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| Slow Horses Season 6 Episode 5 Recap and Review. |
Slow Horses Season 6 Episode 5 pushes the Slough House team into increasingly dangerous territory, with Sid’s attempt to contact Diana ending in betrayal while River is injured and Coe is left fighting for his life. At the same time, Jackson Lamb gets closer to the truth behind the attacks on former Slough House agents, using Reece as bait to draw out Frank Harkness. Diana, meanwhile, finds herself boxed in from both sides as Damien Cantor’s pressure collides with an investigation into a secret operation in Russia. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The episode wastes little time reminding us that being one of Lamb’s joes is currently a particularly poor career choice. River and Sid remain on the move with the Russian assassins closing the distance, while Coe has settled into the arcade with all the enthusiasm of a man who has apparently decided this is now his permanent office. Their attempt to find a safer place quickly turns into another fight when the assassins track them to the bowling alley.
River and Sid arrive there because Sid wants to contact Diana Taverner, hoping the former First Desk can provide some protection or information. Instead, the Russians catch up with them. The confrontation leaves the bowling alley attendant dead and River wounded in the hand, giving the group another problem to add to an already ridiculous list. River's injury also gives them a reason to hide out temporarily at a shopping centre, where they hope the crowds will make it harder for their pursuers to reach them.
It does not work.
The assassins follow them inside, and Coe is the first to realise that something is wrong. He encounters Jim in the men's toilet and quickly works out that the man is connected to the GRU. Their meeting develops into the sort of close-quarters fight that makes public toilets look even less appealing than usual, with both men producing concealed blades and settling the matter the old-fashioned way.
While Coe deals with Jim, Sid slips away to use Coe's car phone and finally reaches Diana. She believes contacting her is still the smartest option, but Sid has no idea that Diana has already been cornered by the Russians. Vassily Rasnokov has contacted her and wants revenge for the GRU operative killed in Kazan, an incident linked to Sid.
Diana is therefore forced into an ugly choice. Rasnokov wants Sid handed over, and Diana agrees on the condition that the killings of former Slough House agents stop. It is a grim bargain, but Diana has very little room to manoeuvre. When Sid's call arrives, Rasnokov orders his people to trace it and abandon the pretence of leaving her alone.
Jane eventually tracks Sid down. Sid fights back, but the odds change when Jane's partner joins the confrontation. She is overwhelmed and taken away, leaving River to discover the aftermath. Worse still, he finds Coe's body inside the shopping centre, turning what was supposed to be a temporary escape into another devastating setback for the group.
The episode also gives Lamb his own little game of cat and mouse. After the chaotic meeting involving Reece and Frank, Lamb continues following the mercenary rather than letting him disappear. Frank eventually heads to an expensive restaurant, prompting Lamb to ask Emma Flyte to continue the surveillance.
Flyte, now pushed out of the Park after the fallout surrounding Diana, reluctantly helps. Her investigation pays off when she discovers that Frank is working with Damien Cantor. That revelation is particularly important because Damien has been quietly pulling strings elsewhere, including his attempt to control Diana and his interest in keeping Reece's existence from becoming a problem.
Earlier, Frank had walked into what looked like a straightforward trap. Damien is still pleased with himself after trapping the head of MI5's Front Desk, but the media executive's ambitions extend beyond simply cleaning up his current mess. He is attempting to impress a mysterious business contact, apparently hoping to secure a lucrative arrangement. Unfortunately, Reece remains an inconvenient loose end.
The teenager has witnessed his father's assassination and knows exactly who was responsible. From Flyte's home, Reece calls the last number his father contacted and demands £10,000 for his silence. The recipient is Damien, who is understandably unimpressed by the sudden appearance of a teenage blackmailer in his carefully managed operation. He tells Frank, setting up the meeting that Lamb has been waiting for.
Lamb uses Reece as bait because he suspects the deaths of former Slough House agents are connected to Frank. At the meeting, Frank denies having anything to do with the killings, but Lamb keeps probing, particularly about who the mercenary is currently working for.
Frank arrives with two men of his own, turning the meeting into something considerably less private than Lamb had hoped. When they locate Reece, the situation threatens to collapse completely. Lamb needs to get both himself and the teenager out, and he gets his opportunity when a customer complains about his cigarette.
Naturally, Lamb turns a minor complaint into a full-scale distraction.
The commotion allows Reece to accuse Frank of molestation, creating enough confusion for the pair to escape. It is exactly the sort of absurdly effective manoeuvre that suits Lamb: when conventional spycraft fails, cause a scene and run.
Diana's problems are becoming considerably harder to laugh off. Damien arrives at her home and makes it clear that his leverage over her is still very much active. He tells her to answer an upcoming call, with the implied threat that refusing could expose whatever information he is holding over her.
Diana later returns to the deserted Park, only to find Nash, chairman of the Limitations Committee, waiting for her. Her recent interview has prompted questions, but the real issue is an incident in Kazan, Russia, involving a woman who was officially reported to have died during a robbery. The woman was actually a GRU operative linked to the deaths of two MI5 agents.
That raises an uncomfortable possibility: the woman's death may have been an authorised retaliation operation connected to Diana. The trouble is that Diana did not have the authority to order it, while MI5 did not have the funds to pay for such an operation. That naturally raises the question of where the money came from.
The Limitations Committee therefore prepares to review Diana's position. Then Damien's promised phone call arrives, and the identity of the caller makes the situation even more serious. Vassily Rasnokov, a senior GRU officer, is on the other end.
That call connects Diana's problems directly to Sid's predicament. What looked like separate storylines are now beginning to converge: the mysterious killings, Frank's activities, Damien's business interests, the Russian operation and Diana's questionable decisions are all moving towards the same collision point.
The strongest part of Episode 5 is the way it keeps tightening the net without making Lamb suddenly omniscient. He is getting closer, but his team is being dismantled around him. Sid has been captured, River is injured, Coe appears to be dead and Diana is being squeezed by forces she can no longer comfortably control. Even Lamb, usually the man who can talk his way out of almost anything, is relying on increasingly desperate improvisation.
The Frank and Lamb storyline is particularly effective because neither man gets a clean victory. Lamb escapes the trap, but Frank remains active. Flyte discovers Frank's connection to Damien, but that information arrives at a terrible moment for the rest of the Slough House crew. Meanwhile, Reece has gone from witness to bargaining chip, which is probably not the childhood enrichment programme anyone had in mind.
There is also something satisfyingly bleak about Diana's storyline. She has spent much of the series being one of the smartest operators in the room, yet Episode 5 strips away that advantage. Damien has leverage, the Limitations Committee is investigating her and the GRU wants Sid. Suddenly, every decision she makes carries a price.
My informal take on the episode is that Slow Horses Season 6 Episode 5 is at its best when it lets its characters make imperfect decisions rather than turning everyone into a flawless spy machine. Sid trusting Diana feels understandable, which makes the betrayal sting more. Lamb using Reece as bait is reckless but completely believable, while Flyte being dragged back into the mess gives the episode some welcome dry humour.
The Coe cliffhanger is easily the biggest punch, although the episode does not need to shout about it to make the moment land. What really works is how every escape creates another problem. Nobody gets a tidy win, and that is exactly why the tension feels earned. Even the comedy comes from bad situations rather than interrupting them. If anything, the episode leaves you wondering how much worse things can possibly become for the horses, which is probably asking the wrong question.
By the end, Sid is in the hands of the Russians, River is injured, Coe appears to have been killed, Diana is under mounting pressure and Lamb has finally uncovered a link between Frank and Damien.
The Slough House investigation is therefore moving forward, but the team itself is rapidly falling apart. With the next move likely to involve Lamb trying to recover Sid while exposing whoever is really behind the killings, what did you make of Episode 5? Do you think Coe is genuinely gone, and can Diana still be trusted to help the horses?