Slow Horses — Episode 2, Work Drinks Review

Why We Are Here

By Mark

We meet the four kidnappers of the teenage Hassan Ahmed, Antonio Aakeel (“ Tomb Raider”, “ Eaten by Lions”): Larry, David Walmsley (“Peterloo”, “The Terror (TV)”), Zeppo, Stephen Walters (“Silent Witness (TV)”, “Shetland (TV)”), Moe, Sam Hazeldine (“ Killers Anonymous”, “The Last Duel”), and Curly, Brian Vernel (“ Dunkirk “, “The Last Kingdom (TV)”), two are soldiers, the other two appear to work on a building site, they call themselves the Sons Of Albion.

The oldest of the four, a soldier who says he’s killed around eight people, goes down to the cellar where they’re keeping Ahmed and tell him that tomorrow morning they’re going to decapitate him in a live video.

Diana Taverner, Kristin Scott Thomas (“ Tomb Raider”, “ Darkest Hour “), is debriefing a bunch of men around a table at MI5 when she receives a phone call and says she needs to meet the Pakistani Ambassador, it doesn’t look like a random kidnapping after all.

River Cartwright, Jack Lowden (“ Fighting with My Family”, “ Dunkirk”), is still missing from Slough House, much to Jackson Lamb’s, Gary Oldman (“ Darkest Hour”, “ Killers Anonymous “), chagrin. Back at Slough House Catherine Standish, Saskia Reeves (“Us (TV)”, “Belgravia (TV)”), has another flashback but this time Lamb is in the house and it’s before her boss dies.

Cartwright goes to see Roddy Ho, Christopher Chung (“Waterloo Road (TV)”, “Secret Santa (Short)”), and wants in on Robert Hobden’s, Paul Hilton (“The Crown (TV)”, “Swansong”), email. Roddy says cash won’t do it this time, Cartwright says he can tell Roddy why he’s at Slough House, thanks to his grandfather.

Roddy agrees but can’t get in though, says Hobden isn’t online, doesn’t use emails. Cartwright doesn’t tell him why he’s in Slough House. Jed Moody, Steve Waddington (“Jamestown (TV)”, “The Imitation Game”), who sits behind Roddy, is missing from Slough House too.

Moody is out meeting Taverner in a clandestine meeting. He tells her he’s bored and he knows things about Lamb, because he’s bugged his office. Taverner gives him a burner phone, tells him to get rid of the bug and she’ll be in touch to do some favours for her.

Curly goes upstairs to the toilet, removes a panel on the bathroom and uses a phone that’s hidden in there, but we don’t see who receives the message.

Cartwright is following Hobden across London whilst, unbeknownst to Cartwright, Sid Baker, Olivia Cooke (“ Naked Singularity”, “ Sound of Metal “), is following him. She joins Cartwright whilst he’s sitting in his car opposite Hobden’s.

She keeps receiving phone calls from ‘Aunt Sadie’ but refusing them. Eventually she takes it and it’s pretty obvious who it is and what she’s doing, but she has to spell it out to Cartwright anyway. Before they can talk about it they see a man entering Hobden’s house and they go in themselves.

A nice, fast-paced episode of Slow Horses. We learn more about the others within Slough House; Struan Loy, Paul Higgins (“Line of Duty (TV)”, “Raised by Wolves (TV)”), has a family but is always trying to get everyone to come out for drinks.

Louisa Guy, Rosalind Eleazar (“ The Personal History of David Copperfield “, “Uncle Vanya”), admits she doesn’t have any friends, though it’s always her excuse to Struan so she doesn’t have to go out for a drink.

Whilst Min Harper, Dustin Demri-Burns (“The Great (TV)”, “Britannia (TV)”), managed to leave some top secret documents on a train which were found by a member of the public.

It seems everyone is following everyone else and keeping tabs on each other and we haven’t even begun on the back stories of some of them. Perhaps this episode was a little light on the dark humour that we’d seen in the first episode but it’s still a good episode.

Originally published at https://www.ocmoviereviews.com.