Slow Horses, Episode 3 — Drinking Games River

A Change In The Ranks

By Mark

We left things in episode two on a bit of a knife edge with Min Harper, Dustin Demri-Burns (“The Great (TV)”, “Britannia (TV)”), with a gun to his head, held their by Russian Piotr Volodin, Zachary Baharov (“Universal Soldier: Regeneration”, “The Way Back”).

We begin episode three with Min, Piotr and his colleague Kyril Asimov, Yerden Telemissov (“Warrior (TV)”, “McMafia (TV)”), sitting around a kitchen table in a shoddy-looking apartment drinking vodka. Min is very much worse for wear but still jumps on his bike to ride home.

River Cartwright, Jack Lowden (“ Fighting with My Family”, “ Dunkirk “), meanwhile is fully immersed in his undercover role as Johnny Walker, a writer for The Times newspaper, doing a piece on village life. He immediately falls in with Kelly, Tamsin Topolski (“Elden Ring”, “Atlanta (TV)”, who works in the bar at the pub he’s staying in.

She takes him up in her plane, as her father owns the local flying club, where River was provided his papers from Jackson Lamb, Gary Oldman (“ Darkest Hour”, “ Killers Anonymous”). River does his best to have a snoop, but it appears that the father Duncan, Adrian Rawlins (“ The Colour Room “, “Baptiste (TV)”), is snooping on him in turn.

It’s in this episode that new boy Marcus Longridge, Kadiff Kirwan (“This Is Going To Hurt (TV)”, “The Stranger (TV)”), gets to step into the limelight a little as he begins working alongside Louisa Guy, Rosalind Eleazar (“ The Personal History of David Copperfield “, “Uncle Vanya”), and the Russians.

Diana Taverner, Kristin Scott Thomas (“ Tomb Raider”, “ Darkest Hour “), meanwhile is pushed by the secretary of state to be the one who sits with him as he heads to make his big speech. She’d sooner not, given there’s a large protest going on at the same time, but he pulls rank and she reluctantly agrees.

Lamb meanwhile begins following Rebecca Mitchell, Emily Bruni (“Intergalactic (TV)”, “Soulmates (TV)”), the woman involved in the accident involving Harper as he was making his way back from his drinking games.

Lamb has a suspicion not is all as it appears and has called on an old colleague to do some digging which turns up some interesting facts about the young woman, particularly her travel arrangements.

We leave this episode in the quiet, leafy countryside as River is invited to dinner by Kelly. However, as he gets off the phone he is introduced to someone who could change his whole time there.

A great episode of Slow Horses with some surprising events unfolding. This season, now that we’re halfway through, feels different from season one in so far as everyone seems to be doing their own thing almost.

At some point, I suspect, everything will come together and we’ll find some, most, maybe all, are linked and intertwined somehow, but for now we must switch between them and wait for that to happen.

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