How does Slow Horses do it? Who knows. The Apple TV+ series is extremely well-cast, with riveting writing, and after two episodes of season 6, it contains an entire shipyard container of questions. Does episode 3 answer those queries? No. And something like the words of protagonist Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) might say, "Why should it?"
After all, through two episodes of the current season, we have already seen former members of Slough House, headed by the brilliant and slightly gross Lamb, get murdered, and the entire wing of MI5 get disappeared. Slough House didn't just stop electronically (the agents stopped getting paid), but the files on them went missing too.
Was this the work of right-wing media guru and tech titan Damien Cantor or some master plan of the father of Lamb's adjunct second-in-command, River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) and Frank Karness (Weaving)? And would episode 3 tell us? Well...not really.
River Cartwright and Sid Baker can't go back to Slough House
The episode begins as it ends, with River and Sid running from season 6 hit people, Jim and Jane, literally. Jim and Jane arrive at Cartwright's late grandfather's house just as Cartwright and Sid are reconnecting and understanding where Sid has been for more than three years. Wasn't she supposed to be dead? Not really.
She certainly has a strong need to reach First Desk Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas), as most of the last half of the episode, at least the part that involves Cartwright and Sid, is spent with Sid trying to find a phone that works. They can't use their own cell phones because, of course, they would be traceable.
What is also clear is that neither Cartwright nor Sid has a gun because they seem rather indefensible in trying to ward off Jim and Jane. The latter two break into the grandfather's house, and, even knowing that bit is about to happen, the former two can do nothing but run. Again, literally.
They run through woods and fields and on streets. Almost caught once, they escape over a fence into the woods. Jane shoots at them, but what makes the scene interesting is that Jane suddenly begins speaking in Russian. Jim tells her to stop. Are they KGB? We do not know.
After finding a house where a mysterious lady lives, Cartwright and Sid get into a conversation with the woman, who, on the surface, appears to not be involved with MI5, but this might simply be good acting (or brilliant writing from the episode's creators, Mick Herron, Sophie Goodhart, and Maisie Parker).
Of course, Jim and Jane, seemingly knowing everywhere that Cartwright and Sid go, find the house; only Cartwright sneaks out, lights some clothing on fire, puts it where the gas goes into the car, and, well...boom! No one is hurt, but Jim and Jane at least temporarily have no vehicle.
When we next see Cartwright and Sid, they are walking on the street (why they would do this doesn't make much sense because they would be easily found, but it is what it is) when a car approaches. Instead of Jim and Jane, however, it is Coe from Slough House.
The trio eventually stops to find Sid a working phone, and the episode ends with Coe sitting in the car while Jane and Jim follow the other two.
Diana Taverner keeps finding ways around
While Taverner's role is diminished compared to episode 2, she has two important scenes. One is when she is asked by Emma Flyte (Ruth Bradley) why Taverner chose to do an interview with a right-wing broadcaster in the previous episode. Taverner doesn't like the line of questioning and decides to demote Flyte, a highly respected agent, to, you guessed it...Slough House.
Later, we see Jackson Lamb discussing the issue of Slough House agents being murdered and the disappearance of the MI5 wing in both digital and hard-copy forms with Taverner in the back yard. She, of course, refuses to give him any information and tells him to leave.
Still, one might wonder if Taverner is trying to help Lamb and his acolytes in some odd way.
Jackson Lamb and Roddy Ho find Reece Nesmith
The plot thickens for the rest of the season, most likely, for the character of Reece Nesmith, the son of the slain agent, Andy Nesmith. Lamb and Ho, and everyone else who has seen the footage of Reece leaving the scene after Andy died in episode 2, assumes Reece witnessed the murder at the hands of Cartwright's father, Frank Harkness (Hugo Weaving). Maybe he didn't, though.
Not only can we not be sure what Reece saw or didn't see, but he is also clearly not three or four years old. Instead, he is, as he says, a dwarf and a feisty and intelligent person. He and Ho end up playing a video game until they are whisked away to help Lamb track something else down.
The entire episode is another fine example of this current season, one that mostly combines two of the books written by Mick Herron that the series follows. With the constant action and fast pace, season 6 could turn out to be Slow Horses' best season yet.
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