Slow Horses: Season Four Review

"You want me to do it out of the goodness of my heart?"

This review spoils everything.

Every Slow Horses season has its own plot, and thus its own vibe, but this season's focus on personal relationships threw me for a loop that I wasn't expecting.

Specifically: River. Normally, River suffers from main character syndrome. He inserts himself into external events, convinced only he can save the world; or he is inserted into events by wilier folks who see him as a useful idiot. In this season, though, River actually is the point. As is his grandfather David Cartright, and, surprisingly, River's own father, Frank Harkness (played by Hugo Weaving).

The attempt on David Cartright's life is the inciting event, but the big reveal doesn't come until nearly the end of the season, when Frank Harkness and River sit down for a drink and both acknowledge their relationship. Frank's known all along; River figured it out after visiting Les Arbes, the rundown mansion in the surliest town in France where Frank sired, raised, and trained a little army of very maladjusted young men.

I don't remember when I first figured out the connection between them; it was certainly after River did. His separation from the team for so much of the season meant we got very little access to his thinking, which is another distinction between this season and the others. But I also didn't think I needed to puzzle anything out—with Slow Horses, I'm always happy to just go along for the ride.

In places, though, it was a rough ride. As Louisa said, River's family is a "car crash." Back in the early 1990s, David Cartright paid Harkness in weapons and fake IDs to get his pregnant daughter back; that's how River wound up raised by his grandfather. Frank, meanwhile, is just a sociopathic freakazoid. He's always got another card to play, another way to mastermind his way out of a situation. But he's just terrifying, especially because we've seen how badly he raised all of his poor sons. (Watching David Cartright struggle with dementia wasn't easy, either.)

All of that family drama was foregrounded against the usual spyjinks, although this season had a decidedly masculine flair. The new First Desk at MI-5 is Claude Whelan, played by the always-fun James Callis. I will always think of him as Dr. Gaius Baltar from BSG, and his Slow Horses character isn't very different: Claude Whelan is the kind of administrator who knows everyone's names and nothing else.

Jackson Lamb, on the other hand... well, I mean, he's still Jackson Lamb. But the final scene, where he and River sat silently in the bar together, was about as close as we'll ever get to kindness from Lamb, and it was clear River appreciated it. In a season that leaned heavily into the "bad fathers everywhere" approach to narrative, Lamb's little moment of compassion stood out.

Aside from Flyte, the new Head Dog, most of the other secondary characters with arcs of their own were male. Newbie Coe clearly has some issues—and possibly even had them before he experienced trauma. Marcus, who has always delighted me, died in a heroic attempt to save everyone, and that breaks my heart for him, for his family, and for Shirley. "Scratch and Sniff" no more.

The emphasis on the manliness in this season is not a complaint (although I did, as always, wish we got more Louisa). I think it makes the season cohere: you can see this as a set of questions and answers about how to be an adult given the persistent failure of authority figures, and the persistent failures of systems and structures (lol that Flyte thought MI-5 would be less corrupt and petty than her previous job). In this season, this show suggests that the best we can hope for is getting through. We're all like River being endlessly chased by a very angry, very fast French chien.

All of that sounds a bit dour, and I don't mean it to. As with every other season of Slow Horses, I got completely caught up in it. I love the character interactions, the way they play off of each other, and how even the smartest person in the room (usually Lamb) can be surprised by how things happen. This is a great show. No complaints. Just, I suppose, a slightly maudlin awareness of how much I'll miss Marcus and how difficult dementia can be for everyone.

The next season, I hope, will at least give us a bit more camaraderie to temper all of the depressing reality. And while Frank Harkness was a great character, I'm not sure I need to see him return any time soon. He's too powerful.

Four out of four tea kettles.

Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)

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