Warning: This article contains major spoilers from Season 6, Episode 6 of “Slow Horses”.
Season 6 of “Slow Horses” is over and things may very well never be the same again.
The season 6 finale of the Apple TV series, aptly titled “Judgment Day,” brings things to a brutal, bloody and shocking conclusion. Much of the episode follows River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) and the rest of his Slough House survivors as they fight for their lives against Frank Harkness (Hugo Weaving), his hired mercenaries, and vengeful Russian assassin Jane (MyAnna Buring), who gets casually taken out by Weaving’s Frank as she is about to kill River.
The Slow Horses succeed in protecting endangered witness Reece (Lenny Rush), but not without suffering another heartbreaking loss when Frank mercilessly shoots Emma Flyte (Ruth Bradley) dead in broad daylight after she manages to take out one of his henchmen. Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), meanwhile, convinces right-wing media mogul Damien Cantor (Harry Lloyd) to cancel Frank, before handing him over to the Russians as part of a safeguarding pact struck between Lamb, a scrappy Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas), and Cantor’s Russian handler Natasha (Zrinka Cvitešić).
River lets Frank go and he and the remaining Slow Horses reunite with Lamb in the final minutes of the episode to honor this season’s fallen, namely Flyte and JK Coe (Tom Brooke). River later realizes that Sid (Olivia Cooke) has gotten away from his MI5 pursuers and is waiting for him at his grandfather’s country house. For a moment, it seems like “Slow Horses” Season 6 is going to end on an uncharacteristically romantic and optimistic note.
And then River decides to surprise Sid. Hearing her upstairs, he begins to prepare dinner for her. In doing so, he moves the crowbar that he brought into the house throughout the second episode of the second episode, and which Kyle Soller’s Jim looked at menacingly in “Slow Horses” season 6, episode 3. An instant after touching the crowbar, River’s hand begins to tingle and shake. It’s only seconds later that his entire body convulses, under the effect of the attack of the Russian nerve agent placed on the crowbar by Jim.
In a moment ripped straight from the pages of author Mick Herron’s 2021 novel, “Slough House,” Season 6 of “Slow Horses” ends with an image of River’s body convulsing on the floor, right next to the dinner he and Sid may never be able to share. According to Season 6 head writer Gaby Chiappe, the plan was always to follow Herron’s lead in “Judgment Day.”
“It’s the most extraordinary cliffhanger. It reminded me of reading ‘Game of Thrones’ and thinking, ‘Wait, what? Ned Stark is dead?!?'” Chiappe told TheWrap. “I was so on the edge of my seat that the next novel was coming out so I could find out what happened. It’s a real cliffhanger. We don’t know where it’s going.”
“It’s a really interesting thing that Mick did,” Chiappe added. “It’s kind of like, ‘You know I’m going to kill people. But you think I’m going to kill everyone except Lamb and River. What if I did that to River?’ You don’t know if he’s dead or alive. It felt like real raising the stakes in a really exciting way to do, especially when something is loved and turns out well, which the novels and the series are as well.
Chiappe declined to confirm whether River died at the end of “Slow Horses” Season 6. Cooke also couldn’t talk about his future in “Slow Horses” when TheWrap spoke to him. However, when asked if she would be interested in returning, Cooke was quick to respond.
“Oh yeah. I really love everyone. It’s just glorious to be a part of it. We all laugh a lot,” Cooke said. “When we were filming this season, there was a moment with (Season 6 director) Adam (Randall) where (the characters) were being chased and I was in a car, and I just had this huge smile on my face. He said to me, ‘Olivia! Don’t smile! It’s bad! » I was like, “Oh, shit! » (Laughter) It was just unbridled fun.
Looking back, River and Sid’s poisoned dinner is a fitting way to end what turned out to be the most violent “Slow Horses” season yet. Several important characters met their end this season, not to mention the high number of new and peripheral figures from “Slow Horses” who were also removed from the set during these last six episodes. It’s a marvel — and a testament to the Apple TV series’ unwavering tonal wizardry — that it managed to do all that this year. And deliver the series’ first real romance with River and Sid.
Cooke, for her part, was excited to bring a “really delicious new texture” to the spy thriller this season. “We felt like, as we were working on the arc of their relationship, that it was building up to this crescendo moment where they’re at the airfield (in episode 5) and they kiss,” Cooke said of River and Sid’s slow-burn romance. “It wasn’t scripted. We felt we had to put that in there because we thought, ‘Oh, these two characters deserve it and the audience deserves it too.’ It really felt like a John Hughes moment.
“They’re not good at romance. Sid, I think, has lived a very lonely existence the last four years. I don’t think she’s had any action in a while. River, we’ve seen him try and fail. They’re not Cassanovians!” Cooke observed with a laugh. “They’re very self-conscious about wearing their heart on their sleeve, and that seems scarier to them than the missions they’re doing.”
It was, in fact, River and Sid’s unlikely romance that made Chiappe so excited to be handling the series adaptation of “Slough House.”
“It’s my favorite novel because I love that River and Sid come together in it. It was amazing to be able to be a part of that, to bring that character back and to write for Olivia Cooke, who is so brilliant,” Chiappe explained. “She has so little screen time in Season 1, and she’s so remembered. She’s so charming and so funny and SO “Slow horses”. Bringing her back was just awesome.
Viewers only get a brief glimpse of Sid in the season 6 finale of “Slow Horses.” Cooke did, however, provide some insight into what she believes is going on in her character’s mind while River prepares her doomed, spur-of-the-moment romantic dinner.
“Thinking long-term is perhaps the downfall of a spy, so I think she’s just focused on putting one foot in front of the other,” Cooke muses. “She says, ‘I’m going to go to this house. I’m going to clean myself of all this bullshit. Run a comb through my hair. Put some dinner on the table with a bottle of wine and let’s sit down and have a date. Let’s take all this out and talk.’ (Pause) She probably wants to fuck too. She’s probably excited. All that adrenaline… it’s powerful. (Laughter) »
It is ultimately a cruel injustice that River’s fate remains unknown in the same episode of “Slow Horses” where he chooses to let his mercenary and murderous father live. Frank has now killed – or been responsible for – more deaths at Slough House than any of the show’s other villains. Although many of the show’s survivors seem primarily focused on survival at this point, there is one person who might still be interested in getting revenge on Frank.
Jackson Lamb himself.
The two veteran spies briefly clash midway through season 6 of “Slow Horses.” With that in mind, Frank and Lamb’s Shake Shack showdown, TheWrap asked Oldman ahead of the season premiere if he thought Lamb would prefer to finally take down Weaving’s hitman. The actor paused for a moment before responding.
“I think he would probably like to remove him from the board,” he said. “We don’t really know what Lamb is capable of. We have the (Charles Partner scene) in Season 1. We have these little tastes of what Lamb might have looked like back then. He even says, I think, to River in Season 1, ‘If you don’t want to be around death, then you should just get out of the car right now. You’re going to see a lot more of that.'”
“I think with someone like (Frank), Lamb would rather just take him out of the picture completely,” Oldman concluded. “Slow Horses” fans probably agree with him on this point.
“Slow Horses” Season 6 is now streaming on Apple TV.
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