slow horses 5.02 recap
everyone is trying to stab each other
To start, can I say that I am obsessed with the idea of Roddy Ho being such an undateable man that his romantic association with a seemingly normal, attractive woman is an immmmediate red flag to anyone who knows him. Obsessed. I couldn’t help (gently) wondering who in my milieu would fit that same bill, and now I have myself a little list. Inquire within, etc.
It’s nice, because now all members of the Slough House team are on the same page: Ho has definitely been compromised. The evidence (see above) is overwhelming and incontrovertible. Even Jackson Lamb, a man famously (externally) apathetic toward the health and safety of his underlings, has become involved, breaking into Ho’s house to, presumably, protect him from even more unsavory intruders than Lamb himself.1 Intruders that do, in fact, arrive with the intention to kill our confused, misguided boy.2
(Relatedly: can we all laugh at Ho’s weapon of choice being a katana??? Because of course it is.)
A one-two punch of bleach-to-the-face (Lamb) and katana-to-the-shoulders (Ho) kicks our would-be assassin out the window. One gets the impression that this incident is one Ho will be bringing up on dates (with, hopefully, women not involved in terrorist cells) until the end of time.
Shirley, bless her, what an endearing little freak, is standing guard outside Ho’s apartment, and her chase of the attacker is, if I may say so, thrilling. Like, full-body shudders ensued when our girl grabbed a used needle from the ground and stabbed—indeed, plunged—it directly into the man’s thigh. My poor eyes have yet to recover.
At this point, I have the sense that balaclava boy is not long for this world, even as he escapes and stumbles his way into the now-ubiquitous white van. (What kind of mpg do you think they’re getting off of it, btw? Does not seem particularly environmentally friendly but I haven’t once seen them stop for gas.)
The van occupants are speaking in Arabic, which makes me feel like I’m watching Homeland or 24—in other words, I’m somewhat nervous about the narrative path Slow Horses is taking here. Is it cleverly delving into extremist groups’ radicalization of young people, mostly men, already marginalized by society, or is it making use of the tired trope of the brown terrorist? I’m hopeful that it is the former.
On the season premiere recap, I neglected to mention much of Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) and her newish lieutenant and Head of Security Emma Flyte, so let’s bring them back into the fold.
They’re still trying to figure out where the weapons from the mass shooting could’ve come from, seeing as semi-automatic rifles are not as readily-available-at-Walmart as they are in the States. The girls have been hard at work: Diana gets a tip from former MP-turned-lobbyist Peter Judd (good to know that some pipelines hold true on both sides of the pond) about the weapons’ provenance, and Flyte engages in a bit of sleuthing to conclude that the east London shooting from earlier tonight happened to take place at Ho’s flat.3
From then on, it is only a matter of time until the Security Office locates and, at minimum, scolds our Slough House team.
But that will not be for a while, because in the meantime the team has absconded to a swanky bar to gather their bearings while eluding Diana and co. They trickle in gradually, annoyed at themselves and each other, the scene once again resembling a tense family dinner. Shirley’s frustrated that she lost balaclava boy and that River abandoned her (put me down for “understandable” on that one); River’s angry that Coe of all people was sent to retrieve him and that Lamb is treating him like chopped liver; Ho cannot believe no one is buying that a hot, normal woman wants to be his girlfriend; Catherine generally feels sorry for everyone and their enduring trauma; and Lamb is in a perpetual state of piqued drunkenness. Coe eludes me, so I won’t even attempt to classify his mood.
For reasons that are not immediately clear to me, Lamb does not want the Park to know where they are. He grasps that Ho is—likely accidentally—somehow connected to the shooting, and wants to figure it out before Diana et al begin poking around. And I get that he hates his bosses and authority figures as a general concept, that is relatable as a character trait, but what else? It’s season five and I find this becoming one of the series’ weak points: is it just a combination of stubbornness and alcohol dependence driving Jackson Lamb? Like, it’s not not an explanation, but at some juncture I’d love a better one.
Anyway, the team does eventually allow themselves to be found back at Slough House, to where Diana et al go in, weapons drawn, so that Lamb can really comprehend “just how serious this is.” Mind you, they are all part of MI5, so all this ... a glorious bit of theater is what it is.
Because yeah, I’m sure the rejects will let themselves stay in lockdown, as they’ve been instructed to by Diana, as London descends into chaos unleashed by a man with a horrific dye job and a white woman with dreads. I’m sure they’ll stay put.
Other bits:
I do appreciate Coe’s character, even if I have to look up his name every time he shows up. He serves as Slough House’s unwelcome therapist/Greek chorus and makes everyone feel unsettled. That’s someone I can root for.
Do we think Tara willingly played Ho, or do the white van folks have something on her? For no particular reason, I’m actually beginning to think the former!
The contrast between Diana and Lamb’s trench coats makes me twitch. The sumptuousness of the former versus the every-scene-I-can-spot-a-new-stain of the latter ... to me, that is cinema.
Claude Whelan, whose ineffable and somewhat incompetent niceness appeals to me for some reason, appears to be in potential trouble. More to come, I bet.
I miss Louisa! I don’t know if she’s meant to be out all season, but it sure does seem that after being put on lockdown, a friendly face that no longer works at MI5 but is also (probably) technically still an employee might come in handy.
Soooo many stabbing and stabbing-adjacent moments happening on this episode. Like, so many. Shirley’s syringe-into-thigh moment, Diana’s wine opener as potential weapon, Coe’s push knife. Lamb saying he wants to poke his eyes out with a fork every time Ho speaks.
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Sorry these take me so long, by the way. I’m running like 1.5 episodes behind, which I hope is also the case for most of you. I take so many notes during my rewatches that condensing and clarifying them then becomes a study in obligatory synthesis. See below for reference.
“None of it raises my spidey senses as much as hearing a real-life woman is happy to spend time with you.” I mean.
The balaclava is a bit too on the nose, yes?
It is registered under the name Clint Wolf, “which seems like a name that would only exist in Ho’s head.” Brutal.
I love Shirley too. If you’re reading the books, there’s a very lovely little adventure involving Shirley and Claude Whelan in Bad Actors. And talking of books: the guys in the van are actually North Korean in the book of London Rules, so I too have been trying to figure out what the scriptwriters were trying to achieve by turning them into Arabic-speakers.
Brilliant recap of this extraordinary episode. I would love to meet whoever writes the script for Jackson Lamb. Wittier than the three Bronte sisters and Austen together!