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| Slow Horses Season 6 Episode 4 Recap and Review. |
Slow Horses season 6 episode 4 wastes little time making its central problem clear: Sid Baker is alive, River Cartwright is furious, and someone appears to be using Sid’s identity as part of a much bigger operation. What starts as an awkward reunion quickly turns into a chase involving assassins, missing intelligence files, a suspicious death in Kazan and a Park increasingly unable to keep its own people under control. And, because this is Slow Horses, nobody seems particularly good at having a quiet conversation before someone tries to kill them.
River is still struggling to process Sid’s return when she finally explains why she had been watching him in the first place. Sid reveals that Taverner originally assigned her to keep tabs on River back in season 1. That information does little to improve the reunion. River has spent years carrying the weight of what happened to Sid, so learning that her relationship with him began as an official assignment is hardly the sort of revelation that makes the situation less awkward.
The conversation is cut short when a car arrives outside. River casually mentions that Frank Harkness is trying to kill him, which sounds almost absurdly matter-of-fact given everything else happening around them. Sid assumes the visitors have come for her, and she and River immediately get out of there. The problem is that the people pursuing them are Jim and Jane, and they are considerably less interested in conversation than River and Sid are.
The pair are chased through fields and farm buildings before finally reaching a village. They break into a house belonging to Anne, hoping they have found somewhere to breathe for five minutes. Naturally, they have not. Still, the temporary refuge gives Sid enough time to explain what she has discovered.
A few weeks earlier, Sid received a movement order from the Park sending her to Kazan. She contacted the Park and was told the order was simply a mistake. That explanation might have been believable if Jim and Jane had not appeared at her home days later. Sid now has good reason to believe the supposed administrative error was actually connected to something much more deliberate.
While hiding at Anne's house, Sid and River search for information about Kazan. They find a report about a woman who was shot twice in the head during what was officially treated as a robbery. The detail immediately raises a more troubling possibility: somebody may have been operating under Sid's credentials while she was supposedly travelling in Kazan.
Before they can investigate further, Jim and Jane turn up again. River and Sid have to move, and their escape eventually brings them into contact with Coe, who arrives just when things are getting particularly unpleasant. He picks them up and provides a much-needed escape route, although Sid is far from ready to sit quietly and let everyone else deal with the mystery for her.
At the same time, Catherine Standish and Shirley Dander turn up at Louisa Guy's workplace and cause enough disruption to make it very clear that this is not a routine visit. Louisa is understandably annoyed, but the seriousness of the situation becomes impossible to ignore when they realise Moira Tregorian may also be in danger.
They rush to Moira's home and find her unconscious. Gas has been left running, creating the appearance of an accident rather than an attack. Fortunately, Moira survives. Once she wakes up, she is understandably horrified by what happened and, in classic Moira fashion, has plenty of reasons to be annoyed with herself as well as everyone else.
The group gets moving again, with Louisa stopping at Dancer Blaine's place to acquire weapons. Their financial situation is not exactly ideal for an emergency intelligence operation, however. Between them, they have only a couple of thousand pounds, which apparently does not stretch very far when you're suddenly trying to prepare for an armed confrontation. They manage to buy one gun, which ends up in Louisa's hands.
Elsewhere, Jackson Lamb is working on a completely different piece of the puzzle. He visits the children's home to question Reece Nesmith, who initially attempts to make himself scarce. Unfortunately for Reece, Roddy Ho finds him at the back and prevents the escape. Lamb gets his answers.
Reece reveals that his father, Andy, had been stealing hard-copy files from the Park for Harkness. Andy later attempted to demand more money from Harkness, a decision that ultimately cost him his life. The information gives Lamb another reason to suspect that the events surrounding Slough House are not random and that Harkness has been cleaning up loose ends.
Diana Taverner, meanwhile, is back at the Park dealing with the consequences of her disastrous public appearance. Oliver Nash tears into her over the interview, particularly her use of the word “retaliation”, which has created another headache for an organisation that already has plenty of them.
Diana argues that the interview was essentially a tabloid ambush and attempts to minimise the damage. Emma Flyte is having none of it. She questions Diana's decisions and, more importantly, asks why senior figures inside the Park were apparently not being given the full picture.
The confrontation ends badly for Flyte. Diana removes her from her position as Head of the Dogs and sends her to Slough House. Flyte is stunned and furious, and rather than quietly accepting the decision, she makes it clear exactly what she thinks of Diana's management. She effectively walks away from the job, leaving another significant hole in the Park's already shaky chain of command.
Sid, meanwhile, still wants to tell Diana what she has discovered. River and Coe point out that she is effectively operating in the dark, but Sid refuses to let the matter drop. When Coe picks them up, she insists on stopping so she can find a payphone and contact Diana directly.
That leads them to a bowling alley, where River and Sid head inside in search of a phone while Coe waits outside. It would be a perfectly reasonable plan if Jim and Jane were not already following them. The assassins arrive in the car park and begin closing in, while Coe remains in the vehicle with no idea just how close the danger has become.
Lamb has meanwhile gone straight to Diana after speaking to Reece. He confronts her about the stolen hard-copy Slough House files and reminds her that she was responsible for wiping the digital versions. To Lamb, the timing is too convenient. Physical copies disappear while digital records are erased, and Andy later ends up dead. He sees a pattern where Diana would much rather see coincidence.
With Flyte now out of the Park, Lamb also makes it clear that he has no interest in walking into the building and asking politely for answers. His theory is that Harkness is conducting some kind of clean-up operation, while someone Diana has crossed may be carrying out a separate act of retaliation against her.
Diana shuts him down rather than give him the answers he wants. Lamb, however, is not convinced. His suspicion is less about one isolated conspiracy than the possibility that several seemingly unrelated incidents are connected by people inside and outside the Park trying to remove evidence, witnesses or both.
The episode therefore leaves several pieces moving at once. Sid's mysterious Kazan assignment, the woman killed there, Harkness's stolen files, Andy's death, Diana's erased records and the attacks on Park personnel all begin to look increasingly connected. Meanwhile, Diana's decision to push Flyte aside risks making the Park even more divided just when it needs people communicating with each other.
My take on episode 4 is that it works particularly well because it keeps the conspiracy moving without turning every character into someone who suddenly has all the answers. Sid's return gives River a personal reason to care about the mystery, while Lamb's investigation provides the wider picture. The Diana-Flyte argument is probably the episode's most entertaining clash because both characters are convinced they are protecting the Park, yet their methods could hardly be more different.
The episode also has that wonderfully dry Slow Horses habit of making serious situations faintly ridiculous: a desperate weapons purchase results in one gun, a payphone becomes crucial again, and even escaping assassins feels like another unpleasant day at work. Most importantly, episode 4 makes the central mystery bigger without explaining everything too early. There are enough clues to keep the theories going, but plenty remains deliberately out of reach.
The final moments leave River and Sid in serious danger as Jim and Jane close in around the bowling alley, while Coe is still outside unaware of what is happening. With Lamb convinced that Harkness is running a clean-up operation and Sid desperate to reach Diana, Slow Horses season 6 episode 4 ends with almost everyone holding a different piece of the same puzzle. The bigger question now is whether those pieces can be put together before someone else disappears. What did you make of Sid's Kazan discovery, and do you think Lamb is right about Diana and Harkness? Share your theory on where the story is heading.