Chris Connor reviews the fifth episode of Slow Horses season 3…
After an almighty cliffhanger in the previous episode with Nick Duffy’s dogs and the remnants of Chieftain attempting to enter MI5’s storage facility, the penultimate episode of the third season of Slow Horses, ‘Cleaning Up’ is one of its most intense to date. It cuts between Louisa, River, Sean Donovan and Alison Dunn’s brother stuck in the storage facility, simultaneously trying to hold off the dogs and find the file incriminating Ingrid Tierny in Alison’s death.
Kristin Scott Thomas’ Diana Taverner has been notable in her absence for large portions of this season, playing a more peripheral role until now. Here we have some delicious scenes between her and Ingrid, with each trying to one-up the other over a glass of scotch. It’s scenes like this that set Slow Horses apart and Scott Thomas and Sophie Okonedo are dynamite together, you can sense the distrust and spite they hold for one another. It becomes clear that Taverner is more involved in proceedings than it would appear as she lays out how instrumental she has been in the pieces moving to where they are.
This is one of the most action packed episodes across the shows three season run with the action inside the facility gripping as we get a real sense of vulnerability for River and Louisa, as we’ve seen in the show to date no one is safe from being killed. This also gives a sense of urgency to Shirley and Marcus who are roped into help and end up in a jam of their own while Lamb and Ho go to extract Standish.
In many ways this feels like a finale in its own right such is the level of excitement and suspense. How the show wraps up its loose ends remains to be seen but this has been another thrilling season of Slow Horses, never going quite the way the audience might expect and again doing justice to the world created by Mick Herron in his stellar book series. Even at its seemingly most bleak it finds room for humour to lift the mood a tad and stand apart from some of the more dour spy series.
Let’s hope this season goes out on the winning note it deserves and whets our appetites for the already announced season 4 to air some point in 2024.
Chris Connor
