‘Slow Horses’ Season 5 Finale Recap

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Speaker 4 Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed.

Speaker 4 I'm Joanna Robinson, and joining me today, it feels like for the first time, just the two of us in a very long time, it's Rob Mahoney back from the dead. Rob Mahoney, how are you doing?

Speaker 3 I'm doing well, Joe. I like to think that it's not just you and I, it's you and I and all the buzzy buzzy bees out there.
You know, we're really part of a larger hive. Fair enough.

Speaker 4 We're here to wrap up our spotty coverage of Slow Horses season five. Sorry that we've been on again, off again a bit this season.
There was a lot going on. And

Speaker 3 please forgive me in particular, as you can probably hear and have heard, I have been on the brink of death, but I am back. I have risen.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, I simply could not be held down from talking about Slow Horses for that long.

Speaker 4 It's true. It's true.
Rob was like, Rob was very gracious about me doing the pod last week with someone else, but he's like, please, please, I want to do the finale.

Speaker 3 And of course, like, why would I want to do the finale with anyone else? You know what I'm not gracious about though, Joe, which

Speaker 3 we waited, and I say we, when I mean you, until I was gone to have Alan step in while on the podcast, just extremely messed up.

Speaker 4 Well, let's have Alan back and

Speaker 3 hang out. One of the greats.

Speaker 4 Alan was very gracious to come on last week for not just a chat about Slow Horses, but like sort of a state of Apple TV Plus and stuff like that. Great stuff because Alan is like.

Speaker 4 an absolute legend and the best and really good to talk to. But Rob, I've missed you.
I've missed you too. I've been talking to you about television.
So here we are to talk about wrap up slow horses.

Speaker 4 Really quick programming reminders. Rob and I are, so we're wrapping up slow horses today.
And then next week, at the end of next week, will be the beginning of Pleuribus. We're just staying on Apple.

Speaker 4 We're just staying in the Apple Orchard with everyone else. Pleuribus is doing a two-episode premiere on November 7th.
And this is the new show from Vince Gilligan.

Speaker 4 Rob, anything you want to say about Pluribus? Like why we're covering it? Why you're excited? Anything like that?

Speaker 3 I mean, I just think the names Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seahorn, we should also add, is just enough to basically get us to sign up for almost any show. But I have not dug into the episodes yet.

Speaker 3 I believe you have, Joe, seen the screener for Pluribus, right?

Speaker 4 Just the first episode, but we will be covering two episodes on November 7th. So I still have one to watch.

Speaker 3 Good to keep a little ahead, but I mean,

Speaker 3 your initial excitement, it really did get me pumped about.

Speaker 4 I watched it just to sort of see if we wanted to cover it in the first place. Not that I doubted it would be great, but just sort of like to see.
And then

Speaker 4 I just thought it was amazing. So I'm very, very excited about that.
Um, so we will be covering that week to week, uh, unless one of us gets another deathly disease or something like that.

Speaker 4 Um, and then we'll see what happens to us. And then, as always, even though we're wrapping up the season, uh, you can always reach us at two email addresses for slow horses.
Rob, what are they?

Speaker 3 You can always reach us at prestige TV at spotify.com, but in particular for slow horses at arstimethepope at gmail.com. And I mean, get them in while you can.

Speaker 3 You know, slow horses will be back, presumably, quite soon, as is the show's custom. But we love getting the slow horses' emails to that address in particular.

Speaker 4 So we're going to do sort of like a big picture. I'm curious because I haven't talked to Rob about, you know, all like the last four episodes that he's watched.

Speaker 4 So we're going to do sort of a bigger season check-in with Rob. We're going to talk about this episode, of course.

Speaker 4 And then there is, as is tradition, a trailer for season six attached to the end of this episode. So including some faces I'm very, very, very, very, very excited about.

Speaker 4 It feels like maybe custom built in a lab just for me. So thank you so much, Lowhorses.
So we will talk about that when we get there.

Speaker 4 I definitely texted Mallory Rubin and Chris Ryan some blurry screenshots of people and I was like, oh my God, oh my God, I'm so excited.

Speaker 4 All right. So.

Speaker 4 Scars is the name of this episode. We were having a chat before we started recording about what we thought this episode title meant.
Rob, would you care to share with the class what we came up with?

Speaker 3 I mean, I think the obvious one is sort of the geopolitical scars that exist between, you know, countries like England and the greater United Kingdom, any like colonial nation, and, you know, places like Libya and the people who live there.

Speaker 3 Like that one seems right there are top of the page.

Speaker 4 It's so funny. That was Rob's first instinct.
And my instinct was like, is it not the literal scars on the bottom of Jackson's Lamb's feet that close the episode? Jesus Christ.

Speaker 4 So two, two interpretations of this title. I mean, we love an episode title that means a number of things.
And I'm sure it means emotional, geopolitical, all these other scars.

Speaker 4 And of course, those scars on Jackson Lamb's feet

Speaker 4 are indicative of a larger emotional scar, given that story that he told earlier this season about his, you know, alleged Joe who was tortured and had his feet, you know, burned.

Speaker 4 And there was question about whether or not he was talking about himself. I didn't think there was much question based on his performance, but there was some question.
And I saw because

Speaker 4 it's not clear in the book that that he's talking about himself,

Speaker 4 this scene takes place in a different book. The book readers were very active about this on Reddit, and they were just sort of like, I don't think he's talking about himself.

Speaker 4 And the people watching the show, I think, were just like,

Speaker 4 but based on the performance, doesn't it seem like he's talking about himself?

Speaker 4 And I think this, you know, I mean, we know that the shot at the end of this episode makes no doubt as to whether or not he was talking about himself.

Speaker 4 And something I kind of want to start there, even though it's the closing image of the episode, because,

Speaker 3 well,

Speaker 4 I just want to start there and then get your bigger picture ideas on the season. But I want to say that

Speaker 4 what this season has given us in terms of that insight into Jackson's backstory and the foundation of who he is, and also thinking about like the promo image for the season is him with his socked feet up on the desk, like one toe poking out of the sock.

Speaker 4 But like his

Speaker 4 socked feet propped up on the desk, which is like, you know, one of his favorite positions to take, is the promo image for this season. And so the idea that they're like stripping off the

Speaker 4 probably nastiest smelling sock you've ever experienced in your life.

Speaker 3 I don't can't even fathom it.

Speaker 4 To show you the mess that is underneath and doing the same with Jackson Lamb, a character who has been a bit inscrutable for us in this series, I think is really interesting.

Speaker 4 So what do you, what was your experience with the season as a whole? And what do you make of this sort of extra insight into Jackson?

Speaker 3 I thought it was a pretty fun season, you know, lean and simple and like maybe in some spots, like a little too simple, but I think Slow Horses does operate in that sort of register.

Speaker 3 You know, this is a show and a world that I don't know that it has like a lot more to say about politics than like, hey, aren't both of these guys kind of like hollow shells of people who are just like channeling bullshit for their various causes?

Speaker 3 Isn't that kind of funny and poking holes and like poking fun at that sort of thing? That's totally fine.

Speaker 3 Like to me, this is a show that knows exactly what it is, knows the registers it wants to operate in. And I think showed with this season, it's just like infinitely watchable and repeatable.

Speaker 3 Like, I will just, I will consume this sort of pulp spycraft all day, every day, every season for as long as they want to make it.

Speaker 3 And, you know, Will Smith may not be long for this particular universe, but Gary Oldman certainly seems to be. And so, as far as the lamb part of that goes, I mean, I love the idea of

Speaker 3 peeling back some of the layers of that character. And not just that, but I think seeing it in a way where it's like Lamb being so repulsive is such a put-on, right?

Speaker 3 Like is a means of putting distance between him and other people.

Speaker 3 And so like the literalization of his gross sock being the thing that is preventing people from knowing the shit that he has been through, that feels like a perfect character moment for me.

Speaker 4 I love that.

Speaker 4 And I think to go back to sort of our different interpretations of scars.

Speaker 4 I think it's worth thinking about the way in which these are all connected because it all comes back to David Cartwright. You know, Jonathan Price is

Speaker 4 instrumental in this episode.

Speaker 4 But, you know in season four lamb said uh that he used to have a heart before working for david cartwright and um and so so much of his mental and emotional scarring comes from working under david and i found you know you made you made a great reference to the buzzy little bees but i found that scene so sinister with david looking at the bees and talking to river about them and he was just sort of like i like following them back to their hive you know like you know he's he's floating in and out out of talking about literal bees and talking about, you know, the various

Speaker 4 cells, hives, whatever inside of the Cold War. And, you know, and if we hadn't done this, they would have turned red.
So we had to do it.

Speaker 4 But it's just sort of like, I don't know, there was something about the very like genteel British gentleman

Speaker 4 reducing them to sort of like little. little insects that he's following.

Speaker 4 When we see the other side of it, based on, you know, the, the, the Libyan characters inside of this season of here are the the ramifications of thinking,

Speaker 4 here's one keystroke that Claude Whelan made. Here are the ramifications of these actions that the David Cartwrights and the Claude Whelans of the world take.

Speaker 4 And even if they're just thinking of them as like statistics and numbers on a computer or bees in a hive, like these are real people with real lives that have been destroyed.

Speaker 4 And I just thought that was

Speaker 4 so

Speaker 4 well done with David. It was so sinister to me, couched in this like idyllic British countryside sort of setting, which it's creepy.

Speaker 3 So, I mean, it's the power of this show that they can just like pull Jonathan Price off the bench and he comes in for like a day of shooting and throws on the fedora and talks about bees.

Speaker 3 And like, it is sinister in exactly that way. Like, you're right, like reading between the lines.

Speaker 3 And, like, part of the fun of that character, and I say fun, like, even acknowledging that some of the David Carwright stuff for me is just like absolutely gutting to watch, right?

Speaker 3 Like, characters at that stage of their life push a very specific button for me that's like always very emotional. emotional.

Speaker 3 And yet, you know, this is a person who has done absolutely heinous things.

Speaker 3 And parsing every word and trying to understand where he is mentally from sentence to sentence in terms of what he's talking about is part of the fun of that character and is what makes watching any interaction with River, who is just like kind of loath to the responsibility of like feeling his grandfather as this burden that he has to attend to, even when sometimes he's trying to tell him things that are actually important to doing his job and sometimes telling him things that are just like the saddest thing you've ever heard in your life.

Speaker 3 That's just like happening on the edges of this story.

Speaker 3 Like as far as like the very propulsive parts of Slow Horses, they nail that sort of character stuff, which is what makes the show as good as it is.

Speaker 4 I was thinking about that as it pertains to,

Speaker 4 you know, Alan and I were talking last week about this idea of how the world is populated.

Speaker 4 And we were talking about the way in which like Judge shows up this season, shows back up again in this episode to be an integral part of how the plot spins out.

Speaker 4 And I was thinking about, you know, characters we meet this season. Like, Nick Muhammad's character, Jeffrey, like, I kind of thought he would be more

Speaker 4 involved in the season than he wound up being.

Speaker 4 But now we know who the mayor of London is, right?

Speaker 4 And so anytime the mayor of London comes in and it's Nick Muhammad, even if he's there for like an episode scene or something like that, like that populates the world out.

Speaker 4 We got Molly was in this season. David was in this season.

Speaker 4 I was hoping for more from Dodie Gimbal, but like now that we've met a like very nasty tabloid columnist, I'm sure that's a character that could be used in the future.

Speaker 3 And a widow potentially scorned.

Speaker 3 She has this whole new arc to her life that is sad but interesting in the terms of TV storytelling. And I could see her being used in all kinds of ways in future seasons.

Speaker 4 And I think to your point of like even though Will Smith is leading this idea that Gary fucking Ollman is anchoring the show and a show that has gotten awards attention means that to hop forward to the season six show.

Speaker 4 I don't know how much Hugo Weaving is in next season, but like I could see him show up for like an episode.

Speaker 4 You know, these characters are just going to populate this world with like really interesting performers in tiny roles inside of Slow Horses, and they'll want to do it because it's such a great show and, you know, it, it, it shines their CV, even if they're only sort of tangentially in a season.

Speaker 4 So, you know.

Speaker 3 Well, there's something to like the British TV model, too, as well, when it's like, when we're talking about a six-episode season, you may only be in one episode, but that is a substantial part of the overall arc, right?

Speaker 3 Like, all of a sudden, it is kind of meaty and important, even though it is like a guest-starring performance.

Speaker 3 I did get some of that out of Nick Muhammad this season, where you're right, we're building out the world. We now know the mayor of London.

Speaker 3 They just created somebody who is the most cringeworthy man alive. And, like,

Speaker 3 you and I have not discussed Lunderful, Joe.

Speaker 3 Every time he says the word Lunderful, like, my entire body skin crawls. Um, him quoting Dominic Toretto at the memorial.
Like,

Speaker 3 to me, he is the epitome of, you know, we got the Diana Taverner bomb a couple episodes ago of like heavy on hashtags, light on results

Speaker 3 as far as like modern activism goes. Right.

Speaker 3 I mean, that character, like Jeffrey, is just like such a perfect embodiment of that sort of philosophy.

Speaker 4 I

Speaker 4 really agree. I think not just quoting Dominic Toretto, which was.

Speaker 4 exquisite comedy inside of this episode, but doing it in close proximity to the William Blake him. And then he's like, these two things, like just

Speaker 4 comparing the two of them was just really.

Speaker 3 We all know that guy. Like, I've been at weddings where that speech was made.
You know, it's like, we've, we've all been there.

Speaker 4 Yeah, really, really good. Um, okay, let's go back.
Let's go back to the beginning and talk about,

Speaker 4 so, um,

Speaker 4 the park has been had. An IT incident has occurred and blinded them and shut them down.
How was Roddy used this season for you?

Speaker 4 And was it what you expected when we sort of had the idea of like a Roddy Ho season? Like, how, how did that all pan out for you?

Speaker 3 It wasn't what I expected at all. Like, when, when I had conceptualized a Roddy Hoe season, I'm thinking, oh, yeah, maybe he's a target, but it's like, you know, a him and lamb road trip.

Speaker 3 You know, like, they're bouncing around town trying to keep him safe. Like, he is the moving ball, right? That everyone is trying to get to for some reason or another.

Speaker 3 I did not conceptualize him seeing himself as the Hannibal Lecter, him doing like weird pull-ups in an interrogation room, like the physicality of that character.

Speaker 3 And like, I think his ability to remain such a central part of the plot and of all of the moving pieces while being immobilized, right?

Speaker 3 Like for half the season, he's been in custody and yet he's still getting quips off.

Speaker 3 He's still being super weird with Emma Flight in a way that makes me laugh almost every time they're on screen together.

Speaker 3 Like there's just ways in which, like, there's characters who you can't do that with, right? If you bench Catherine Standish and put her in a room, we've kind of seen what happens with that.

Speaker 3 And it mutes that character and it limits her ability to, you know, have more interactions with Lamb or River or at that time Louisa, like characters who are really important as reflections of where Standish is.

Speaker 3 I think what we're learning about Roddy is that he's kind of just funny opposite anybody.

Speaker 3 And in some ways, the characters who know him least and are most like baffled by his whole deal are the most fun to see him with.

Speaker 4 I really loved him in this episode, just sort of lurking around the IT efforts of the park, munching on an apple, giving them shit. We get the classic IT crowd.

Speaker 4 Have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again moment? Um, and then, and then the ultimate insult to Claude when Roddy Ho's like, you and me both, right?

Speaker 4 Like, how, what, what chance did you have when, when Tara got one over on me. So, um, really, really good Roddy stuff in this episode.

Speaker 4 But yeah, in terms of like this idea of this being like a Shirley season or a Roddy season, like, I don't really feel it's almost like a Claude season almost more than anyone else.

Speaker 4 You know, perhaps given how this, especially given how this episode ends with Claude seemingly out of the park, though, Shirley still around, you know.

Speaker 3 He knows how to weasel.

Speaker 4 Exactly. We go into the Libyan embassy and, you know, Alan and I have been talking last week about the way in which like

Speaker 4 the North Korean efforts in the books were were changed to a Libyan contingency in inside of this season.

Speaker 4 And we had some questions about whether or not that was like effective, the way in which these sort of like guys in the van, whether or not their personalities were distinguished enough. And

Speaker 4 we did get pushed back a little bit from some listeners who were,

Speaker 4 I think, you know.

Speaker 4 I think Alan and I having come up in the like era of 24 and a number of other like things where it's just sort of like guys in an indistinguishable guys in a van, brown guys in a van, just like trigger something in us.

Speaker 3 You have your own scars, Joe.

Speaker 4 That's true. But I think that,

Speaker 4 you know, some of our listeners were enjoying the way in which

Speaker 4 the Libyan cause, though, of course, it's like a very like killmonger. We don't agree with the methods, but they have a point.

Speaker 4 And the way in which they're aggrieved against the UK and the way in which they are using the UK tactics

Speaker 4 is a slightly different spin on this because, like,

Speaker 4 you know, every terrorist thinks that they're justified. And, you know, we could talk about that that forever if we wanted to.
But this idea that the show

Speaker 4 feels like it's saying

Speaker 4 these, don't these guys have quite the point here.

Speaker 3 What do you think of that? I think it is always fascinating the way that Slow Horses kind of draws a line between the types of espionage, right?

Speaker 3 Like we have so much spy versus spy happening in a lot of these seasons where you're left to like think, oh, this is the good version of a spy and this is the bad version.

Speaker 3 And I think part of the reason the slow horses themselves are endearing to us is because they are so relegated to the bench that they are not deployed in the field to say, like, disrupt the political system of another country.

Speaker 3 Like, they are always on defense. They are mostly in the UK and in London, like trying to resolve some situation that has arisen.

Speaker 3 But the David Cartwright version of spycraft, as we talked about earlier, like is fucked up, right?

Speaker 3 Like is inherently immoral, is something that on an individual level, these people have to deal with.

Speaker 3 And on a national level, we all have to reckon with based on the places where we live and kind of like our alignment and understanding of those things and how they sit in a political world.

Speaker 3 Like all of that is really hard to unpack.

Speaker 3 I think for the Libyan cause in this in particular, I would only, like, I agree that the show's perspective seems pretty firm on how all that nets out.

Speaker 3 I also think like it's not in its execution dramatically more sophisticated than like Top top gun maverick nameless enemy. Uh, like, we

Speaker 3 the actual like messaging of the cause is basically drawn the line at like you fucked up our country, and therefore, we, the members of this like group of security operatives, are angry and responsive in different ways.

Speaker 3 I think that's the area in which it works for me: is not necessarily the messaging of the cause, but that you have not even distinct personalities among this Libyan group in particular, but they do kind of want different things, or at least have different ideas about what is fair recompense, right?

Speaker 3 It's like when they've paid, is that enough?

Speaker 3 When we carry out this attack on a, you know,

Speaker 3 like a service at Abbotsfield, like, is that enough? Or is it like, do we have to keep going down the chain? Like, where do we draw the line in terms of what is satisfactory to us?

Speaker 3 Like, I thought that meant like...

Speaker 3 That lent itself to good TV because not only do we get the reveals of the kind of splinters within this group, but you get the reveals for the characters themselves of like, oh, I'm just like a pawn to these other people who I'm going to be left for dead within the Libyan embassy because I don't actually matter to what they want.

Speaker 4 I think it's really interesting that like,

Speaker 4 I think what you say is very interesting.

Speaker 4 And I think, I think something that Alan said last week, because he had already seen the finale, is he was like, among these guys, one of them behaves in a way that I was like really surprised by.

Speaker 4 So that would be the person who peels off, I would assume,

Speaker 4 to go after Claude.

Speaker 4 And I agree that that particular guy in the van all season was seemingly coded as like the guy who had the most issue with violence, the guy who felt like the most squeamish about everything going on.

Speaker 4 I can, however, reconcile that

Speaker 4 mentality with his messaging here when he peels off, which is like, enough innocent blood. Why aren't we going for the person who did the thing?

Speaker 3 Like, why are we blowing up penguins when that guy is sitting in his comfy corner?

Speaker 4 Exactly.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 I can connect those dots. It wasn't where I expected that character to go.
I thought that character was very much being set up as,

Speaker 4 I can't do this anymore. You have to stop.
You've gone too far. And in many ways, he is, but it doesn't mean he's like, now let's go join a drum circle.

Speaker 4 He's like, let's go assassinate Claude Whelan and who's the most among us. You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 Really quick question for you, Rob Mahoney. I actually don't know.
Have you spent any time in the UK? I have not. Okay, which means you've probably never had a Greg's sausage role.

Speaker 3 Oh, I would love one, though. Based on my experience on like, you know, with Great British Bake Off, et cetera, I'm very into the sausage roll world.
I just have not partaken myself.

Speaker 4 Gregs, though,

Speaker 4 is like,

Speaker 4 is, well,

Speaker 4 arsenim the popatubal.com if I'm about to get this wrong, but it is like, it is, it's like the Subway sandwich of sausage rolls. It's like a very like, I'm already out.

Speaker 4 It's like a very, like, it's very

Speaker 4 like a heavily franchised chain sort of situation. However,

Speaker 4 people have like this, maybe Subway Sandwich isn't the thing, but like people have a strong affection for a Greg sausage roll. Okay.
But it is,

Speaker 4 you know, like fast food sort of

Speaker 3 anyway.

Speaker 3 I'm not above that, but I would love to hear the accurate, if not Subway, representation

Speaker 3 to arstimethepope at gmail.com. Like what's

Speaker 4 the comp here? Yeah, what is Greg's here? But the Greg sausage roll that he got, and I'm pretty sure it's Greg's based on the

Speaker 4 bag, but

Speaker 4 I love this conversation about like, is this the vegan one?

Speaker 4 If it were meat, it would be pink. And I think, I think that's a nice indictment of Greg's right there.
Um, so yeah,

Speaker 3 I did think, like, that whole moment of the sausage roll of lamb kind of talk, like backdoor talking Standish into making herself a hostage unwittingly was some of the best like lamb Standish stuff we've had in a while.

Speaker 3 Like, those are two characters who had so much screen time together in earlier seasons and have kind of been on the opposite sides of things in a lot of these.

Speaker 4 Him talking her into making herself a hostage is one thing, but also he asks her opinion on where Tara would go if she was trying to avoid people. And then that's where he goes, right? He's like,

Speaker 4 I mean, this is the thing is like, I feel like Catherine is constantly like not considered.

Speaker 4 Not just by characters of the universe, the people watching the show, they don't consider Catherine, but like, and you know, and he says it himself.

Speaker 4 He's like, they won't hurt a harmless little old lady, right? Like, this is, this is Catherine's like invisibility cloak that she wears around society.

Speaker 4 But like, he respects her ideas about, you know, what tactics to take. And I think, you know, he'll never tell her that.
And,

Speaker 4 you know, she might not even have connected the fact that he asked her what to do and then did what she said. should be done.
But,

Speaker 4 but it's there for us to see if we want to, which I really like. So, yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, look at her body of work work this season. Like, she was one of the first people to believe that there was a credible threat to Roddy.

Speaker 3 She stopped an assassination attempt on the mayor of London. And then she successfully extricated a terrorist from the Libyan embassy.
Like, honestly, good spy work all around.

Speaker 3 She might be a nominee for Best Spycraft in these episodes.

Speaker 4 Are you when we get to Best Use of Spycraft, Worst Use of Spycraft, which you told me you have, is it for this episode specifically, or do you have it for this season?

Speaker 3 I have it for this episode specifically, but look, it also is feeding. It's trailing in from some previous episodes for sure.

Speaker 4 Okay, let's talk about some,

Speaker 4 not necessarily to step on that, but some candidates in the shooting at the

Speaker 4 yeah, it's another shooting at Apple's Field.

Speaker 4 We have Ko, we have Shirley, we have River. Ko is leading the charge here because of that great physical comedy moment

Speaker 4 when Lamb says, like, it would only occur to a psychopath or whatever. And then Ko just like gets up and walks out of the room.
Really good stuff.

Speaker 4 hilarious um we've got the three of them in there co kicks Shirley a gun and Shirley takes out one of the shooters like right away yeah which I gotta say like I wasn't counting on a friendship forming between those two per se but kicking Shirley a gun is basically her love language so I like I have no I have no choice but to interpret that like these are two people who understand each other on a fundamental level well I mean when you think back to the end of last season when he like took the gun from her and then killed the guy.

Speaker 4 There was this, like, you know, and he talked to her, he talked her down and was like, This isn't what Marcus wants, like, all this sort of stuff like that. Took the gun and then he did the shooting.

Speaker 4 So, that was like a really great point. Interesting connection moment between those characters.
So, yeah, I'm very interested to see like

Speaker 4 what possible direction this goes. But, yeah, the idea that like Shirley's been asking for a gun all season.
Everyone's like, why the fuck would we give you a gun?

Speaker 4 And then she takes the shooter out like within a second while Rivers

Speaker 4 shooting wide, uh, the whole time.

Speaker 3 So, um, the absolute gall of River at the end of this episode to be like, I'm so fucking good at this job. And it's like, my guy, Shirley and co bailed you out at Abbott's Field.

Speaker 3 The only reason you even saved Claude's life is because Pip the dog is overly friendly and disrupted the whole situation. If not for Pip,

Speaker 3 you have done absolutely nothing through this entire season.

Speaker 4 Pip's owner running into frame in like a little patchwork vest, being like, Oh, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 4 it's so friendly not reading the room at all um but to go back to abbasfield so we get uh i love i love shirley's like shirley doesn't have a gun river's like we still have ours she's like fuck you river can't hit anything um shirley takes out a one-shooter immediately and then Ko comes through with the payoff of the push knife.

Speaker 4 How do you feel about that?

Speaker 3 I mean, look, it really came through. An absolutely clutch performance from Ko, who can sneak up with the best of them.
But also, look, I love a bit of surprising grizzly violence.

Speaker 3 And not only is it one stab of the push knife, like he's going full stabby, stabby in this situation, as look, as you have to do to take down an active shooter.

Speaker 4 I'd say if my

Speaker 4 if I've ever found myself in that situation.

Speaker 3 Which part? Which role are you in?

Speaker 4 In theory, I'm Ko. In theory, I have a push knife.
Okay. In theory, I'm Ko, though I've never snuck up behind anyone with any degree of stealth.
So it couldn't be me.

Speaker 4 But let's say I get in close proximity to a shooter and I've got the push knife and their neck is exposed. I'm not stopping at one stab.
Are you stopping at one stab?

Speaker 4 I don't know where all those arteries are. Ko does, but I don't.
And so I would just keep stabbing personally.

Speaker 3 Well, apparently he also knows that this is a small enough knife. Like, we're playing a numbers.
Yes. You know, like, it doesn't matter how precise you are.

Speaker 3 We just got, we just got to take this thing.

Speaker 4 And I really loved his delivery of, you know, when

Speaker 4 Joffrey's like, where did you come from he's just like i walked up behind him very quietly it's very good he's really grown up this has been a really good coach co-season yeah yeah we were we had been discussing sort of like discussing like how would they use ko this season they how did you feel about the way in which they paired him with river like what did that do for you I really loved it.

Speaker 3 It's really good. Again, like a perfect avenue to give River like tons of shit for everything he's done wrong, for all of the missteps.

Speaker 3 There's also like an obliviousness to Ko that I really appreciate, where it's like he is responsible in some ways for Gimbal dying, and yet, like, it just kind of like water on his back, like, it's not really phasing him in the way that River is like rehearsing his lines for what he's going to say to Lamb, and Ko's just over here, like, eating cherries.

Speaker 3 Like, I find like how not fussed he is to be a really nice addition to the Sloughhouse team.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And I like

Speaker 4 the way that Jackson

Speaker 4 always seems to know how to deploy his people and who will pick up on what.

Speaker 4 They don't always pick up on it right away, but he's constantly just sending out messaging for all of them to sort of pick up as they may, which is pretty great.

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Speaker 1 neat ideas check out gifts from ug skims dipteek free people stanley and more plus explore their amazing gift shop in stores and online free gift finding help free shipping and order pickup make it all easy at nordstrom we already talked about the david uh buzzy bees scene um the sting in the tail all that sort of stuff like that um

Speaker 4 Anything else you want to say about this encounter between David and River?

Speaker 3 I think we hit most of the points.

Speaker 3 I think, like, I was just so glad to see that there's still a place for him in this show and that he isn't just like sent to the old folks' home never to be heard from again, right?

Speaker 3 He is critical to the plot. Like, him calling River is like an impetus for a lot of the stuff that ends up happening at the end of the season.

Speaker 3 And so, the fact that we get David back, that we get Molly back, that we get Peter Judd back, I'm ecstatic about all of those things.

Speaker 3 I am devastated, Joe, that we did not get Louisa back at any point this season.

Speaker 4 I was waiting to ask you, but we can talk about about this now.

Speaker 4 Rob,

Speaker 3 how are you doing?

Speaker 4 I really thought she'd be back. We also haven't, she's not in the season six trailer, which is not.
Well, there's one shot.

Speaker 4 No, there's one shot where it's River and two other people are walking out of an airplane hangar. It's the back of their heads.
There's a lot of back of the head shot in this trailer. Yes.

Speaker 4 And it's him and like a big guy. And in between them, there's a shorter person with like slightly curly hair.
And I was like,

Speaker 4 are they hiding Louisa from us? Is that Louisa?

Speaker 3 We can only dream. This is my hope.
Like, so the, the framing of season six, we get in the sneak preview is that somebody has stolen the slough house personnel files.

Speaker 3 He's hunting down the slow horses for some reason. Louisa's got to still be in the file.
Right. And so I don't want our pal Louisa to be imperiled.

Speaker 3 But if it is a way to like pull her back into the orbit of the show, I can understand how we would get there. This is, these are the limbs that I'm clinging to, Joe.

Speaker 3 We've now just gone through six episodes. River couldn't even get her on the phone.
Like, it didn't even ring. He's getting screamed.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Straight to voicemail. Pretty tough.
How did you feel about that? When he's like, I have no one else to call.

Speaker 3 You're it.

Speaker 3 Accurate. And then also being like, looks like I'm leaving Sloughhouse too.

Speaker 4 Okay, so we've gotten a lot of, I don't know if you, did you see that really long email we got from, I think it's Caroline, who was like, has it was a fantastic email. She talked about working in HR.

Speaker 4 She was talking about the way in which like the park thinks about Slough House and all the sort sort of stuff like that. It was a fascinating email, but part of it was this sort of river.

Speaker 4 She's like, it never occurred to me how much of a fuck-up River was until you guys have been talking about it so much this season.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 3 I do think it's part of what makes him so great. We should say, like, I love that he's a fuck-up.
It's why Slow Horses is right.

Speaker 4 But I think part of it is...

Speaker 4 genuinely part of it is getting him out of the black coats and putting him in that track suit because even when he goes to save Claude and strikes that like very James Bondi sort of pose, which he holds for a beat after he shoots.

Speaker 4 Um, this shoots the guy. He just sort of like, he's got like one hand holding Claude back and his like arm, you know, his shoulders are back, and he's just sort of like, I'm

Speaker 4 really good at my job, right? Yeah, but he's wearing this fucking dorky tracksuit while he does it, and it really puts a damper on the whole mystique. So

Speaker 3 completely. But while we're here, Joe, that has to be the Fit Watch of the week.
The tracksuit for River of the season.

Speaker 3 I mean, look, it's been hard for anyone to keep up since Roddy's Fits early in the season, but over a long enough timeline, Slow Horses has proven any of these people become Roddy Hoe.

Speaker 3 They all end up in a track suit in the end. And so the fact that River got there was particularly delightful.

Speaker 4 That's true. Shirley is

Speaker 4 like one track pant away because she's always in that windbreaker.

Speaker 4 I will say though, let's give River credit where it's due. He does remember how many boots there were, even though he was the one that was like

Speaker 4 saying, Shirley, you're full of shit the whole time. He remembers the boots.
He takes David seriously.

Speaker 4 One

Speaker 4 B conversation too late, but that's okay. Like, we got there, right? We still got there.
Yeah. And he does, you know, he goes, he, you know, takes Claude's wife's advice as to where to find him.

Speaker 4 I do want to say,

Speaker 4 I have some notes for Claude.

Speaker 4 It starts with

Speaker 4 crowded houses running music. I don't know how you felt about Fall at Your Feet playing loudly as he does his sort of cool-down run down the stairs.

Speaker 3 Even for a cooldown run,

Speaker 3 we're going with like coffee shop core for your run. Like, why? What is your pain? What are the BPMs you're trying to hit here? Because I feel like you're fucking up.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 4 I also just love, we already mentioned sort of his running technique earlier in the season, but I have to, like, the way that he was like skip trotting down those stairs is just like really good.

Speaker 4 And then RSANTepope at gmail.com if you have any thoughts about this. But he says, you know, he's, it's been such a day.
He's talking to himself.

Speaker 4 His driver is dead in the front seat and he's not paying attention. He's on like wineroo.com.
I don't know, like what, you know.

Speaker 4 And he's like, crack coke in a bottle of Chalk Hill.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Okay.
This is where me, a Sonoma County resident, can weigh in on this. Chalk Hills, the Chalk Hill Estate is in Sonoma County winery.
That's a good wine, but it's like a fine wine.

Speaker 4 It's not a perfect pick, honestly. Tell me why you think that's a perfect pick.

Speaker 3 Well, just because it is that. Like, it's not actually like the Somali Ace.
Right.

Speaker 3 It's just like a guy who has a little bit of money and like he's not going for the bot, like the bottom shelf offerings of Chalk Hill.

Speaker 3 It's more like the, you know, the premium $100, $125 bottle of wine situation.

Speaker 3 That I kind of love that exact range for him. That's like, this is a splurge, but it's also something that, like, people who are actually of this world would kind of turn their nose on.

Speaker 4 I just would never say, and maybe this makes me sound like an absolute snob, but I would never say, like, I'm going to reward myself

Speaker 4 with Chalk Hill. That's not what I would say.
I would say it's a nice, not, not the $100 bottle or whatever.

Speaker 3 You're K-miss or bust. Like, why are we falling?

Speaker 4 I was just like, that's not what I would pick, even from the Sonoma County offering. So, but if you guys disagree and if you think Chalk Hill is the creme de la creme, you let me know.

Speaker 3 Let's give him some slight grace on this because he's had a day, he's had a week, he's had a month, and he hasn't even gone through some of the worst of it yet in terms of being held at gunpoint.

Speaker 3 But, like, there were just points in this episode where Claude badly needs a drink, badly needs a hug, badly needs, I think, to be swaddled and changed.

Speaker 3 Like, he's just, it's a rough sequence of events.

Speaker 4 And I, I will admit, I don't know what the sort of like upcharge is on a bottle of Chalk Hill imported all the way to the UK. Um,

Speaker 4 and it is funny when,

Speaker 4 sounds so douchey, when you're from here and then you go elsewhere and all the offerings are like Sonoma County or Nava County wines. And I'm like, but what about your local offerings?

Speaker 4 That's what I want to try.

Speaker 3 I mean, like, France and Italy are right there. Like, I don't know what to tell you.
Spain is right there. You have lots of, lots of delicious offerings.
And yet, we're going to. Chalk Hill.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 4 Let's talk about the river lamb scene that we get in the, in the sort of diner before we go back into the office. Yes.

Speaker 4 Um, this is my, it's not like a sh a classic shank, but it's like um, it's a you will bleed out from this shank is my lamb shake of the episode, which is, you know, it's not the hope that kills you, Cartwright.

Speaker 4 It's knowing it's the hope that kills you that kills you.

Speaker 3 Can I ask you, in the context of everything that's happening here, what does that mean?

Speaker 4 Oh, well, that means

Speaker 3 like I know what it's the hope that kills you means, and I know in theory what it's knowing that it's the hope that kills you is what kills you means.

Speaker 3 But, like, what is he talking about with River specifically?

Speaker 4 I think the hope that he will get out of Sloughhouse, right? He's like, So you'll bring it up with him? And he's like, Yeah, if it comes up, I'll bring it up with him, right?

Speaker 3 But like, but then wouldn't that just be it's the hope that kills you?

Speaker 4 I like that extra layer of like,

Speaker 3 I just don't, I don't know what it is.

Speaker 4 If it's the hope that kills you, you can delude yourself into something.

Speaker 4 But if you know you're deluding yourself, isn't that even more soul-shriveling?

Speaker 4 but river doesn't know that he's deluding himself um river is definitely just a the it's the hope that kills you kind of guy yes um but lamb's maybe like welcome to i invite you to this new level of misery which is

Speaker 3 it's self-commentary i think so yeah okay that makes sense um

Speaker 4 then we have this claude uh jackson interaction where claude tries to pull a move on the chess master that is jackson lamb and it doesn't work out for him anything you want to say

Speaker 3 Well, I mean, let's walk through the London rules of all this. I mean, you've got Peter Judd trying to play by London rules, selling Claude on this plan to begin with to pin everything on Lamb.

Speaker 3 Claude is obviously executing it and trying to save his own job and skin and reputation in the process.

Speaker 3 But like Lamb has been playing this game for an awfully long time to the extent that anyone is going to have a checkmate, it's going to be him.

Speaker 3 And I really did enjoy that the importance of the recording is not River and co-accidentally acknowledging that they watched a a political figure die on tape, but it's flipping over the tape and realizing what else was on it.

Speaker 3 That coming back to Roost in a big way, I thought was just like a nice little grace note for this.

Speaker 4 The genius of Jackson Lamb is that he will read the entirety of Claude's file, knowing that it's of interest to Tara and the rest.

Speaker 3 He will read it.

Speaker 4 And he'll listen to the entirety of the tape just to see if there's anything.

Speaker 3 He does listen to the whole tape.

Speaker 3 This is an opportune time to talk about my lamb shank of the episode, Joe, which I look, anytime you get Lamb and Claude together, which is

Speaker 3 rare, unfortunately, as far as the show goes. They have not had an opportunity to interact much, but I'm sure we'll meet again.
I doubt that I don't use prostitutes. That one really hit.

Speaker 3 And that's Lamb taking the piss as he takes a literal piss.

Speaker 3 Again, just a perfect scene. Gary Oldman, an international treasure.

Speaker 4 Gary Oldman is incredible always.

Speaker 4 Everyone is very, very, very good at their job as performers on the show.

Speaker 3 I actually think not as spies.

Speaker 4 I actually think my acting moment of the episode, though,

Speaker 4 goes to our babe, Diana Taverner, as she's moving into her new office, making sure to snag the bottle of liquor before it goes out of the office.

Speaker 4 But it's the way she sits down on the sofa and just sort of gives herself a like.

Speaker 4 I made it moment. You know what I mean? She's talking to Jackson.

Speaker 4 She doesn't break stride in sort of like what she's discussing with him, but she just gives this sort of like luxurying like, I'm in this couch. It's my couch now.
This is my office now.

Speaker 4 I've spent, you know, we've watched her for seasons trying to actively manipulate her way into this role. And here she finally is, thanks to Jackson Lamb, actually.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 3 But here she finally is.

Speaker 3 How deliberate do you think that part of it is?

Speaker 3 Like, Lamb obviously knows and acknowledges and says as much that Claude is just a fuck up in every possible respect, an empty suit who doesn't deserve this job.

Speaker 3 He and Taverner have such a fascinating and complicated relationship, but there is a mutual respect there.

Speaker 3 And we see it, it comes to the fore and helps solve ultimately some of the mysteries of this season.

Speaker 3 Do you think there's any part of him that wants Diana Taverner in that seat?

Speaker 4 I think it's the same part of him that

Speaker 4 wants

Speaker 4 Roddy back in Slough House. You know what I mean? It's just sort of this, like,

Speaker 4 and I think some book readers think that that TV Lamb is softer than Book Lamb.

Speaker 4 You know, this sort of backstory being part of all of that. But

Speaker 4 I need this from him. I need this like slightly protective quality that he has, that he's going to like keep Catherine with him.
And he's going to have, they all can't stand Roddy.

Speaker 4 But he's going to show up to Roddy's house to save him with some squeezy bottle of bleach. And he is going to actively recruit him back into Slough house,

Speaker 4 you know, at the end of the episode.

Speaker 3 So Diana. He's going to tell Molly that maybe she should roll herself off a cliff, but also save her job.

Speaker 4 Get Molly back, you know, so like, so Lady Die is, it's, maybe it's just sort of like the enemy, you know, like he knows exactly how to navigate her.

Speaker 4 And so having her at first desk is like, can only be an advantage to him at the end of the day. A question we got from so many of our listeners, and I think one that.

Speaker 4 People are asking this many seasons into the show is how can the park continue to consider Slough House to be absolute fucking losers when they have saved the day so many times like how can they be considered uh this and you know part of that email that we got from our listener Caroline um

Speaker 4 there is this like

Speaker 4 possibly

Speaker 4 a specifically British and we will never understand because we are American sort of idea of hierarchy and just sort of like you can look down on someone even though they are your

Speaker 4 better in some way or another, because they are just in that step on the ladder.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I don't know, we're pretty good about that here too. We're not bad.

Speaker 4 We're not bad, but America is baked into its like

Speaker 4 mythology, the story, the fiction that we tell ourselves is that upper mobility is like part of what is the American dream, right?

Speaker 4 And then like in the UK, it's like, you're born here, your accent tells us where you're from and that's where you stay sort of idea. So

Speaker 4 you make a good point.

Speaker 3 You're very,

Speaker 3 you're very correct. There's no slouches in that.

Speaker 4 You're very correct. It's not, it is not uniquely British, but it is like sort of like uniquely institutionally British.
Um, and I can, I can see that being uh part of it, but anyway, uh, our

Speaker 3 I think I think that like flows into the London rules stuff too, though, Joe, where it's like that perspective, that question to me is like our question as watchers of the show, right?

Speaker 3 Like, we have seen everything that River has fucked up, but also all the ways in which he has shown up to prevent assassination attempts and stop terrorists and all this stuff.

Speaker 3 When it comes down to who actually gets credit for those things, River Cartwright's name is not in the paper, right? So it's like, who actually knows what Slauhouse has done?

Speaker 3 I think the answer is Diana Taverner, and it probably stops about there.

Speaker 4 That's fair. It's really fair.
I just, I like, I think that it matters that, you know, and River doesn't, but it matters that,

Speaker 4 you know,

Speaker 4 Jackson Lamb has this like thick cockney accent. Like that matters.
And in addition to like the grubbyness,

Speaker 4 extreme grubbiness that comes with him. Quite extra.

Speaker 3 Anyway, I just.

Speaker 3 Is he taping his socks?

Speaker 4 That's part of it. It's well, he first, first I think he was cutting a hole in one because he needs his toe to be sticking out because of maybe the pain.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 So he needs the, he's actively creating those toe holes.

Speaker 4 But yeah, there was tape on one of them. And perhaps that is like helps with the pain.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 Like,

Speaker 3 maybe it's just straight mending other holes.

Speaker 3 I have many, many sock-related questions. If you've ever taped your socks, please email us at archstimatopa gmail.com.
I'd love to know more about it.

Speaker 4 So are there any characters other than the ones we already mentioned? Dodi, Molly is coming back. We see her in the season six trailer back in the archives.

Speaker 4 Jeffrey, is there anyone else? And, you know, Hugo Weavings

Speaker 4 in the season six trailers? Is there anyone else where you're like,

Speaker 4 Louisa, are you holding out hope for Olivia Cook? Like, you know, oh,

Speaker 3 I have long since let go of that hope. That is the hope that kills you.
Olivia Cook,

Speaker 3 I can't imagine she's back on this show, right?

Speaker 4 I don't, I don't, so here's, here's, let me pose a theory to you. And this is like no spoilers necessarily, but,

Speaker 4 you know, if people are like super, super squeamish about this, like skip forward. I was alluding to this with Alan, but like, I think

Speaker 4 Olivia Cook's character does come back.

Speaker 3 Does come back, yeah.

Speaker 4 But I think what they're in and removing Louisa from this season, I wonder if they can use her the way that they used Olivia Cook's character to be like, Louisa is back.

Speaker 4 Like, because she's in the book throughout. She doesn't leave.
And so in pulling her away for a season, it's like, and this is how we pull her back in.

Speaker 4 The same way that like Olivia Cook's character, if she was, has been like, you know, hiding this whole time, and then the Slough House

Speaker 4 file gets leaked, bring her back into the mix. Do you know what I mean? So they're subbing Louisa in for that character, possibly.

Speaker 3 That makes a lot of narrative sense to me.

Speaker 3 And I do think like, if you were going to have a reason to have Olivia Cook back, somebody has stolen the Sloughhouse files and is hunting down agents, like that is the way you would do it.

Speaker 3 I would be thrilled if that were the case.

Speaker 3 I am choosing not to hold out hope, but anything is possible. Maybe we get Mid Harper back.
Like maybe in the ghost of Min Harper.

Speaker 3 We live in a world where the hunt for Ben Solo almost maybe happened. Uh, so why not the hunt for Min Harper? Why can't we bring him back from

Speaker 4 you know how much I love Min Harper? I would love to have him back with the real me.

Speaker 3 Um, somehow, Min returned for Slow Horse's series six.

Speaker 4 Uh, oh, love that you just said, okay, so for series six, let's just hope for Sid, aka Olivia Cook, Louisa,

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 4 the reanimated corpse of Min Harper.

Speaker 4 I would love all of that. The actors that we do have in season six that we see in the trailer are

Speaker 4 Lenny Rush,

Speaker 4 who's a young comedian. I know him best from a Taskmaster holiday special that he did really, really good.
My guy, Harry Lloyd, my fave from Game of Thrones, Viseris himself,

Speaker 4 from one of the greatest episodes of Doctor Who, Family of Blood. Like, I just am Harry Lloyd, seemingly playing a tech billionaire.
Very excited about that. Lenny Henry is here,

Speaker 4 another great UK comedian, et cetera, legend. And then Kyle Soller from Andor.

Speaker 4 Harry Lloyd and Kyle Soler are like two of my all-time faves. And here they are with the Lennys in season six of Slow Horses.
Couldn't, it's so funny.

Speaker 4 I was sort of going frame by frame through the trailer. And there's like a blurry shot of Kyle Soler's character fighting.

Speaker 4 And I paused there and I was like, you could barely see his face, but like from the patchiness of the ginger stubble, I was like,

Speaker 4 I think that's Cyril Karn himself, Kyle Soler from Andor. So I stopped there and then I googled it.
I was like, Kyle Soler Slow Horses, nothing on his IMTB, blah, blah, blah. But it's on his.

Speaker 4 like if you go deeper it's on his like agency's page for him is slow horses season six so it hasn't been like officially announced. It's not as an IMDB, but it's on his like agency's page for him.

Speaker 4 And so I texted the blurry photo and the agency page to Mallory and Chris Ryan. And I was so excited.
And then you go forward and the next shot is just like a full, very

Speaker 3 crystal clear shot of this piece.

Speaker 4 And I was like, okay. But look.

Speaker 3 Look, this is part of doing detective work, Joe. You're the best in the business.
You got to the bottom of it. And then sometimes the answers are, you know, sometimes they just tweet it out.

Speaker 4 The thing that I need to learn from you, Freeze Fray Mahoney, is that like sometimes you don't have to freeze.

Speaker 4 Sometimes you could just let the whole trailer play and then go back through and freeze frame it. Whereas I was just like, I have to know every single thing of happening in the trailer.
Anyway.

Speaker 3 No, you are who you are, Joe. This is what we love about you.

Speaker 3 I just need to know for you, like, how does it feel that in the algorithmic world we live in, the roulette has spun and it's just like all of your guys at one place, right?

Speaker 3 Like, what are you going to do? I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. I have no idea.

Speaker 4 Harry Lloyd. So, Harry Lloyd is in the trailer.
We see him a couple of times.

Speaker 4 The caption is literally like, he says something about our security is shaking hands with Diana Tavener. And then it's the closed caption says, groans.

Speaker 4 And it's like, I can't tell if it's the action of the next scene that is giving us the groans, but Diana Tavener looks. so upset to have to like deal with this guy and shake his hand.

Speaker 4 So in this sort of like tech billionaire

Speaker 4 space, this idea that like Harry Lloyd is playing some kind of disruptor, like, are you excited to see that come to Sloughhouse? What do you think?

Speaker 3 Extremely so. Actually, my first impression, I was like, did they get Matthew Goode for this show? That's what I thought from like the initial like profile I saw of him.

Speaker 3 And then when I realized who we were actually talking about and Harry Lloyd, I do love. you know, a tech mogul of some kind for him.
And exactly in that sort of like,

Speaker 3 he's so good at playing a tough hang. Like he's so good at that particular zone.
And clearly, we're going to see many gradations of it. But I think that's great casting.

Speaker 3 I think he's going to be a welcome addition to this world in the same way that, like, Claude ended up being such like a welcome character in this world.

Speaker 3 Like, you need different kinds of empty suits and buffoons and like people who are a little overpuffed relative to their actual importance to the universe.

Speaker 3 Like, that's the stuff that Slow Horses loves playing with.

Speaker 4 So, we're dealing with like a

Speaker 4 digital leak, right? So, it makes sense that there would be someone in the

Speaker 4 tech world would be connected to this this story there's something about harry lloyds like he's he's in his 40s but he has this very like boyish face and that's what's like very like

Speaker 4 you know that's

Speaker 4 just very silicon valley to me this sort of like these adult men that you kind of think of boy as boys at the same time so yeah um

Speaker 4 anything else Kyle Solar looks like he's playing an absolute psychopath. Perhaps someone, he seems to be fighting co.
So maybe someone that like co-worked with

Speaker 4 psycho and psycho behavior. 10 out of 10, no notes.

Speaker 4 Though it makes me worried that like he's going.

Speaker 4 I want Kyle Soler to stay around on the slow horses. So I don't want like a one and done sort of like really cool fight and then it's over.
That's not what I want for Kyle Soler.

Speaker 3 Can we can we give him a spider arc? You know, can we just have him kind of hanging around being somebody who irks everyone he comes in contact with?

Speaker 4 That would be cool. I would be thrilled.

Speaker 4 I miss Sarah Karn so much. One of my favorite TV characters of all time.

Speaker 4 I want him back.

Speaker 4 Anything else you want to say about this season? You haven't done your best use of Spycraft worst use of Spycraft.

Speaker 3 Oh, that's so true.

Speaker 3 I mean, to me, it was a little self-evident in that the best is Lamb's checkmate in the end, and the worst by extension is basically everything Claude has been doing for like three running episodes.

Speaker 4 Two entire seasons, perhaps.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And look, part of what I love about that character is like it never occurs to Claude for one moment that he is not as in charge as he thinks he is.

Speaker 3 Like, he just always thinks, like, oh, I have done the bare minimum and thus I'm going to get one over on a spy who survived the ins and outs of the Cold War.

Speaker 3 I really hope this isn't the last we see of him. Like, part of having Claude as a character is obviously having him in a position of power, right? Like, that's what makes it so juicy and interesting.

Speaker 3 And if he's not first desk anymore, I don't know what that character is, but I've just really enjoyed watching him step on every rake in every lawn in London.

Speaker 3 You know, like it's been, it's been such a nice part of the show, and I'm going to miss it if he's just not part of it anymore.

Speaker 4 I think the,

Speaker 4 you know, the

Speaker 4 nefarious law offices of Judd and Whelan is something that I could like easily see,

Speaker 4 you know, in a very like sort of Marley and Marley way.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm excited to see. Keep the Marleys out of this.

Speaker 3 They don't deserve being lumped in with these guys. They were just frugal.

Speaker 4 They deserve everything they get, get, Rob. And I think you know that's true.

Speaker 4 Anyway,

Speaker 4 I liked the season a lot. I don't think it was my favorite season, but I think it was an improvement over last season.

Speaker 4 I like the ongoing sort of evolution of our understanding of River Cartwright as not just like a guy who is set up and doesn't belong in Slough House, but instead a guy who definitely belongs in Slough House.

Speaker 4 I'm excited. Something we didn't mention in the season six trailer.

Speaker 3 Unfortunately, we do say goodbye to Roddy Ho's, uh you know purple top knot and i will miss it but it seems as though shirley is getting sort of an action mullet of some kind and that's pretty upsetting for me are you are you anti the action mullet you know it's one of those things i need to see in action okay fair like i i i the the the brief shots we saw of her mostly like her in slough house talking to somebody i'm like i don't know this is kind of the response i have when i see new nba jerseys joe where it's like you see the like pdf image of the jersey and it's like i don't love it but i need to see it in the field, right?

Speaker 3 I need to see the way that it bobs and weaves. I need to see the way it's reacting when Shirley is probably getting beat up based on historical events.

Speaker 3 But, you know, maybe she's the one doing the beating up in series six.

Speaker 4 Maybe she'll get to keep her gun this season. Who's to say?

Speaker 3 Come on, give this girl a gun. She wants one thing.

Speaker 4 Just let her have the gun. I'm anti-gun in general, but if we're giving anyone a gun in season six, I need it to be Shirley.
She has definitely earned it. Okay.

Speaker 4 So we will be back with Slow Horses season six when that comes out.

Speaker 3 Without a doubt. And I have to say, you know, you mentioned kind of how this rates out for you, Joe, as relative to all the other seasons.
I agree it's a step up from series four.

Speaker 3 I'm hoping that getting Hugo Weaving back with more selective deployment for six will be like a nice happy medium, right?

Speaker 3 Where it still feels like Slow Horses, but then here's this new wrinkle that we spent this time establishing, and it doesn't feel like it's just like taking over the whole story.

Speaker 4 I will continue to admire the way that you say series instead of season one. We're talking about British television.
It's very, it's very good of you.

Speaker 4 Let's get you, let's get you a Greg sausage roll for the complete UK.

Speaker 3 I would love one. Please not vegan.

Speaker 3 The idea of a vegan sausage roll from a subway-like establishment, that's simply not.

Speaker 4 I'm certain they're frozen. So I feel like we can get this shipped out for you to experience.
I am very confident they're not made fresh.

Speaker 4 Arsimethepope at gmail.com. PrestigeTV at spotify.com.
Please join us with Pluribus, especially if you were like into severance.

Speaker 4 If you like, I don't know if you've ever heard heard of the shows Breaking Bat or Battle or Carl Salt, but they're pretty good.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 this is one of the best pilots I've ever seen in my life. And I've only watched the first episode.
It's a double premiere, but it's one of the best I've ever seen in terms of like

Speaker 4 establishing a world.

Speaker 4 an incident, a character that we are invested in. I'm really excited for people to experience them for themselves and to share it with you.

Speaker 3 Joe, that is a hell of a pitch, especially coming off of you and I have just revisited some of the greatest series of all time and their pilots, some of which were great, some of which were not so great.

Speaker 3 Like, you know, you're throwing this up there with royalty.

Speaker 4 I think there's a difference between, I'm not saying this is going to be one of the best seasons of television of all time, but there's a difference between like this pilot is like,

Speaker 4 this is the hook. There's no, there's no arguing with this.
It's such a good thing.

Speaker 3 We don't need to get cute about it. It's right there.

Speaker 4 It's such a premise heavy like idea that it's just sort of like, this is the hook. And it is, it is like very gripping.

Speaker 4 And whether or not the rest of the series winds up being like of in that echelon.

Speaker 4 But then again, like Breaking Bad and Better Khalsal are two of the best series of TV I've ever seen in my entire life. So like, you know, what's there, what's there to say?

Speaker 3 I mean, that's, that's terrifying and awesome to consider in its own right, which like, I would say both Breaking Bad and Better Khalsal are shows that took a minute to kind of like find their legs and their tone and exactly what they wanted to be.

Speaker 3 What is a Vince Gilligan show that's just like locked in from jump?

Speaker 4 Let's find out. And it's such a different world.

Speaker 4 I I think it's smart of him to, I was curious why he went to Apple and maybe that'll come out in some Vince Gilligan profile that comes out. I was curious why he left AMC to go to Apple.

Speaker 4 I am, however, I think it's really smart of him to like having done Better Call Sol a direct spin-off of Breaking Bad

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 becoming way more involved. Like he was never supposed to be as involved in Better Call Sol that he wound up being, right? So, but he, but he's in this one very contained world for

Speaker 4 over a decade of TV making. Well, over a decade.

Speaker 3 That world is called Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Speaker 4 We're still in Albuquerque, New Mexico for

Speaker 3 incredible.

Speaker 4 But we're in a different reality altogether, essentially. And so he's just like skipping out.

Speaker 3 So, so you think, until Walt and Jesse show up in episode six, like there's still room here.

Speaker 4 Guess what?

Speaker 3 I would welcome them, honestly.

Speaker 4 If Lalo Salamanca wants to show up, I welcome him as well. But to step back into his X-Files

Speaker 4 world, right? That his origin of working on X-Files and to be in this genre space.

Speaker 4 So to be on a different network, true, it's his same leading lady from Better Call Soul. True, we're still in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Speaker 4 But we are very much in a different world and I'm excited for people to experience that.

Speaker 4 Hopefully I've pitched you on Pluribus. Rob and I will be back covering that and we'll come up with a new email for that in due time.
And in the meanwhile, press tv at spotify.com.

Speaker 4 Thank you to everyone involved in this: to Justin Sales, to Kevin Pooler.

Speaker 4 And we'll see you soon. Anything else you want to say, Rob Mahoney, before we go?

Speaker 3 Absolutely none. Long live, slow horses.
Can't wait for series six.

Speaker 4 Welcome back, Rob. We did miss you.
Thank you. See you all soon.
Bye.

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Rated T for team.