Although every season of Slow Horses takes place in just a few days, Season Three makes the most of the compressed timeframe, with the bulk of the action (excepting the cold open) taking place in about 36 hours.
The result is an overwhelming mood of suspense—and that mood made me realize how mercurial this show can be. Although our characters are always the same, and spyjinks are always the game, the tone of each season has varied wildly. Season One was focused on the idiotic absurdity of white supremacists. Season Two was a wild game of post-Cold War Get Smart retro dead drops and post-modern Kremlinology.
But the third season is all about pressure. And time. And, above all, speed. From River’s midday deadline to save Catherine to the masterful siege sequence that starts in the fourth episode and ends in the sixth, everything is happening quickly and always about to veer out of control.
But, like River, I am getting ahead of myself. Spoilers below!
After Sean Donovan’s (Sope Dirisu) girlfriend Allison is killed by MI-5 for whistleblowing, he bands together with Allison’s siblings to enact a complicated revenge plot: to get hired by the private security company Chieftain to run a “tiger team” op against MI-5 by kidnapping Catherine Standish and using River as the patsy who will try to save her. Then, he parlays the fallout from that into getting access to a secure documents facility under the pretense of wanting access to the Grey Books, as the compendium of all of MI-5’s information on conspiracy theories is known.
But, as River says to his grandfather, “There's always another game being played, isn't there?” Donovan doesn’t really want the Grey Books, but he knows that appearing to want them will make him seem like a crazy fool. Chieftain isn’t just an up-and-coming mercenary organization of “bloody cosplay-paras”; the skeevy Home Secretary is a major investor. And Dame Ingrid Tearney isn’t just trying to do right by MI-5 and her country. She’s also trying to cover up Allison’s murder while consolidating more power at the Park for herself.
Catherine Standish, one of those quiet powerhouses who keep the world running while the rest of us goof off, is one of the most sympathetic characters in the entire show simply because she is brilliant and utterly unflashy. She’s not trained as a spy, but is awfully good at spy things, including espionage modes of thought, like planting clues and staying calm under pressure.
Her only weakness, if it even counts as weakness, is the fallout from her devotion to her former boss Charles Partner, who was head of MI-5, but also a double agent for the Soviet Union. Catherine always thought Charles killed himself; she discovered the body. What MI-5 put Catherine through is part, but not all, of why people want to take care of her. People also just want to take care of her because she’s always so busy taking care of other people.
I don’t think Donovan could have known that Catherine was the perfect person to kidnap: he likely picked her because she’s an old woman with no real martial arts skills. He probably didn’t know that his story (losing someone to apparent suicide, lashing out, wanting to fix the world, alcoholism) would resonate so much with her. But it did, because Catherine has been in a similar situation, and because she’s good at reading people, no matter how wrong she was about Charles Partner.
Catherine’s quiet heroism contrasts with River’s fast-paced idiocy. He is, as Diana Taverner and Spider (RIP) knew, the perfect person to trick into a “you’re special, you’re the only one who can do it” attempt to infiltrate the Park. The one good decision River does make—to photocopy the Footprint file that acts as this season’s McGuffin—is quite the surprise, and perhaps a sign he’s growing up. Or maybe not.
Louisa calls River out, repeatedly and welcomely. Why should she give him the gun? Why should he be in charge? Why, on this green and verdant earth, should she ever want his permission to sleep around as she processes her grief about Min? I understand that it would be hard to build a season around Louisa, because she is hypercompetent, and this isn’t a show about competent people. (Here’s one if you want it.) But I wish we could spend more time luxuriating in her skill at everything from investigation to hiding diamonds in ice cream. By the end of the season, she’s also the only one who doesn’t look like she just ran a gauntlet while being nibbled on by mice.
Shirley and Marcus, meanwhile, get into more trouble than a cat at a knitting factory. Shirley might be the first MI5 agent to almost get arrested for coke while technically on the job but still somehow breaking the law, right? (How does any of this even work?!) But, despite their respective addictions and tendency to take ice-cream breaks while solving a kidnapping, this pair do wind up being heroic: they save River and Louisa and kill or maim a bunch of cosplay-paras. I hope they get their jobs back.
It's Rodney’s big attempt at heroism that might stick with me years from now, though: inspired by Alexander the Great, he rams a big red party bus into the house where Catherine is being held with the intention of hitting a bunch of bad guys. Needless to say, it was not an effective plan.
But despite all the incompetence and all the flatulence, somehow the Slow Horses manage to pull it off again. River does get quite far into MI-5, much to Duffy’s chagrin. Lamb quickly figures out most of the schemes. And the way that first Catherine, and then River and Louisa, switch “teams” to support Sean Donovan and the Dunns is a nice testament to how they are more moral than most of the people who are still “real” spies.
What impresses me most about this season, though, is what I mentioned above: the multi-episode siege on the storage facility. There was just enough exposition that I was completely clear on both teams’ plans, and each stage of the fighting was tense without being confusing, which is remarkable considering how labyrinthine that facility was. And, in true Slow Horses fashion, the action was balanced with emotionally-accurate character moments, like Duffy yelling at the mercs, River grandstanding, Sean valiantly staying behind to slow the bad guys down, and that one final mercenary who was really upset about hurting his thumb.
Because, although all of our Slow Horses deserve their stint in Purgatory, they are still very, very good at their jobs. Marcus is amazing in a crisis. Shirley took down five heavily armed men. Louisa, perfect. Even River was useful, and all with what appears to be a broken or sprained ankle.
That siege was intercut with a more domestic setting: the Dunn family home, where Jackson Lamb used Pringles, a very expensive coffee cup, a kitchen knife (omg gaaaarrh), and basic misdirection to take down Hobbs and Sturges. Allison’s sister Sarah (Eliot Salt) helped. Rodney, as mentioned above, did not.
If Rodney’s party bus misadventure is one thing that will stick with me from this season, Sarah’s fate is another. On a mission to avenge her sister’s death, Sarah lost her brother and family friend Sean. Her home was destroyed. And our team just dropped her off at the emergency room, where she’s going to have to explain how she got shot, and possibly that she killed a man. What’s her fate? Will she have to go to prison?
I suppose that’s not the business of Slough House. They are, as we were reminded with Shirley’s near-arrest, not police. It is not their job to prevent or solve crime, coach people through severe trauma, or really do anything other than try not to mess up being spies. But this season had so many sympathetic characters that I’m finding it hard to just accept that Sarah’s story is not the story this show wants to tell.
That’s due to the way villainy is framed here. Sure, Sean and the Dunn family are the obvious villains, at least at first. But the real bad guys are the paramilitaries, which is to say that the real villains are public/private partnerships meant to benefit the wealthy and the powerful at the expense of everyone else. From the Home Secretary (who owns a stake) to Dame Ingrid (who was willing to look the other way), the bureaucrats, elected officials, and millionaires are all happy to support private security that only provides safety to the profiteers at the expense of regular people and basic institutional transparency.
It sounds like something that belongs in the Grey Books, except that it’s real.
Four out of four Gandalf’s hairy balls. RIP, Douglas.
Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)
What an enjoyable review!
ReplyDeleteHaving read all the Slow Horses books I have come to love these characters, warts and all, and the casting of the TV series is masterful.
Also, in a world where female characters are very frequently one note, either brains or beauty or both and superwomen, Catherine and Louisa are refreshingly nuanced (Shirley also becomes more interesting later, and Diana does evil but is not EVUL incarnate or reduced to mere dull "sexy evil"). Catherine and Louisa understand their own flaws in a way that many of the male characters (cough - River, cough - Roddy OH BOY) can't even dream of. But they still can’t escape those flaws, which makes them fallible, even though they are courageous, compassionate, and intelligent (and competent, as you pointed out).
Lamb is, of course, brilliant. In his case, he knows his flaws perfectly but chooses not to escape them. Gary Oldman balances the crudeness and meanness (offering Catherine alcohol constantly!?) so nicely with a genuine sense of care for “his Joes.” I really like the scene in Season 2 when Louisa asks to keep working despite Min’s death. He gives her a little hell (because he’s Lamb) but you can tell he understands how she feels.
River, meanwhile, could easily be a stereotypical boring young male protagonist, but his constant errors of judgment, naive heroism, and sincere desire to do good make him easy to root for. Even when he’s an idiot. Like you, I was delighted when Louisa refused to give him HER gun - go get your own weaponry, River!
They have a nice relationship, though. I love that scene between them when they are waiting in the car before the fireworks of the final act. Misguided as River’s comments are, he does care a lot about Louisa and is trying to show support. The dialogue is perfectly pitched between humor, awkwardness, and honesty. Who hasn’t felt like Louisa in the face of grief, that there is no point in talking?
Speaking of grief, I also felt really bad for poor Sarah at the end. What tragic circumstances for her - she’s lost her whole family as far as we know. I did find it a little unreal that she could strangle a man with just one arm, but he was injured and she was terrified, so I won't complain too much.
Tragedy honorable mention: poor nervous-Nellie Douglas from the facility - if only he’d kept his mouth shut :(
In regard to the kitchen knife, your thoughts echo mine: AUUUUGH! I was cringing in my seat.
Lamb munching a few crisps before depositing them as an alert system was very funny (and totally in character).
I don’t know if you’ve read the books, but it is always interesting to compare with the screen version. In the book, Catherine’s kidnappers stay distant and threatening for quite a bit longer. Also, when they give her a tray of food, they include a bottle of wine, which leads to a fascinating section where she fights herself over what to do with it (spoiler: she pours it down the drain). The cycle of excuses, rationalization, logic, desire, resistance, etc. is so well done. I think it was wise to skip that in the series because portraying such an internal struggle would be challenging and would distract from her growing empathy with Sean and Co, but it’s an interesting example of the different strengths of screen and page.
To be honest, aside from differences that in my opinion improve the show (for example, Catherine’s whole “chess-champion” section from Season 2, which is not in the book, but adds a lot to her character), I have been shocked at how faithful the series has been. You hit the nail with your comment about “emotionally-accurate character moments.” The events may be incredible at times, but the characters feel so human (and so does the humor).
If you get a chance to watch Season 4, I hope you will enjoy it as well!
Anon, thank you so much for your great comment!
ReplyDeleteI will review Season Four soon.
I tried to read the first book and couldn't get into it. I kept picturing the TV show, with the result that I felt like I was reading a novelization of something I'd already watched.
I understand that! It would mess up the suspense a bit to be sure!
DeleteI saw the first television season before I read the first book (liking the characters on-screen made me intrigued to see how close they were to the originals). But I read the other books before watching the next seasons, so I've had both experiences.
It is probably easier to go book-before-show, since the books have many more details and requires a greater time commitment. It is always interesting to see how they condense storylines, change characters, etc. (for example, in the book, Spider isn't the one whom Sean kills and dumps in front of the restaurant, but it makes good sense to fill that role with him considering his connection to other characters).
Season 4 sets up a lot of events in later books - it is dense, but fun. Also, Hugo Weaving is in it (which I was shocked to find out later, as I absolutely didn't recognize him X).
OMG! I've already seen Season Four; I'm just very behind on my reviewing tasks.
DeleteI had literally no idea that was Hugo Weaving. You just blew my mind.