'Slow Horses' Season 2's Penultimate Episode Gets Cranking with "Boardroom Politics"
Now we’re effin’ talking. After some confident but spotty build-up, “Boardroom Politics” takes Slow Horses Season 2’s different strands that last week’s “Cicada” synced up and shoots them forward into a climax that feels big, dangerous, and tense. All the problems with the episode are things we’ve taken issue with in the past – thankfully, this episode doubles down on the things that have previously worked in Slow Horses’ favor. If next week’s finale has Slow Horses save the day without losing any of their team, it will be down to the wire.
The night has passed, and River is tied up at the flight club – literally. Alex, our surprise sleeper agent, is being set up by our dissident Nikolai Katinsky (who we saw with Chernitsky at the tail end of last week’s episode) to deliver an airborne payload into the heart of London. We think it’s going to target the anti-capitalist demonstration that’ll pack the streets – so does River – but Katinsky tells us he doesn’t want to harm his ideological comrades (despite bombs being notorious for their civilian casualties), but hit the Glasshouse where Home Secretary Peter Judd (famous last season for his Far Right nationalist ties) will be making a poorly defined “bad man speech” and where Pashkin will be meeting Webb. Funny how things line up like that!
River spends a good amount of time trying to get unbound, and his distinctly non-Bond-esque flopping around makes Lowden so great in this role – sometimes the most life-and-death situation a spy will face find himself in is to answer a phone call using only your nose. Once Duncan and Kelly arrive, River has to convince them firstly that he’s a spy (Kelly is doing the Lord’s work, pointing out that River Cartwright sounds like a fake name). Also, their beloved Alex is a sleeper agent, which understandably eats into their already precious time.
