Episode 5 slow horse Giving us more backstory on Frank. He is a preemptive assassin. Now his greatest work is before him again. He wanted all the regulars at Slough Hall to be eliminated. Frank needs to close all roads to Westex.
Even before the credits roll, Frank (Hugo Weaving) has captured Molly. He plans to track down all the slow horses and destroy them.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch
Flyte has a river. She handcuffed him inside the car. Traverna asks her to bring him inside. Lamb takes Boss Cartwright and Catherine (Saskia Reeves) with him. Their vehicle is the abandoned taxi from episode four, en route to a safe location to interrogate David Cartwright.
At Slough House, Moira learns about numbers one; Whelan is the one who makes her the “slow horse”. The messages hit her hard and it appears she may have stumbled upon his weakness for sex workers.
Louisa Guy, Dander and Longridge are traveling by public transport (also known as a bus) and their destination is Slough House. She dragged the rest of them to the meeting. She was planning on rescuing/supporting their agents on the scene. Coe reluctantly addressed the group. We know a little more about the newest slow horse.
Need a bigger box
Whelan (James Callis) realizes how confusing the whole Westacre/Cartwright River issue is. He has now learned not to rush to tell the media. Instead, Claude wants to throw everyone into a “cement box.” That includes Giti, who puts the pieces together for him.
After adding it all up, he concluded they needed a bigger box.
Pause for short cast list
Gary Oldman – Jackson Lamb
Jack Lowden as River Cartwright
Jonathan Pryce – David Cartwright
Kristen Scott Thomas – Diana Taverner
Ruth Bradley as Emma Flett
Rosalind Eleazar – Luisa Gay
Amy-Fionn Edwards – Shirley Dander
Cardiff Kewan – Marcus Longreach
Joanna Scanlan as Moira Trigorian
Christopher Chung – Roddy Ho
Tom Brooke – JK Coe
frank’s hit songs
After Frank bullies Molly (Naomi Wosner) into submission, he gets the names he needs for his new hit list. Harkness tells Molly that he needs to send a message. Patrice (Tom Woznitzka) is sent after River. The car, filled with MI5 agents, would eventually become the next hit ordered by the desperate assassin.
His other hits apparently include all of Slough House.
Frank watched as Patrice walked towards the river transport. He then led Molly to believe that she was dying. Frank’s leaf and envelope with his name on it lay on her desk.
i will be back
Patrice returns as the closer. He didn’t say the slogan of the movie he was referencing. Together with River, he eliminated the small protection group in the car and left with young Cartwright.
At first glance, it looks like Emma Flett might have just survived an encounter with a Frank family(?) assassin. We also learn that, among other things, Flyte isn’t good at gunfights.
wrap up
We learn a lot about Slow Horse from the backstory. David Cartwright lost his daughter to Harkness. He got her back too. Patrice may have been a relative of Harkness. He is not smart, he will not fall victim to “robots”.
*Comedy highlight of the season so far: Coe tells Ho that his “friend” is a robot.
Everything comes together nicely here. Harkness is focusing on his damage control. Lamb learned enough to take action, and River had been led to who knows where.
David is protected by Catherine so that she can fix him after Lamb’s interrogation.
Next week’s episode is the season finale. The penultimate episode sums up Slow Horses brilliantly. The show streams on Apple TV.
Season 4 trailer
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