"Uninvited Guests" May Mean No One Gets Out Alive in 'Slow Horses'

Is Slow Horses’ third season its best outing yet? So far, it seems likely. Last week, we had half the season under our belt and felt confident that, thanks to the high frequency of twists, pursuits, and conspiracies, Season 3 was the finest Slough House adventure thus far. With Episode 4, “Uninvited Guest,” our confidence hasn’t been shaken, but we may need to redefine our assessment. As we redirect ourselves towards a blood-pumping third act, it’s clear that Season 3 is the tightest so far – with deeper, festering backstories and resentments shaved off in to deliver the most direct and propulsive thrills. This isn’t a problem – it’s ludicrous fun! – but in boiling down Slow Horses to a science, some of the messy character drama has been compromised.

We begin “Uninvited Guest” with a mirror to last week’s head-to-head between MI5 director Ingrid and Home Secretary Peter Judd, but after Ingrid has learned that Chieftain’s own Tiger Team went rogue and dumped Spider’s corpse outside a classy restaurant (that Judd is an investor in), it’s Judd that’s on the back foot. Ingrid is keen to use Chieftain to clear up their own mess, confident that that’ll be an opportunity to get Judd in her back pocket.

Diana is thrown by Ingrid wanting to let Sean Donovan into her big, remote archive facility to access the Grey Books, not because she thinks he’ll be able to do anything with them (no conspiracy theory you can find on the History Channel has any truth to it), but because it’s her facility – she hopes it’s not going to backfire on her. Ingrid neatly dismisses her concerns – in many ways, this is an Ingrid episode, as her allegiances and fears finally come into the fray.