'Slow Horses' Plays "Drinking Games" in Season 2's Third Episode

Suspicions run high in “Drinking Games,” with over half of the supporting cast of Slow Horses placed under a skeptical eye and every plot thread asking us to think twice about the information we’re being handed. As the second season reaches its halfway mark, it’s a good mechanic to keep up momentary momentum in several ongoing storylines, but with the audience being encouraged to second-guess and doubt every development in the spy storyline, it threatens to undercut deliberately sincere emotional beats. The result is an episode that keeps up a good pace and constantly engages us, but on the slightest reflection, “Drinking Games” feels a little more hollow than it should be.

When last we met Min, he had a Russian gun to his neck. The situation seemed to have developed amicably enough, as we next find him playing some drinking games with Pushkin’s two Russian agents. These guys are, after all, just laborers; each has a job to do, and no one transgressed into offensive territory by tailing each other. Someone comes into the house, the agents keep it a bit hush (likely Chernitsky, no?), and they send Min on his way to drunkenly bike home.

The next time we see Min, he’s been hit by a car in a tunnel, killing him.  

Meanwhile, River is undercover as John Walker, a journalist on assignment to cover Upshott’s village life, and gets cozy with the local pub’s innkeeper, Kelly (Tamsin Topolski), whose dad Duncan (British character actor favorite Adrian Rawlins), runs the flying club River has been sent to investigate for links to Russian assassins. Kelly shows him around, but her playful disbelief at the mundanity of River’s assignment soon turns suspicious, like she doesn’t want prying eyes on her incredibly off-putting father. River keeps his wits about him, especially after he realizes Duncan looked through his belongings (which Kelly instructed him to leave in a place Duncan could access) while River flies about in a raucous, well-photographed flying trip. Wheee.

Also, it turns out we were right; Estonia was just a red herring. (Ed Note: Cue Tim Curry in Clue.) Chernisky just surreptitiously left his phone with a touring folk band but never boarded a plane himself, adding fuel to the theory that he’s cutting about close by. Together with the hushed-over appearance of someone with Pushkin’s agents, we’re a step closer to uniting our strands of Dickie’s assassination and Webb involving Slow Horses in MI5 business. Were the Russian agents trying to get Min drunk?

Min’s surprise death is, unfortunately, where Slow Horses’ weaknesses begin to show. Not one to get emotional, the show always deals with tragedy and vulnerability with blunt belligerence, never allowing anyone to feel wounded and not really sure how to effectively write such emotional states. Add this together with the heightened suspicion of “Drinking Games,” it means that attempts to mourn Min or even to properly process his death fall a bit flat. Louisa pushes off support and sympathy from Standish (well used in this episode after falling by the sidelines in the first couple) before collapsing in horrible sobs, but the pace with which we push on with everyone’s missions feels like an improper and ineffective way of dealing with a colossal shift in the interpersonal relationships of pretty much all our characters. 

Added to that is the fact that the audience’s first reaction is to assume foul play, that his death was a stitch-up and someone is responsible for underhand goings-on. This is inevitable in any spy show, but we land at this conclusion too quickly to appreciate how Min’s death affects everyone – multiple bosses scold their underlings for being insensitive with how quickly they reveal their indifference. (Although Taverner putting Spider in his place by forbidding him to sit down when discussing Min’s death is delightfully satisfying.)

Louisa wants to plow ahead, and Marcus joins her in meeting Pushkin. We find out he’s addicted to gambling, something Louisa doesn’t want to interfere with work. (It’s a cover for something more secretive. Is he in the pockets of MI5 or Moscow?) But it’s underwhelming. Pushkin (played by Stranger Things S3 favorite Alec Utgoff) is another mercurial, cryptic international business bad guy in a series with too many already. Every time Slow Horses tries to talk about modern politics – whether left or right – it’s distracting and occasionally cringe-inducing. Slow Horses isn’t interested in investigating or commenting on how organizations like MI5 actively suppressed or supported fringe movements to further agendas on a national scale. The implication that Taverner won’t do the bidding for a severely right-wing Home Secretary is a joke.

Jackson takes it upon himself to get to the truth regarding Min’s death, as it turns out the driver who struck him is connected to MI5. An ex-dog gives Lamb a squeaky-clean file on the driver; apparently, her connection to Moscow hasn’t been concealed too well. Lamb breaks into her flat and pushes for information with a healthy mix of threatening and imploring her. We leave on a cliffhanger – she wasn’t driving the car, but she can’t explain who.

“Drinking Games” is a bit of two steps forward, one step back for Slow Horses’ momentum. We’re on more transparent, stabler ground, but it's less gripping. Hopefully, the surprises that come up in the latter half of the season will be a little more dramatically grounded than we’ve seen so far, and Slow Horses will play to its strengths more instead of revealing how it can come up short.