squad happens to be my family. And there is something about that that that works for me. And maybe that's just because I'm not anchored to that book version of the character in the same way. Families are complicated. Well, he's family in their own way. To your point, I really like the emphasis on the bad dad aspect of Frank Harkness here, because especially as it pertains to River, who was ostensibly like our co-lead of the show,

and the triangulation of father figures over Jackson, Lamb, David Cartwright, and Frank Harkness. And when you watch a character like River, who has these Frank Harkinels, and when you watch a character, these bad tendencies, but ultimately like a good heart, his heart's in the right place. Like, you have to think, especially also given

that he's a dead ringer for another one of these guys, unless you're Rob Mahoney, you don't think he looks like him at all. But like the, there but for the grace, goes river Cartwright, is an interesting,

the idea of seeing those two characters like crash against each other, which we have to hope is a big part of the finale. So, like, what will River be tempted at all by something that Frank might offer him? You know, well, we saw Frank assess River running through the train station. Like, does he see a possible recruit in River? You know, his sons are dropping like flies.

He's going to need new ones. That's true. I'm not worried that River's going to be tempted at all by it, like that he doesn't seem like someone who at this point is vulnerable to that kind of coercion. But I think just contemplating the various influences on a river cart, right, an incredibly flawed heroic character, I think is one of the more interesting things this season can possibly do in its finale, inside of its finale. Especially as his relationship with David, as Will said in our interview a previous episode,

is so dramatically changing. The ground is just shifting under his feet in terms of, this character who we saw for several seasons, him go to with all of his problems. It's this big growing up moment for him of like you, you're not, I mean, his mom doesn't give a shit very much.

It seems like she at least cares somewhat about River, but River may not want anything to do with her. I mean, she doesn't care, she doesn't seem that. Not that, yeah. She's not not for Terps. She's more interested in him than she is in her dad,

but that's like a low bar. The bars on the floor, you know. She's not sending him chocolate oranges at Christmas. And that's a, blessing as far as I concerned. Maybe that's what you do for your enemies. I don't know. Do you think Kim enjoys a chocolate orange? She doesn't like to limit herself

when it comes to snacks. She enjoys snacks of all kinds. Don't limit yourself. It could be a light meal. It could be a crisp. It could be a chocolate orange. But I think you've been highlighting this in the lead up to the finale in the back half of the season of like, what do we want in terms of the resolution of this

kind of story? And it was never going to be River Hearing Frank's mission statement and being like, That sounds great. Sounds really compelling. It's going to be, this is a father figure in a way that he doesn't even have with David in his life. And frankly, if we want to rewind a little bit, the end of season three, River goes to David with like a huge bombshell piece of evidence, right? This file that is incendiary. Yeah. That he throws on the fire. Looking for help, looking for answers. And David's instinct is like, protect the institution. Throw this in the fire, protect the park, stay out of it. And I think there has been an unraveling here that is more than just David's deteriorating mental state. I think there's a strain in that relationship from, that's a moment of incredible vulnerability and trust going to his grandfather. And I wouldn't say he paid it off in a way that rewarded that.

But my favorite part of that and correct me of my memory is faulty is that River had a copy of the file in his car. It's like he already knew. He knew that he was going to do that. So it was almost like a test of his Like he yeah It's devastating And again like Will talked about this about this idea that they They brought some of the fracturing in their relationship forward

You know to an earlier season so it wouldn't seem like it was sort of an out of the blue aspect of this season That we've been watching it crumble for as you say David's mental state but also they're misaligned You know he used to just sort of like gulp down whatever his grandfather said and that that was that was the the law. That was rule of law. And what's interesting is you could think about it in a way of like Jackson Lamb's influence to a certain degree of just sort of like, you know, Jackson hates everything that David represents. And River is sort of becoming a Jackson Lamb acolyte almost against his will to a certain degree. But even that there's a disconnection.

As we're triangulating the daddies here, we see Jackson Lamb in his part of the story. And he's doing a lot for River in a way that we have never seen. him really do for almost any other character in this show as far as like the active slow horses doing a ton but river is not seeing any of that he has been isolated from jackson for basically the entire season yes so everything that lame is doing to try to uncover the plot to cover river's tracks to buy him time that's not something he has any connection to and so he's been off on his own trying to like chase the tale of this mystery and also protect his grandfather at the same time like river has been incredibly isolated i think what's yeah which like again and maybe

like a longer form season or something like that would make us worry that he's vulnerable to some sort of influence, but over the course of a six episodes season, like, we're not that worried about him. And also, actually, Chris Ryan was texting me about this the other day. He was like, I forgot that this season of Slow Horses, like the book takes place over 48 hours. And we get a line from Emma in this episode where she's like in the last 24 hours. Yeah. So I feel like we've just been watching a day.

Is that like, or two days? I know, like, River went all the way to France and back, though that's not as much of an investment when you live in the UK. But, like, how much time has passed in this season of television? Yeah, we haven't seen anybody, like, sleep it off and come back in the morning. It's been people coming and going from the various offices, from various sites, but it's all from being out and about. Yeah. So I think we've just been watching a day or two, I would say. Honestly, that's a great bit of context.

I hadn't quite put that together. May goes on to say, this is the rest of Meg's email about sort of things that they're taking issue within the season. Not loving the JK co portrayal, though this email came in before this episode, so I don't know if this episode will change their mind, but Meg said it was either miscast or they gave the actor wrong instructions. So it seems the producer told him to throw away any subtlety shading in the trauma of the character and play it way too broadly. I will again say that for me, the actor Tom Brooke is someone I really, really enjoy. He's a very idiosyncratic kind of performer always

always plays these little weirdos and so I think that I'm excited and hopeful to see more from him as he continues to sort of open I don't know I don't know how long this characteristics around presuming he survives the season

I don't know but like I'm interested to see more from him I'm not put off by it but again I'll be interested to hear from other book readers maybe if they think this is misaligned with their interpretation of character And last but not least, and this is the one that I really wanted to run by you, Rob. She said the third thing is they chose wrongly, eliminating the mentions, at least so far, that Shirley has been attending mandatory AFM anger fucking management classes for an altercation at a disco outside work, as this again is pretty important.

It's a lot of last the end game of the book. Are you on a scale of 1 to 10? How upset are you that you're not seeing Shirley inside of her anger management classes? I'm ready to check myself into an AFM session. that we're not getting this. Especially, yeah, again, if it ends up being, like, if Shirley's anger

is important to the plot in some way, I don't know that we've seen that. Like, she takes snipe, she's short with people. She's definitely, like, ready to crack somebody at any time. But I don't know that I'm, like, flying off the handle angry.

I don't know that I necessarily see that from the way the character has been shown this season. They said it rather than showed it, right? In co-saying, you have anger and intimacy issues. You're a deeply unhappy person. So, yeah, again, that might all be the function. I mean, this show has been praised, and I think rightly so for its fidelity to the text.

We have heard from a couple people that this book seems particularly difficult to adapt versus some of the other more straightforward installments. Some adaptive corners have been cut on this particular season. And I'm really optimistic about the fin—I think whatever my feelings are in some of the steps on the way here, what we set up in terms of like river on a collision. course with Frank. Yep. Shirley has to share a scene with Lamb, by Shirley,

I mean, River Shirley has to share a scene with Lamb in the finale. Watching Claude go from like the AAA platform to this needs to go in a concrete box. He tried to put GeeTee. He needs to go in a concrete box.

Don't you dare try to put Geety in a concrete box? Our girl had such a big way. Honestly, when Tavernor says like, good job, Gee Tee, she's going to be thinking about that moment for the rest of her life. when Emma's like I copied first I copied Claude in and then Claude's like how do I get this off my phone?

Dana's like you can't. Oh, it's really good. It's really good. So yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of like, there's so much potential for the finale. I'm kind of excited about it. Anything else you want to say about this episode or perhaps reconsidering the cinematic classic

that is The Terminator? All right. Well, we don't need to tread too much into that territory anymore. even the way this episode ends, we don't get Mick closing out the credits. We get like Rivers heavy breathing, the sounds of the drive all throughout in a way that to your point

makes me pretty psyched about where this is headed. And I think just the idea overall that the plan was not to kill River, but to bring him in in some capacity, is a good wrinkle. And we do have final clarity, or at least some clarity on David Cartwright's involvement in this and the reason he's a target

is just because he knows as much as he knows. and the one thing we didn't touch on that front is just David's way of convincing himself of why he did what he did. And that's where I kind of wonder about his version of events in the sense that he has told himself that his daughter was a target to be leveraged,

that Frank found her and said, like, if I make this woman fall in love with me, I will be able to get all these guns, all this contraband, all these cold body IDs. I'm not 100% sure that's true. And I think it's telling that as David is kind of explaining to himself and Rose

and Lamb and Catherine what happened, it's all about him saving his daughter from something that if we're all being honest, is something she wants. His daughter wants to be there. And it's a bad call. What would you do? Rob, if you were... I'm not saying I would do anything

different. I decided to join this sex cult in Les Alb and our babies are going to be future assassins dad. But Daddy, I love him. Let me stay here. You would just be like, she's got to learn this lesson on her own.

So is that what you would do? I would not. And look, was the decision to literally get into bed with the leader of a death squad, a good one? No, no one here is defending that least of all me.

Joe, you know this about me. I'm anti-death squad. I mean, I thought I knew that about it. No, no, no. I just think his justification and frankly the frostiness of their relationship. Like, clearly this is something

his daughter never got over. Yeah. And if he was going to do, if this is what it was going to be, and he was going to make this kind of bartering trade and get his daughter out of there, maybe they should have had a follow-up conversation at some point as to what happened.

We also don't know. Like, how did it happen that River wound up in David and Rose's care? You know what I mean? Like, did they, like, take him from their daughter because they thought she couldn't be trusted with him. Like, we know that they cohabitated, or no, he just has cards from her.

Like, was he ever under her care Or was he just with his grandparents the entire time? Again, book readers might know this. We don't know all the details there. But I'm excited to see where this goes. I agree with you. I think David's self-justification, but he would do a similar thing about Charles

if you asked him about what happened with Charles. Of course. Yeah. And this is why Jackson has such contempt for him. Because if Jackson did a similar thing, well, A, I'd like to think he wouldn't. But B, if he had, he would not excuse it.

No. And he would also be punished in the way that it sounds like Sam Chapman was kind of like punished and excised. I think there's clearly a halo over David Cartwright where the park has decided

this was our guy. He's golden, his reputation is perfect, it cannot be damaged in any way. And let's just say that doesn't lead to the AAA promise. You know, that's not where we're headed on that front.

I will say the last and at least, the co-name Galahad for Claudeville is just like... It's a, good bit. It's really funny. It's a good bit, you know? Shout out to the cops on that one. They did have a good idea. One good idea from the Met. Good job. Okay, that's it, I think, for this episode of the Prestiage TV podcast about Slow Horses. We'll be back next week for both the Slow Horses finale and the Bad Monkey finale. Just one last thing in terms of your sort of separation

idea. It's funny, I was just talking to on a different podcast I do, House of Ar, we were talking to the showrunners of rings of power about keeping characters that we love together apart all season, just to sort of like, because we're, again, we're in, like, finale season, like, you know, to bring them back together at the end of a season. And they said it was, like, a lesson they learned from JJ Abrams who cites Star Wars about the way in which you are constantly pulling characters apart and making us sort of, like, yearn for them to be reunited. So I think with Jackson and River, who, yeah, have not shared a scene this season,

that's something we're definitely anticipating for the finale. At the end of the day, we all just want to see like Chewy get up there on stage and get his medal. You know, we just want to see our pals back together. That's true. Speaking of pals, thanks so much to Kay Grady for his work on this and every other episode that we do. He is the best, and we will see you all next week. Bye!