Bad Tradecraft
As they kiss, they hear a noise coming from the office. They quickly break apart and see a figure standing in the doorway, holding a gun. They freeze in fear as the figure begins to speak. “I am here to take you away from this place, my love. You are safe now.”
The pair head upstairs and are eventually blindsided by a hooded thug. After tumbling down the stairs, Louise takes off his mask to reveal Jed Moody. He’s also very much dead too, with no pulse.
Meanwhile, Cartwright is saved from his predicament by Lamb, who shows up at the hospital and takes him outside. Lamb is not happy about Cartwright calling in Sid’s gunshot wound, and goes on to berate him over his “walkabout” in the ambulance. Right now Sid’s condition is unclear, beyond that she might live.
When Lamb and Cartwright leave, MI5 show up and feed back that the pair are gone. In the car though, Cartwright confronts Lamb about him hiring Sid to watch his work. Lamb bites back and asks about the thug who attacked Sid. MI5 show up to tell Cartwright that Lamb has hired a thug to watch his work, but Cartwright doesn’t believe them and asks about Sid. ..
River Cartwright has come to the conclusion that the man never spoke, which could well hint that the attack was staged to make it seem like he was part of the Sons of Albion. And it worked too, given we know that Jed Moody was the attacker. ..
Naturally, the pair make it back to Slough House. There, they check over Moody’s body. Lamb finds the bug originally planted in his office, along with two mobiles, with one barely used. His sarcasm is wonderfully British here, as Lamb bites back against Cartwright’s quip and eventually meets Diana out by the canals. Diana pulls rank but Lamb reveals Moody’s dead, using the excuse that he forgot to tie his shoelaces.
Diana has set up a big play to take down the Sons of Albion from the inside, with one of her agents working undercover. Unfortunately, Hobden overheard Diana’s big plan and wants Peter, the MP, to reveal everything. Apparently all of this is a false flag operation and the Sons of Albion aren’t actually going to behead Hassan.
That’s a big gamble, and it also depends on a lot of different factors. One of those is Hassan trying to escape. He’s heard rumors that he was able to break open the boards in the basement and dragged upstairs just as he looked close to freedom (save for the vent above of course.)
In exchange for keeping all this a secret, Lamb wants the Standish file, Lamb’s guys covered so they don’t take the heat for Moody’s death and Moody’s body dealt with. Diana agrees.
Peter calls Hobden, revealing what he knows and begging him to help out and blow this operation wide open. Hobden instead gets a fist to the face and told to leave. However, in his absence Peter does make a call. But to who?
Lamb heads back to the Slough crew and rounds them up, deciding they should save Hassan from his fate - as agreed with Diana. Over with the Sons of Albion, Curly (one of the more erratic members of the group) starts to lose his composure. He’s told to settle down and after questioning one of his own men, swings the axe… at Diana’s undercover man. That was definitely not part of the plan! ..
Lamb and his team find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy when they show up to the Sons of Albion’s base. They quickly realize that Hassan, one of the Sons, has been killed and their undercover man is missing. This could be a huge problem for Lamb and his team as they try to figure out what’s going on.
The Episode Review
Slow Horses returns this week with another exciting episode. After learning more about the Sons of Albion and their mission, it becomes clear that the operation was risky and may have backfired. This leaves everything in jeopardy for next week, as Diana is likely to be blamed for the mole’s death and the situation could spiral out of control. Stay tuned to see what happens next! ..
The show has a certain familiarity and the story feels quite run of the mill to other British crime dramas. However, this is still a solid show nonetheless and the ending leaves the door wide open for where next week’s follow-up may go.
