Apple TV's Slow Horses continues to be one of the more underrated series on your favorite streaming service. CBS continues to produce dozens crime-related series, for instance, and each and every one could learn something from Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) and company about how true greatness is made.
The sad fact about season 6 is that Slough House lost a number of former and current agents. Some fan favorites are now gone forever. It's been a brutal season, of course, but that also helped make the season more memorable.
Did the setup for the season 6 finale have a solid payoff? Of course, because Apple TV makes the price of the subscription worth it. What else did we really expect from the finale of one of the best shows on TV.
Slow Horses does not disappoint at the end of season 6, but it's brutal
Have we seen the end of River Cartwright (Jack Lowden)? Perhaps. Maybe Gary Oldman was correct when he recently said Lowden would be the new James Bond.
At the beginning of episode 6, we see Cartwright back at the military installation he broke out of with Sid Baker (Olivia Cooke), but at the end of episode 5, Cartwright gave himself up to military personnel while letting Baker, whom he had shared a kiss with before the two escaped, flee. Cartwright has been beaten up, but is in the back of a vehicle where he is able to steal the phone out of the pocket of a guard.
He is then kicked out of the vehicle and immediately calls Jackson Lamb. It is in this conversation that Lamb learns Coe has died, which he is clearly affected by. He tells Cartwright to go to the summer home of First Desk Diana Taverner, where, as we know, many of the ladies, as well as Reece Nesmith, from Lamb's Slough House, have been hiding out.
What was always weird about the situation is that the house is almost completely windows, so viewers likely assumed the agents could be seen from afar. This is exactly what happens after Cartwright arrives at the house because Frank Harkness (Hugo Weaving), who is Cartwright's father, of course, and his two goons are hot on Cartwright's trail.
- Slow Horses season 6 episode 1 recap
- Slow Horses season 6 episode 2 recap
- Slow Horses season 6 episode 3 recap
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- Slow Horses season 6 episode 5 recap
Harkness really wants Nesmith, of course, because he killed Nesmith's father earlier in the season, and Reece had witnessed the event. But when Harkness and his partners send a smoke bomb into the house, breaking Roddy Ho's nose, chaos ensues.
The agents make Molotov cocktails and are able to escape to a nearby beach. Multiple shootouts occur, and Harkness, who is shot in the leg but ultimately OK after the bullet is removed, is able to kill agent Emma Flyte (Ruth Bradley).
Agent Shirley Dander (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) teaches Nesmith to use a harpoon gun to protect himself, and that is fortuitous because he soon needs it. He kills one of Harkness's guys, and the carnage isn't yet done.
During the fracas, agent Louisa Guy (Rosalind Eleazar) sees Russian agent Jane closing in on the house after she has discovered where the agents have been hiding. She is still tasked with taking revenge for Taverner ordering an unsanctioned hit on a Russian agent in Kazan, and she is bound to do so until she literally can no longer.
Many storylines converge at Taverner's house at once, and the pressure is real. Guy shoots at Jane, but Jane returns fire and hits Guy in the stomach. Guy is able to make it back to the beach to the other agents, but is in serious condition.
Cartwright has already returned to the house, and he is the one Jane is searching for. He has been shot in the hand and only has a lamp to protect himself.
Jane tracks him down and kicks him down the stairs, but what Jane doesn't know is that Harkness is also in the house and sits at the kitchen bar. Harkness sees Cartwright fall, watches as Jane descends the stairwell, and Harkness shoots her in the head.
Cartwright and Harkness have a short conversation, but Park guards arrive by helicopter to rescue the Slough House agents after Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves) has retrieved the phone from the dead goon of Harkness's, and Standish calls Lamb. Harkness is able to escape. We might see him later in the episode, though.
Jackson Lamb saves the day (sort of)
When Lamb receives the call, he is in the car with media mogul Damien Cantor, who we know supplied Taverner with money in a previous season, though Taverner never reported the money to her MI5 superiors or the Home Secretary. Taverner used the money, which had actually been given to Cantor by Russian GRU leader Vassily Rasnokov.
Unknown to Cantor, until Taverner tells him what happened in an empty bar in the season 6 finale, Taverner had used the money to carry out the hit on the Russian agent in Kazan. Cantor also doesn't know that Taverner and Lamb have concocted a plan to make Cantor look like a double agent to the Russians.
Cantor tries to flee the bar but does so into a car that is being driven by Lamb. It is in this vehicle that Lamb tricks Cantor into calling Harkness, whom he had hired to track down Slough House agents, and telling Harkness that the plan is off. He does this just before Harkness can kill other agents, and this is when he returns to the house, ultimately saving Cartwright's life.
Lamb had also explained to Cantor that he is taking him to a park installation where he will be flown to Russia, or to wherever the Russians want him to go, and that he is being given up as the double agent he never was. Cantor calls Harkness thinking Lamb will help him out of the situation, but he doesn't.
Meanwhile, Taverner has a meeting with the Home Secretary, explaining the situation that she and Lamb made up about Cantor, and she is able to escape any punishment. The reason she didn't tell the Home Secretary about the money is that she was afraid word would have gotten back to Cantor, though she knows this is a lie.
Is River Cartwright dead?
The episode ends with Cartwright getting a call that a light has been left on for several days at his late grandfather's house, the place he first saw Sid Baker again in season 6. Assuming it is Baker, he rushes to the house, sees Baker in the upstairs window, and he enters the house.
He hears Baker in the shower (at least, that is what he thinks he hears), and he tries to prepare tea but changes his mind to a bottle of wine. Soon, though, he discovers there was poison on the bottle, and he begins to tremble and then falls. A shadowy figure walks past, but viewers don't see a face, so we can't be sure who it is.
Is Cartwright dead? He survives in the books by Mick Herron, but we don't see him in the season 7 trailer that follows the season 6 finale.
Of course, why would we? That would explain the unexplainable ending. Maybe River Cartwright is actually dead because, if industry rumors are correct, Jack Lowden might be the next James Bond, and Lowden wouldn't have time for Slow Horses anymore.
Stay tuned for more news about Slow Horses! The series is already renewed for season 7!
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