'Slow Horses' Does Not Stop For a "Penny for Your Thoughts"

For a spy thriller, Slow Horses is paced strangely. As a TV thriller, you can’t fault how it moves: each of Mick Harron’s books is split into the UK-standard six sub-hour episodes (often under 45 minutes), and they clip through plot turns and character beats like nobody’s business, which is one of the main reasons it’s so easy for newcomers to get invested and catch up to the newest season. But for a show about espionage, it has a peculiar rhythm: rarely is there ever a time jump or de-escalation of energy after the first couple of inciting incidents; more or less every character is on the move from the outset, and they don’t stop until the evil plan has been thwarted. It’s a formula that has, for four seasons now, secured an eager, ever-growing audience – but it eschews a lot of the usual pleasures of the down-and-dirty spy genre. 

Slow Horses is not interested in long, dogged spy work, the stultifying pauses between bursts of suppressed action, or a numb, pervading sense that everyone might be wasting their time. It’s more spy fiction of the James Bond variety, a propulsive thriller dressed with espionage and intelligence tropes and the occasional subversion, but downsized to grimy London streets and gentrified coffee shops.

None of this is meant to disparage the quite admirable entertainment Slow Horses is so intent on delivering. However, as you reach the midpoint of any season (most noticeably the last two), it’s hard to feel like we’ve been given something substantial or that all of the crucial plot details and complications won’t be packed into one modest-length episode in the back half of the season.

Both our Cartwrights begin this week’s episode not sure where they are. River has been saved from Harkness’ grasp but was knocked out by the beardy Frenchman (Mikaël Fitoussi), who we now realize is Alan Lockhead’s uncle. Alan Lockhead, of course, was a fake MI5 identity, and we now discover it was being used by Bertrand, one of Harkness’ sons who seem to have been raised together on the remote French estate, trained by Harkness’ unspecified extremist ideology and special forces skills. His mother was impregnated at age 17 by Harkness, but Bertrand has been consumed by the intense patriarchal order of Harkness’ family unit (including the bomber from Episode 1, who’s actually called Yves). 

Their mission: To kill David Cartwright and anyone connected to his unconfirmed operations in France. Again, the first few episodes of any Slow Horses season are filled with withholding information that would resolve the story in two hours at most.

Harkness & Sons are also after Chapman (Sean Gilder), David’s bagman who spent some of the early 90s in France. This is the information Moira (Joanna Scanlan) gets for Jackson as part of his deal to try to get her back to the Park (he seems sincere that he’s going to carry through!), but not before Slough House is surprised with a visit from Dog-wrangler Emma Flyte (Ruth Bradley). She knows River’s alive, and she wants to bring him in because of the now unidentified body in a former top spy’s bathtub – Jackson agrees to hand over David, but not River. While she’s there, Emma gets sexually harassed by Roddy. She handcuffs him to his weight equipment, which may all be in good fun but does indicate that Slow Horses’ grip on eroticism and gender dynamics is not its strongest suit*. 

(*That would be making characters say “Oi!” and chase each other).

But yes, poor David. He stumbles around Standish’s flat, having forgotten that he didn’t kill his grandson, and won’t be calmed down until Catherine indulges in his delusion that he’s at the end of the Cold War and promises to arrange a meeting with First Desk, leaving him in her neighbor’s empty flat to wait and hopefully rest. Flyte turns up on Catherine’s doorstep – having been momentarily distracted by Louisa pretending to be a distressed stalking victim – and gets in a quick, snappy debate about whether or not Catherine still has to obey an MI5 superior’s orders before a fruitless search for David. 

But when she goes, Louisa and Catherine realize their dependent has done a runner from her neighbor’s flat – enormous “you had one job” energy from two of the more capable characters on this show.

River also does some fugitive escaping – across rooftops and down alleys in the provincial French town, hounded by a mob who think he’s Bertrand. So far, the fact that River has an eerie doppelganger in the service of an evil, twisted mirror to Jackson has not gotten deeper than the remarkably contrived, plot-convenient inciting incident. A different show would tease out some psychological depth by the season’s halfway mark. However, this is not a show where our main character confronts the mutability of his identity; it’s a show where the main character steals a diminutive petrol bike to escape an evil French mob.

River’s escape is an arresting, suspense-filled action sequence, but Episode 3 saves its big guns for the final moments. After he pawns a handgun to a fittingly grating Irish broker, Marcus joins Shirley on Chapman’s tail; however, they both get knocked aside by one of Harkness’ sons in a violent, Terminator-like assassination attempt. Seriously, this guy knocks down Shirley after she stabs him. Just when it looks like Team Harkness is about to claim the victory, Jackson Lamb drives a London taxi straight into the assassin and sends his body flying. 

It’s bombastic, unsophisticated, and very compelling television – made even more delicious because the assassin picks himself up and escapes before any of them can notice. Slow Horses Season 4 certainly hasn’t been sleeping; however, after the big unanswered questions left by Episode 3, hopefully, the plot wakes from its slight sleepiness to give us the necessary context of what the hell’s going on. We do deserve to enjoy the thrills to their fullest, and being kept in the dark can only excite us for so long.

Slow Horses Season 4 continues with weekly episodes streaming on Wednesdays through October 2, 2024, on Apple TV+.