The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Slow Horses’ Season 4 Finale: Shoot to Kill

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

Jo and Rob stand still to recap the ‘Slow Horses’ Season 4 finale. They discuss how the final episode impacted their thoughts on the season as a whole, talk about River and David’s heartbreaking moment, and parse through a few more listener emails (2:21). Along the way, they dive into Marcus Longridge’s fate and why it was so emotionally impactful (21:44). Later, they send off the season with one last Lamb Shank of the Week (48:09). Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producer: Kai Grady Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftsmanship behind every bite. Borshead committed to craft since 1905. Welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joyner Robinson. I'm Rob Mahoney. And this is one of three question mark. Prestige TV episodes we're doing this week for Rob.

We're going through the gauntlet. It's a double finale week. We're starting a new show this week, which people should get tuned in on, on disclaimer, which we're about to pick up. It's exciting times, but it's a lot, especially for our friend Kai Grady, who is really doing the heavy lifting over here.

Please, thoughts and praise for Kai. Seriously. We are doing this Slow Horses finale episode. We've got a bad monkey finale episode, and then we've got a double disclaimer premiere, only one episode of the podcast, but two episodes of a disclaimer, which we'll be talking about at the end of the week.

So that is, again, a lot from us. You'll get that disclaimer episode, should come out on Friday, which is when those episodes drop on Apple TV Plus. And then in the future, I think we're going to do like Monday recaps for a Friday show, just so that we can get emails from you guys with the weekends and all that sort of stuff.

So that's the plan. Y'all have been so great sending emails all season of slow horses to Arstime the Pope at gmail.com. We want to keep the momentum going. We want to keep the good vibes. You want to keep the communication. We want to keep all the librarians that are yelling at me from not reading fiction.

and we want every single piece of it coming in. It's going to say. Good Vives is sort of the watchword here. So some of your emails have been quite rude. Quite rude to Rob Mahoney. I'm appreciating it. I'm enjoying myself. Okay.

I got my hackles up. Okay. So yeah, we're here to talk about the Slow Horses' Season 4 finale titled Hello Goodbye, by written by Guess Who, Will Smith, directed by Guess Who, Adam Randall, This is, you know, the dream team of the season. And I kind of want to start. We've got some emails I want to get to before we sort of do a blow-by-bow of the episode. But I just want to start with your big picture thoughts, Rob, on the finale itself.

And then maybe as that has that changed your view of the season as a whole. A very different kind of finale for Slow Horses. It does have the big action set pieces that we're accustomed to. But as we expected, a very emotional episode, a very contemplative episode. a very contemplative episode, a very dialogue-heavy, exchange of ideas and pitches and a meeting of these characters

we've been waiting to have a chance to actually talk all season. So when you build up all that tension, I think what's most interesting is just getting these people across tables from one another. I think that's where this episode was really at its best. I really enjoyed River and Frank finally having a chance

to converse. The reason you get Hugo weaving in the show is not to have him busy his way through a train station, it's to put him opposite Kristen Scott Thomas at the end. Those are the things that I really, really loved. And I think what was surprising for me, Joe, I don't know if you felt this way or if you saw this telegraphed at all, true to Frank's counterintuitive movements in this episode,

I kind of figured this would be the last we saw of him, that they would wrap up his story, that he would be shipped off to jail or dead or something would happen, a sense of closure as to who Frank Harkness is and was. But this feels like a character that could be out in the wind, and popping up for seasons to come. I completely agree. If you're a book reader, skip it to yourself.

But yeah, we don't know, but it does feel like Frank would come back. And here's actually the main reason. Other than the pardon he seems to have secured himself with his blackmail letters that he left for Molly, he and Jackson Lamb have not had a scene together. Not a single one. Or David Cartwright.

That's not going to stand. I mean, I could see them never putting him with David. Sure. But we have to have Gary. oldman and Hugo weaving in a scene together or else what are we doing here so i have to imagine that's coming because i can't wait to see the frank harkness energy that like deeply shitty my way or the highway machismo energy up against jackson lambs absolute does not give a fuckery also you know there's a couple things we there's a couple things we cut from our interview with

showrunner will smith earlier this season just because we felt they were a little spoilery and we didn't want to influence people one way or another. So he didn't talk great specifics, but he did allude to Jackson, how Sam's death would impact Jackson Lamb. And I don't think we've seen the full fallout of that. Yes. That this was a death he would care about

more than some of the other deaths that he sees. Actually, I mean, I think we see that a bit in some of the emotionality that is present in him in the end of this episode. He said something would dramatically impact your girl Shirley. sure enough, without saying directly that Marcus is going to die. He said that and we just sort of like snip that out. But he also said sort of in a big picture way, I can't remember if we left this in,

that they were really kind of trying something different with this season of Slow Horses. And throughout the season, I think we had some questions about the efficacy of certain things or whether we were having a great time with everyone so far flung or so little Louisa or whatever, whatever it was, we had some questions. For me, they nailed the finale so well

that, you know, I would think, I think last week I would say this is my least favorite season of So Horses and now I'm not so sure because there are aspects, especially in the last like five minutes of this finale, that I'm going to be thinking about forever when I think about this show. Yeah. You know, a real opportunity for Jack Loudon to step up even more than he has before,

you know, a classically incredible Jonathan Price performance and then something different from Jackson Lamb, which has been the question we've been asking all season, Gary Olin said to us, and in almost any interview he ever gives, that Jackson Lamb is the kind of character who doesn't change. We like that about them. But when we talked to Will Smith about it,

we were like, well, you don't want to see a character never change. And he talked a bit about maybe the character themselves and changed, but the relationships to the people around them change. Right. I don't see how that can't ultimately also change the character. But what did you think of, let's just go straight to this final. scene with River and Jackson Lamb in the bar. Let me just say one thing, one last thing really quickly.

I watched this episode last week, kind of half distracted, and then I watched it again, you know, this morning, you know, sort of taking detailed notes. And I had just in a few days misremembered how much happens in that bars. I really thought Jackson, like, said something more than he actually does or, you know, offered some advice or something. And it's obviously so much better the way that it actually is. But I had just sort of like, just that small gesture had been blown up into my head into some sort of like big almost father-son moment. And that's not quite what it is. Anyway, so yeah, let's talk about the ending.

Rob Honie. It kind of is a big moment just because he doesn't say something, but he extends him a courtesy he literally never has before, which is you can stay. Like you are allowed to stay and have a drink as long as you don't say anything, which feels very on brand for him. And I think you really get this sort of triptych for River of his three dads and these various sorts of moments between them. And I think the stuff with David, Jonathan Price, is like heartbreaking. Like as emotionally rending as anything we've seen on this show so far. And I will admit that specific subject matter is like a big emotional pressure point for me. And so like it's going to work on me.

But the way they play that scene and the promises that he says River made him, like all that stuff hits so, so hard. And so for both of these characters, for River and Lamb, who let's remember have not had a scene together all season, have been completely on opposite ends of the plot all season, this is their moment to finally come together. And they haven't really talked about anything that's happened. They're going to fill out some paperwork and have a drink,

and that's going to be it. But I think the closure and the button that that puts on the season is what I love about slow horses, is they leave a lot of things unsaid, that they don't have to show us the tying of every loose end. Sometimes what we want to get the sort of closure we need is just two characters having a quiet drink. By, you know, not tying up every loose end,

do you mean we don't get to see what our girl, Gitti, is up to in this episode? Are you missing her? Not a single time. She could have been put into a cement block and thrown into the ocean. We don't know. We're pulling for you, Giti.

We hope you're doing well. You know what? Since River turned down Frank's pitch, maybe she is the spy mastermind, who will be recruited to, you know, jumpstart phase two of Frank's organization. You know, I'm just, look, I am imagining greater things for Geithi. She, too, is underappreciated in her current role, and I would like to see her somewhere where she can really thrive.

Okay, well, I love that for her. I hope, here's my hope for Geithi. Love that you're hoping that she joins France's murder squad. I'll say, I'm hoping that with Moira back in the park, there will be more appreciation and flourishing for a person like E.T. She really feels like someone that Moira would pay attention to and nourish. Also, by comparison, because I know we're going to get into lots of goods by

bad spy stuff this week, but as a former EA slash secretary at the park, leaving multiple incredibly dangerous voicemails on multiple phones is just like first week of orientation shit. Is that worse than when she just, dumped the bullets out of the gun all over the floor, because that for me was, you're right,

that, maybe that falls less under the purview of EA. It's her skill set. EA should be voicemails. If she knows nothing else, it's how to navigate a voicemail system. And she blows it on, the one thing she should know,

and look, again, another thing that resonates with me deeply is somebody who has, like, a nightmare of going on Jeopardy and blowing the NBA trivia category. You know, it's like, there is something very, resonant and very slow horses, to be fair, about

fucking up the one thing that you're supposed to be able to do well. I think about that all the time. I really do. It wouldn't be the NBA category, but I definitely am like, oh God, they're going to have a musicals category, and I'm just going to absolutely blow it. Okay, I loved, loved, if it wasn't clear, the ending of this episode. I think Jack Loudon, particularly, I was talking to a friend of mine this morning about the very end of the episode, and he was talking, he said that he thought Jack Loudon sort of walking out of the home, what is it called, sunny, sunny times?

Sunny times. Walking out of sunny times, this sort of like steady cam following him out. Also, enhanced by just before that when he's in the room with David and he can barely make eye contact with him. Yeah. You know, talking about how he'll visit him, talking about how he'll bring him plants for him from his garden, talking about how he'll, you know, make friends and bring him clothing and all this sort of stuff like that.

And I, like you, I have, I have, I'm assuming you do. I have personal experience visiting a grandparent, um, experiencing dimension and just sort of feeling helpless, especially sort of as, as, um, as we've been talking about all season, you know, like someone like a grandparent or, you know, a parent, someone who you've looked up to as, you know, someone who took care of you. There's, before that really tough scene, uh, in, in, in, you've looked up to as, you know, you know, in the care facility, there is a moment earlier in the episode

that actually brought some tears in my eyes when I think it's like, I think it's Moira and Catherine are talking to each other and David is there and he just like interjects with a where's my boy, like a really plaintive where's my boy. Yeah.

Got right to me. And this idea that like David raised River from at least when he was, what is it, six or seven and then definitely, you know, from there on out, didn't hear from his mom at all. to then be the person who has to make the decisions. We've been watching River do this,

sort of slowly over two seasons, and feel like you're betraying someone. But yeah, to not be able to make eye contact and then to walk out and have the camera to show us his face just sort of like blown open with loss and despair. And then for Jackson, Lamb, Jackson Lamb, all fucking people to be the person to extend, not Louisa, to extend the helping hand to him in this moment,

just though he doesn't have to be alone, with his, you know, his turmoil in this moment. It's just great. I think there's a great looping, too, on David's part of this story, where clearly this is a very family-oriented season of slow horses, unusually so, uncharacteristically so.

But this idea that he's in this position being put into sunny times because River can't take care of him, but his daughter is out in the wind and just wants nothing to do with him. Like, he has other family. And because of the central, action and tensions that were investigating

and trying to get to the bottom of this season, there's an irreconcilable difference between David and his daughter that is also part of the reason that he's here and part of the subtext of why River has to do this because he really doesn't have a lot of other options. That's a great point that I hadn't fully processed yet. Bleak, bleak, bleak, as we are in our sort of bleak emotional state

at the end of this episode, we get a needle drop moment and I did want to talk to you. I do want to say, Rob, if you ever call me to a bar to comfort me about something. If you want to make sure that there's Nick Drake on the joke box, I won't complain. I love Nick Drake. I think Nick Drake is perfect listening

for your more emotional moments. You and I were texting with our pal, Steve last night about the Beatles being like the original sad voice, but I kind of think Nick Drake is like the original sad boy. Well, and also we should shout out a finale titled Hello Goodbye.

We can't just gloss by it. It's true. It's true. Not a very Paul episode, I will say. This is much more George vibe, I think, overall. It is a very George episode. We love George. But, like, Nick Drake, so this is Hazy Jane 1 is what plays at the end of this episode.

Not to be confused with Hazie Jane 2, which is a jaunty tune and not one you want to listen to when you're drowning your sorrows in a bar with your taciturn boss. But what is your relationship with Nick Drake, Rob Mahoney? I would say tangential mostly. For me, I doubt. in the sad boys, but when I'm in that zone, I'm more of a sad girl energy. I'm going for something of a little bit different speed, but look, I am but a man. I do have deep feelings that need to be expressed in exactly this kind of like crooning British way. Yeah.

So I'm not immune to his charms. He's just not someone I would say like go back to over and over, but to your larger point, he pops up everywhere all the time. Are there any previous Nick Drake needle drops that you are particularly fond of? I would say the one that comes to mind for me is my introduction, which is off of the Garden State soundtrack, something we have also discussed previously on this podcast for Bad Monkey-related reasons. You know, just an incredibly memorable text for people of a certain age

and for a high school student being introduced to Nick Drake for the first time, it hits, and I would say it misses in some ways. because I do feel like Nick Drake is the kind of artist that I don't know what your entry point was it feels a little bit more adult even though it is sad boy. Yeah, I mean, because it's like, it's like real sad boy.

Yeah, it's more midlife anguish than it is like a 14-year-old checking out garden stay and being like, yeah, this is for me. Yeah, I think a lot of people actually in the, in like sort of eating and around our age. There was a Volkswagen commercial,

which used the Nick Drake song, Pink Moon, that I remember being, like, an entry point for a lot of people. But for me, I mean, I don't know. It's like a, is it a West Anderson soundtrack? Is it a, like, the cello song would show up on a bunch of soundtracks a lot? So, like, Northern Sky. Anyway, Nick Drake, big fan. And when they, when they, like, drop the Nick Drake at the end of this episode,

I was just like, oh, no, that's a shortcut. That's a shortcut for me. It worked really, really. We're going to go back through the show. I do want to mention a couple emails we got. We asked the question, or we were asked the question, to recommend shows like, so horses, and our listeners sort of waded on this question.

So if you just finished the season and you're like, what do I watch next? We say disclaimer, so you can watch disclaimer with us. Of course. It also looks at. But several people mentioned the Amazon Prime Show Patriot, which is what I actually really enjoyed. And I co-signed that.

That's a great recommendation. especially if you're a fan of Terry O'Quinn, which I am. So, you know, but you're not a lost guy, Rob. So I don't know if you have like an emotional attachment, Terry O'Quinn. I can't say that I do. And honestly, Patriot is one of these shows that I literally did not know existed until my dad told me to watch it. Which makes me think clearly, slow horses wise, these things are of a piece. Like there is a common DNA that dads can understand and appreciate.

We've talked about dads and their ability to navigate the Amazon Prime offering better than anyone else, right? It's mystifying. They're the only. people who can do, I literally did not know Patriot existed and I believe it was already in season two when I was recommended it by my dad. They're like big Bosch heads. They just liked it.

The Bosch episodes are fucking flowing at the Mahoney household. Let me tell you. Of course. Another recommendation, which I thought was a really interesting sort of sideways recommendation was Peep Show, which is, I think just for the sharp British humor

aspect of it. It's not a spy show. This is a comedy show. Mitchell and Webb. You know, I would never not give a peep show recommendation. And then also someone recommended Deadlock, which is a comedy crime show that I know a lot of people who love, it's not really my speed, but a lot of people really like it. So, yeah, I guess I can see the point. If you're looking for like murder and laughs at the same time, Deadlock might be a good point for you. The last sort of email before we actually have a closing email today.

But the last email on this top section I want to mention is from Jim sent us an email asking, have they explained why Frank sent one of his son slash assassins on a suicide bombing mission? And then a bunch of other follow-the-questions. My understanding is that it was not supposed to be a suicide bombing. It was supposed to be an assassination via bombing, but it was not supposed to be a suicide bombing. Is that your understanding as well? Well, and we even get a little bit from River in this episode where he infers that the reason Eve blew up the mall was to get, back at Frank specifically. It was, it was an ideological attack, but it was one like lashing out

at his own personal circumstances. And so, yeah, I don't think that was the plan, at least the plan that Frank sent him to accomplish. That said, there's also something really sad about the fact that because of the timing of the events of this episode, Frank is also kind of sending Patrice on a suicide mission, right? Like, it may not be hatched that way. And certainly we've seen, we've seen Patrice kill enough people to think that he probably could murder all the slow horses and get away with it. And if anything, I was kind of a little stunted in this episode by him turning into a stormtrooper in Act 3. Well, at least he hit, he hit Co. Yeah. And Roddy, winged Roddy at least. Did he? Well, maybe some glass. Maybe a shard of glass.

Catherine's like, this isn't even from a bullet. Like what are you complaining about? Yeah, so Roddy Bled, Coe got hit. Definitely. Good thing a black hoodie will cover blood. You know, you could just keep wearing that black hoodie. It won't show a single blood stain. And then Marcus, I think Markings got hit before he was killed, right? I actually can't remember. But nonetheless, your point stands. Like, Patrice should have been able to dispatch that entire building pretty easily, it seems like, if he could handle Sam Chapman.

So, yeah, yes, to be taken down by a toss bottle from Jackson Lamb and a pistol whipping by Shirley is, you know, its own thing. But I think also there is this sense, and will mention this in our interview with him, of the fortress that is the Slau House. He was sort of mentioning it in this idea of like Diana Tavener coming to Slau House for the first time this season and then in this episode, making her way up to the kitchen level. She's still never been to the top level. And he was talking about how, did he call it like the brain or the heart?

Something like that. If you get to Jackson's office, that's the brain or the heart. And so I do think it's worth, you know, in terms of. You've played far more video games than I have, but in terms of like a siege up a building, it's sort of like they had the high ground, so some slight advantage there. But Marcus, first of all,

had a lot of ammo. And secondly, like, held his own for much longer than I would expect. He did. He got his own kind of closing of a loop in that way because we saw in season three, he was that guy cowering behind cover, like afraid to pop out and shoot.

And I think giving him a hero moment where he gets to protect Shirley and protect Co and help them get to safety, at least relative safety at the top of Slough House, is a big moment for him. Slow Horses also teaches us that if you try to be a hero, you're probably going to die. And so it fits in within the morality of the show.

It fits in within the structure. I have to say, as far as plans go, there really is nowhere for them to go butt up, given the fact that Patrice is in the building. But hiding out in the office that's like lousy with windows is maybe not my preferred option. And they keep putting the same chair in front of the door, even though multiple people like barge through it.

There are a number of fire escapes. You know, like Co goes out of, you know, fire door at one point. You know, there's one seemingly on every level. So there are some exits from the building.

But, um, yeah, Marcus's death is interesting because, uh, you know, we've talked about death on slow horses. We've talked about how it can come for anyone at any given time.

Um, I didn't expect that I would be, that it would affect me the way that it did. Just because we've talked about, talked a bit about Marcus as a character, feeling like he's a little arched out. This is not the last time you're going to hear

I say that on a pod this week, but like, you know, as a character we were sort of, felt like he was spinning his wheels a bit in this one plot line. And I thought a couple things about his death were quite impactful.

One, I think the way that they shot, the, it's classic for the one shot cutaway. We don't know which person got shot. That's a thing you and I have seen a million. times. There was just something about the way that he like turned his head before the shot that was quite poignant to me. And then of course, as we think about how it impacts Shirley, as we see

Jackson give, like try to stop Shirley from looking at the body, the little like sort of nod that he gives to Catherine of like, you know, it didn't make it. And then like Jackson sticking up for Marx's family and getting them extra benefits at the end of the episode. So all of that just really did kind of hit for me in a way that I didn't think this character's death would. What did you think? Well, I think in a lot of these cases, it's less about the character who dies and more about how it is impacting the characters around them, as you allude to. I think we see it with Sam Chapman, too, where, you know, what Gary Oldman is playing in the moment when he discovers Sam's body is deeply unsentimental. He walks in the room, he's trying to figure out what happened.

he's patting down the corpse of his friend. And basically all he allows himself is like one sigh before he picks up the bottle and goes. There really is not a lot of sentimentality there in the same way that it isn't afforded here with Marcus's death either. And so I think it strikes at this very delicate place where these are not overwrought moments. These are not big sentimental moments, but they're really painful for the characters. And you see them dealing with the damage, but you don't see them like reveling in the big send-off. Yeah, you know, like when you think of Louisa processing Min Harper's death, I will never skip an opportunity to talk about the death of Min Harper. Like, yeah, you see her in, you see her at the memorial service, you see her, but it's mostly her like stoicism papering over the emotion.

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Hilton, for the stay. I already alluded to it, but I want to talk about Moira's arc in this episode. Moira and Catherine sort of wobbling over certain position. Catherine, knowing where everything is in the office. Moira's face and gesture when she picks up the handcuffs out of the desk, she picks them up with two fingers. Like she doesn't want to know why Jackson Lamb has handcuffs in his desk is so good

and there was another line she had in this episode that genuinely made me laugh out loud I'll try to remember it but what did you make of like Moira and where she winds up with Claude and the park and all of that yeah I mean she certainly squeezes

the one bit of leverage that she really has to get the one thing that she actually wants which is up out of here back to the park back to her real job which as I alluded to earlier I don't know that she's actually that good at I don't think we have a lot of evidence to suggest she's really dialed in in the way that someone

who's working in the services should be dialed in. Down to the handcuffs, down to the emptying of the bullets, down to the fuck me, fuck me, fuck me as she hits herself with a pistol in the head. Tough scenes from Moira. But tough scenes, honestly, for most of the slow horses. She's of a piece with this group, even if she is no longer technically part of them. Here's the part that made me laugh out loud is when there's a gun shot. And Catherine says, is that a gun?

And Moyer goes, no. David said yes. No. Really what makes that note hit is the little look up after the yep from Joanna Scanlan. The like, oh shit. The ocean recognition is wonderful. But like if let's say she is a terrible EA, which seems like, you can't even do like the bird is back in the cage. You're like David Cartwright.

That's right. David Cartwright is back at Slough House. The address is. Maybe she's great at collating. We don't know like there's a lot of things you need to do as an EA. But okay. That's true. Maybe she's on the most discreet EA.

She has landed herself a four-day work week where probably she's not going to have to do anything at all back in the park. She's just going to do exactly what she wants to do. And I kind of like that for her, mostly because it comes at the expensive cloud. And that is just something that's quite delightful. And I found his sputtering through her return. And what I like now is that, you know, we talked earlier in the season when Jackson takes Moira out and, you know, gets a bottle of wine for himself, winds himself and dines her and sort of makes an asset out of her.

We were sort of admiring him, turning her into an asset. She's back in the park. That's an asset they have in the park, that they haven't had that sort of inn in the park before. That's true. Molly wasn't like an inn. She was her own sort of institution, but she was really an inn.

We get very little resolution on Molly. How do you feel like your guy, Roddy Ho, fared in this whole endeavor. You know, strikes and gutters, I think. You know, playing video games while an assassin comes in the front door is not great. It's not what you want. But if it were to happen, I actually think

the like throwing down boxes behind himself on the way up the stairs was some fairly quick thinking for someone in his position. Not terrible. Not terrible. Bought himself the second he needed to just get winged by some glass and not actually shot. So shout out to him for that. Also, congratulations to him for being back on the sex market. I think that's a huge development for him, and I think we're all very happy. What does Shirley say?

What's the stuff that's too embarrassing to say out loud? Great stuff from Shirley. Yeah, Roddy's fleeing of the file boxes, the eternally on the staircase filing boxes, great stuff. But I most admire him turning himself into David Cartwright's caretaker so he can secure himself a spot in the bathroom. Big Billy Zane at the end of Titanic energy. Then when he tells David to sit down and David looks at the toilet and he's like,

I'm all right. You know what? Our girl, Louisa, was back in the center of the action. She still didn't have like a ton to do. I was trying to try, you know, when they're running through, well, first of all, she fishes the grenade out of Rivers Hood. I'd like to think the river would have been able to do by himself if they weren't like getting on each other's way, but still, like, good job, Louisa.

Do you know what I mean? They were, like, completely. Both slowing each other down in terms of fishing a grenade out of the hood. That said, it is hard to fish something out of your own hood sometimes. Metaphorically, don't we all need someone to fish the grenade out of our hood? Yeah. Well, and no greater case of that than none of this would have happened. The whole grenade in the hood business had River Cartwright not thrown away a perfectly good

and fashionable coat on the train and swapped it for a hoodie. We wouldn't be here. He would have been fine. No grenades in any hoodies of any kind. Where is that coat? That coat is like halfway to Glasgow right now. Terrible. Okay.

So they're running through St. Pancras Station. And there's a section where River is like yards ahead of everyone else. And then I was like, oh no, Luis is keeping up with him. And then everyone was like on pace with him. But like there were, he was like, he was, which is very rivered to me, I think. You're the sports guy, not me. But like, an early, like. an early out-in-front sprinter

who gets winded a little quickly and then everyone catches up to him. Doesn't that sound like River Cartwright to you? Completely. Fully in character, and I have to say on the Jack Loudon piece of that, our guy Jack has been waiting four seasons to sprint through like a technicolor hallway.

And he gets his moment and he looks resplendent. It's just, it's really hidden. He looks wonderful. Shout out to the poor commuters who got Like neck chopped Like ACLs torn

Like just wrecked For riding an escalator Yeah Tough, tough pile up On the escalator from Frank Harkness I'm going to send my love and appreciation of Frank Harkness for adopting the classic Marvel disguise of the

Non-Disccript baseball cap Good job Frank Great, great way to shelter in place And then yeah Then we get this moment I loved this shot When River walks up When River has this sort of epiphany

What did he say to me literally five minutes ago? You know, we're all like, okay. So that moment was like a little on the nose. But the way they shot Jack Loudon as we were walking up to Frank, but we don't see Frank. He's just walking up to the booth to sit down. And Frank's right there. We could have seen like an over the shoulder or something like that,

but we just get like him walking up and sitting down and then Frank's right there. Frank giving himself up because he knows he's not going to stay in custody that long. Yep. ordering two glasses of champagne on his way out is what it seemed like to me. He hits the sort of button on the table as if to be like, bring two bottles,

two glasses of champers to these people. I don't quite know how all of that system works. And then river housing the entire glass in one goal, which is great, great stuff. He's had a day. He's had a day. Really a couple days.

But yeah, I think the mechanics of that I was wondering too, because it felt like in this moment, I agree with you that the overall play of like, let me tell you how I operate with my TED Talk in Act 1 and then you're going to use that information to track me down at the end.

All very classic storytelling stuff, if a little telegraphed. It felt when it played out here, like Frank wanted it to happen. I don't think he wanted to get caught per se, but I think it was yet another test of his son. And like the champagne kind of reiterated that for me of,

again, maybe someone can clarify the ordering system at a train wine bars for us. But it felt like the kind of thing where it had been discussed in advance, where it's like... When I push this button, bring two glasses of champagne to my son and surely

some other person who will be joining him here in a second. Why else would a waiter be bringing two glasses to a different table? Yeah. You know, like it felt a little engineered in a way where Frank is just kind of like waiting to see if River can show up and to see if he was listening. To see if he could find him in the

wine bar, which is a established Frank's favorite place to be in a train station. Yes. Well, the Chardonnay is incredible there. And then to see if he can survive a grenade in the hoodie, I guess that's also a test. Classic trial. That's actually the first thing he puts his child soldiers through. Once they're old enough to wear a hoodie, he pops a grenade in there and sees if they can wiggle their way out.

You already mentioned watching Hugo Weaving and Jack Loudon, Frank and his son, you know, sit across the table from each other is really what you're here for, the kind of thing you're here for this season. We have Frank make no bones about sort of how he treated River's mom, all this other stuff like that. It's not like River has a massive saucepot for his mom, but still, I have some questions about Frank's recruiting tactics. But something that I love about the way this character has been written and especially how he's written in this episode is the really casual misogyny or sort of like patriarchal language when he's talking about David as his male role model, you know,

essentially calling him like a beta cuck or whatever. When he, when Diana Tavener comes in, he's like, are you here to take my order? I mean, like, you know,

he's going to shit over any authority figure who comes in, to talk to him in that interrogation room, but they felt like there was something extragendered about the way that he was talking to Diana. And so I just, I love all that because, like, I mean,

what would expect a man who, amasses a harem and breeds child soldiers to have a less than high opinion of women. But I just thought that that was like an interesting thing that was, I thought, not like super subtly, but not overtly done in a way that paints a fine picture of a psychological profile. That makes sense.

Completely. Clearly all the women who have been in his life have been to serve a purpose, to give him children to, you know, be bartered in the way that Rivers' mom was. I got to say all this doesn't make me feel great about Ghii's future potential employment in Frank's organization. I don't love that dynamic for her. Are you going to take that back? Are you going to wish a different future for your girl, Giti?

I'm going to say I'm still open to it, but we're going to need some HR professionals in there. Like, we're going to need the AAA promise in order to really get that thing to move. Although, while we're talking AAA's, RIP to one of the AAAs, because Claude Whelan, at the first sign of trouble, accountability's out of here. We are in full London rules cover our ass mode as soon as literally anything happens. Shoot on site. Why did you make

a Diana's objection to that? She was like, this is wrong, Claude. When we've seen Diana do way worse in previous seasons. How did you read that? Yeah, literally having other agents murdered. Early as being party to a system that participates in that. I think it's different if you're giving the order.

Yeah. It seemed a little high horsey for me, given who she is and how that character operates. But maybe there is a specific kind of code of like, and I think a genuine soft spot for River. Like there is a weird connection between them where she, for whatever reason, is loath to see him murdered in cold blood by dogs in the street

where honestly, if it had been Louisa, I don't know that she cares quite as much. Classic Golden Boy stuff. Yeah, no, I mean, I think, and I think that's an interesting thing to track because when we met River, he was being drummed out of service because Diana knew that he had information on her.

And so, like, we know that she's not. She's very willing to cut people, but, you know, perhaps she's had enough in her... I don't know. There's just previous seasons where she's like River Cartwright, like, perpetual thorn in my side. So it's interesting to see her... She says that.

Okay. All right. You know, she says it. But I think all the things can be true. And ultimately, how she feels about River is one thing. Yeah. How she is going to take this treatment from Claude, I think it's going to be another thing because... Yes.

Well, she... That's... Okay, sorry to interrupt you. But, like, that is more my read on that because she's like, that's my call, not yours. 100%. And then she says, this is wrong. And I'm just like, that sounds so disingenuous to me.

I feel like what she's saying this is wrong is, it's wrong for you to try to do my job for me, that sort of thing, you know? Without a doubt. I think to this point, she has been, if anything, maybe even a little charmed by his attempts to sit at the adult table. But you do it in front of the whole room of animals. You take away operational control from Diana Tavernor.

Like, you fucked up. And I can't imagine that's going to sit with her lightly. Right. And so she makes it a moral case in front of other people because then, you know, she can later say, can you believe that he said shoot on site to one of our innocent, you know, agents sort of thing. It's very interesting. I want to talk about our guy, Coe, who's been like a real mystery box this whole season,

but has significant things to do in this episode. First of all, I just want to talk about the kettle move was. incredible home-aloning from him. Like really good McAllister shit from him. Does that count as good spy? Or is it so McAllistery

that it's not even SpyCraft anymore? I mean, barring Marcus actually holding him off with a gun, I would say that Coe was the most effective person in that building with love and respect

to Roddy's file maneuver. Later when Moira says, Shelly makes some tea and he says, there's no kettle and she says, I'll order another. one.

Really good stuff, I think. But then he has this moment where he talks Shirley down from shooting Patrice. He says, Marcus loved you. He wanted you to love yourself more of his sort of like I can psychologically profile anyone, you know,

aspect. That was all fine. She walks out and then he just dispassionately shoots Patrice, Catherine's startled, puts the earbuds in. and walks out. What did you make of this sort of,

does this feel like a new dimension? Does this feel like more of the same to you? What did you think? I mean, first of all, I love the bleeding heart fake out. You get this very emotional plea for Shirley not to do this because it's going to haunt her for the rest of her life. And I think in the hands of a lesser show, Shirley walks away and they turn Patrice over to the authorities

and they tie it up in a much cleaner way. And so have Coat come in and so coldly, load the clip. For one, I do agree it adds a very interesting dimension to that character. This idea that he's not just a guy who is traumatized and going through stuff and trying to block things out, but he's a guy who has a level of dispassion that is totally different from the other people and slow horses. And I think also the psychological profile element in terms of what he tells Shirley is interesting because it could be true and it's interesting because it's definitely manipulative. He is telling her this

so that she will leave. That doesn't mean it's not true. Yeah. But I think his positioning as someone who can read people and know stuff and everyone in the slow horses is now acutely aware of that. Yeah. allows him to pull their strings in a very different way. I think that's interesting. I do think

I mean, my read of the scene is that he doesn't want her to do it. He doesn't want her to do it, not out of any sense of morality, but because like it will further tarnish her soul, her, you know, you know, add to her damage where he's like, damage is done with me.

I'm already gone. I'll do it. No problem. I thought that was really interesting. And again, like Tom Brooke, as I've said a million times, is an actor I really like. So I'm interested to see more of what he does with this character. And with Marcus gone, like, is he going to be a main scene partner for Shirley? Is that like a new pairing going forward is a question?

he could be an interesting one and I think the way that these characters could bounce off each other is potentially really interesting not just in the context of this scene but even if we want to rewind all the way back to the first episode of this season when Marcus and Shirley are like

recreationally waterboarding and when we still thought Kim might be real also true those glory days but there is something very clear in the contrast of like Shirley has been in the field she's clearly seen shit she's clearly killed a lot of people

but she's also like playing at some parts of this job in a way that someone like J.K. Co. has clearly lived through interrogating and being interrogated that is much more vicious and cold and removed. And I think those sorts of counterpoints could be interesting

to bounce off of each other. Yes. Let me read. I was going to say this for the end, but I think it's good to put this in here. We got an email from Meg who has a passage from the book about shortly. That's like the very end of the book that the season is based on Spook Street. And we did get a couple emails from book readers who were saying, largely they agree that this is going to be the hardest book to adapt and that there were

some changes made that they, you know, we heard from people who there were changes made that they disagree with and there are people, there are changes made that they agree with. But no matter what, I think this is going to be a challenging, a challenge for slow horses. And as I already said, I think they nailed the finale so well that I'm calling this a successful, a successful experiment. And I don't know if it'll be sort of back to more standard form in future seasons or, to your point if Frank is hanging around, are you, were you an alias guy?

Did you watch alias? I kind of missed it. It's a dynamic I really like because an alias where Jennifer Garner plays this by. Her mom is this like Russian agent sort of villain, but has a, you know, question mark. That dynamic is interesting to me that Frank is out there. Especially since Frank was like, I have two tickets. And I was like, we didn't know that Patrice was dead at that. Like, Patrice was not dead at that point.

And he's just sort of like, I'm starting. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, you're right. It's tough scenes for Patrice. He's just out there trying to do the best he can with some admittedly uncharacteristic aim, although on the Patrice front, I want to give him some credit because this dude is like, got hit by cars, had scalding hot water thrown at him. And so if anyone does have an excuse to maybe not be at the tip top of their game,

I'm going to give him the pass. The painkillers are wearing off. That's what I was going to say. The pharmaceuticals are going to wear off. Okay, this is what Meg says about Shirley and sort of the end of this particular book. Meg says they did a good job tying up the threads. I appreciate whether they show Mark's death better than in the book, that single gunshot. And then Amy Fionne Edwards nailed that scene.

The best part of the series, both the book and the series as a whole, is how the violence continues to reverberate through the characters, leaving fault lines not easily plastered over. Unfortunately, a TV show can't do an epilogue like the written word, just thought I would leave you with one of my favorite paragraphs in the whole series. So this is a quote from the book. Quote, it is true that the wall behind what was Marcus' desk is now wider than it had been in years, but only the middle section had been repainted, leaving even the most casual onlooker to wonder

what has been painted over, and even to imagine that this freshness hides an undercoat of dubious quality, something not quite erratical, of a morbidly stuccoed texture and lingering effect. But Lamb won't spend his days staring at this wall. This will fall to Shirley Dander, who is out clubbing now, has hit the dance floor, unfashionably early and to everyone watching appears to be celebrating something marvelous, flailing her limbs in an uncoordinated mess of ecstasy, just smiling enough to prevent anyone getting close and piercing her fraudulent joy. She is a dervish tonight, a priestess in her own brand new religion, and the object of her adoration is fury. Does that make you excited for the future of your girl Shirley Dander?

Are you really excited for where we're going to go from here? I feel, I feel great. about investing on the ground floor of what looks like a revolutionary new venture for Shirley Dander. So very excited. And I agree. Like Amy Phyll and Edwards, I think is great in this episode,

especially given the limited things that she has to like operationally do. She throws a knife here and there. She, you know, tucks behind some corners as she's like getting cover. But it's very convincingly like playing someone

who is pretty freaked out and maybe in over their head. And I think one of the kind of like questions I had lingering is, is there a reason Shirley doesn't have a gun? Well, I don't think any of them have a gun. Do none of them care? I mean, I guess, or maybe they're locked away in a place where they have to retrieve them.

But yeah, now that I'm thinking about it, like River, when he's out and about, doesn't necessarily always have a weapon. This sort of goes back to this email we got from one of our listeners earlier season with the whole Marcus selling his gun thing, which is just sort of like how. I mean, I was thinking about this when the dogs and the metro seemed to show up at the same time with the, the Frank River, Louise and Emma are their sort of showdown. There are a lot of guns drawn. And Emma, Flight certainly constantly has a gun to draw.

And Nick certainly did when he was out of the dogs. So the dogs have guns. But are the other spies walking around with guns? As an American, I would think they would. But perhaps that is not the case with British spies. But if that's the case, it makes sense to me that there are literally two guns in this building. There's a gun in Liam's desk.

And then the gun that Marcus was in the process of selling. Well, you retrieved it from the gun library. Yeah. Another iconic turn from our guide answer. Just great stuff. Yeah. So I was wondering about that. If that's why there aren't guns stashed everywhere in the house, maybe now they will be.

But yeah, I got to say, Shirley, I love you. I think you're great. I'm excited for your future mental breakdown that seems to be coming, your anger issues. It's all going to be really exciting for me. Between Roddy throwing the files, co-throwing the kettle, and Marcus holding them off with a gun,

Shirley's really hapless fling of a piece of color. A big knife. That's the worst move we saw. It's not good. Nor is standing in front of the door with no cover waiting for someone to come in. Why did she do that? I don't know. I was like, crouch.

It was dramatic. I'll give her that. She's so small. You could crouch and no one would find you. Absolutely. All right. What have we not talked about that you want to make sure we cover? This is a very lamb light episode overall.

Yes. And honestly, maybe lamb light season. Yeah. Season. I think it's a very river-oriented season. And naturally, because of the way river is chasing the action, it shifts lamb out of the limelight a little bit, out of the spotlight. Yeah.

Very curious to see how that adjusts or it's not even a, course correction because this is like a series of novels. It makes sense that, oh, this is going to focus on this part of the story. This is going to focus on Rivermore. It's going to focus on this part of MI5's operation. That is how this shit works. I could always use more lamb light. And for a lamblight episode in a lamb light season, I am delighted to say that even though he himself does not deliver it, we do have a lamb shank of the week. Kai, can you please play the clip? Who's going to get your salary when you keel over on the job? Are you suggesting the marriage of convenience.

If one of us cops at the other one, cash is in. I would rather die. Shout out to Diana Tavernor. Excellent. Excellent stuff. Really excited for their ongoing

partnership. I guess one little detail that I didn't, I mean, I don't know if it's worth mentioning, but one little detail that I liked on rewatch is that like, Frank is holding River hostage until the second that Louisa says

there's a shoot-on-site order for you. And he's like, oh, this shield is no longer helpful to me. No. And then we get this. grenade backup. So horses may not be traveling with guns, but Frank Harkness has a grenade ready to go if he needs to, and that's something we're thinking about. Are you at all concerned that River Cartwright might ever in the future be tempted to join forces with Frank Harkness? I think the only way that would play is the one part of Frank's pitch that does make sense, which is the idea that you were underappreciated and you are stuck, like, no matter. what you do, no matter how many cases you solve and bad guys you catch, you're

stuck at Slough House and there's no way out. No matter how fast you run, my guy. No. No matter how good you look running. You can't run from the premise of this show and it requires you to be in Slough House. I mean, I do want to circle back to Arbe Moira and say someone

made it back to the park. It's true. Huge. Someone made it back. It can happen. And all it took was like a little bit of prostitution, a little bit or maybe asking for directions in a certain part of town. Who's to say? I'm also just really sad we didn't get to see the scene where Moyers says Roddy, can you cancel all of the first desk's appointments and calls today?

I'm sure Roddy loves that assignment. Okay, that's it for Slow Horses. We did it. Great episode of television. Great episode, cool season. Ultimately, I think they landed it pretty well. Excited that they've already finished the next season. We're quite lucky about that.

As I said, we'll be back later this week. we've got a bad monkey finale, which was like, you know, a pretty light wrap up from us, I will say. And then we're going to look to dive much deeper into disclaimer where, you know, we'll have opportunities to talk about Alfonso Coron as a filmmaker. And what does it mean for that, you know, master filmmaker to come to television? I look forward to all of that. And we will see you then. Bye. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures.

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