“Slow Horses” Recap, Season 4, Episode 6: “Hello Goodbye”

Slow horses

Hello. Goodbye

Season 4

Episode 6

Editor's Rating

4 stars

****

Photo: Apple TV+

One of the common threads of Slow horses Throughout, it's evident how carefully Jackson Lamb looks out for his flock of misfits, despite (or perhaps because of) their shortcomings and their purgatory status at Slough House. The finale of this excellent season also makes the other side of the equation clear: the park doesn't care about the “slow horses” at all, so if Lamb doesn't care for them, they are completely unprotected. Or simply disposable. And they may not even get their due if they die on the field. There doesn't even seem to be any possibility of advancement. If they're doing well, it's not like they're going to leave this suffocated satellite unit anyway. Lamb's agents are like the opposite of Stephen Root's character Office space: You're essentially laid off, but you're still collecting checks.

There is a stark contrast between Lamb's willingness to cover for River for as long as possible at the start of the season – when River shot a doppelganger in the face and went to France alone – and the park that took place on Claude's instructions. He gives River a shoot order after he was kidnapped by Patrice, Frank Harkness's last remaining mercenary. Even Taverner, who has a history of undermining and betraying Lamb and Slough House when it suits her, seems surprised by Claude's cold-bloodedness in this episode, as she knows River well enough to think it unlikely that he would would turn on them. “If I’m wrong, a man dies,” Claude tells Taverner. “If you are wrong, God only knows what the potential death toll could be. So this is my decision.” (The “This is my decision” part is also crucial to Claude, who has tried to assert his authority over Taverner as much as possible, even when it contradicts logic.)

But let's not bury the matter any further here: we discover in the breathtaking cold that River is Harkness' son, so perhaps there is still concern that he wants to return to Daddy. I'll admit that the painting in Les Arbres that River took a photo of earlier in the season confused me, so I didn't mention it here – but it's an elegant way for him to put two and two together, there The same picture had appeared on birthday cards he received from his mother as a child. Harkness has brought River to an unexpectedly public place to drop this fatherly bombshell and suggest that he join his now drastically shrunken ranks of homegrown mercenaries. Harkness has a carrot: River can accept his offer and make a lot of money with him instead of with a company that currently has a shooting warrant against him. He also has a cane: “I was hoping you would come on board, that would help,” says Harkness. “Then I wouldn’t have to kill you, which helps You out of.”

It's a miserable situation for River, who tries a pathetic ruse on his phone to inform Louisa of his whereabouts, but Harkness is up for it and willing to slit his femoral artery under the table if he gets out of line. That's what made Harkness such a compelling villain for the series: Hugo Weaving always plays him as a man of preternatural confidence, whether he's about to be dismembered by his customers in a hotel or a public one Place sits and is about to be surrounded by MI5 agents or actually in custody awaiting what is likely to be a long prison sentence. He has contingency plans in place to protect him and give him a calm confidence about his own survival. After all, he was able to breed murderers on a French estate for decades without much resistance. He finds himself on the secret island level of the supervillain spy thriller.

For Lamb, there is never any question as to whether River will remain loyal to him. Despite appearances, he inspires loyalty. Take poor Marcus Longridge, for example, who succumbed to his gambling addiction for most of the season and ends it on the wrong end with a shootout with Patrice. Lamb and Marcus haven't spent much time together this season, so we can assume that Lamb either didn't know that Marcus had pawned his gun to pay off his gambling debts or, like Marcus, he understood that relapse was part of it of the recovery process. Marcus didn't cover himself in glory when Patrice pushed him through a shop window with a broken cock, and in this episode he pointlessly tries to buy back his gun for the same price he pawned it for. (“I sell items for more than I bought them for” is a concept the black market shares with the legitimate market.) He was incompetent most of the time and extraordinarily brave when it mattered most.

However, after Marcus's death in a shootout with Patrice at Slough House, Lamb speaks to Taverner about Marcus as if he were 007, demanding that she be barred from five years of payments to his family and up to ten years of “active-agent increment.” Taverner is too upset with Lamb and too preoccupied with more pressing issues to care, but it matters to Lamb, just as his discovery of Sam Chapman's body really affects him. In Chapman's office he comes across a large stack of boxes and a quarter-filled bottle of Irish whiskey and eventually leaves the room with the liquor.

The season fittingly ends with Lamb calling River into a bar to get him to sign some papers for a “company bonus” and perhaps stay for a drink, something Lamb feels almost sentimental about. In the previous sequence, River placed his grandfather in a retirement home, which (mostly) dispels Lamb's suspicions that David may have been purposefully playing up his dementia. David is upset with his grandson, saying he promised never to put him in a home like that, and suspects River might be angry because he was never told about his real father. On this point the show is ambiguous and Jack Lowden's face reflects this. Either way, there are many storylines surrounding Harkness that carry over into season five. For now, Lamb must feel some closeness to River's father, given his real father's shortcomings and a grandfather who either went too far or didn't have his best interests at heart.

Slough House isn't a very, very, very nice house, but it's the only one he can call home.

• The great, bittersweet song that closes the episode is Nick Drake's “Hazey Jane” from his 1971 record. Bryter Layerer. Any Drake album is essential (and there aren't many of them), and this is a good place to start.

• It's great that River follows his father's advice: “If you're the target, attack.” If you're being chased, stay put. When someone shakes your hand, you show them your fist” – to catch him at the train station, but it would be better if the show didn't feel like it had to remind viewers of the line again.

• River on his upbringing: “I really don’t regret not being raised as a child soldier.”

• Roddy: “By the way, I’m back on the market. sex market. Turns out Kim didn't exist.” Shirley: “What's too embarrassing for you to say out loud?”

• Great effort from Coe in this episode. After a season of mostly moping in the background, during the showdown with Patrice, he quietly prepares a kettle for tea and helpfully whips the boiling water into his face. He then has surprisingly comforting words for Shirley about how Marcus felt about her as a partner and an addict: “He loved you and he wanted you to love yourself.”

• River isn’t in the mood for compliments from his long-lost father: “You just stuck a grenade in my hood. Don’t fuck with me, son.”