Slow Horses (Season 2) Episodes 3 & 4: With the sharp, witty British humor, ‘Slow Horses’ continues to be a rewarding experience with its new outing. While the first season introduced the viewers to its laidback approach, the second season seems assured about this manner of storytelling. While being consistently hilarious, this British series is just as riveting as any other high-octene action drama, even if it showcases the mundane details of the characters’ lives. And your project is bound to make a strong impact when you have hard hitters such as Gary Oldman & Kristin Scott Thomas in the cast.
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Slow Horses (Season 2) Episodes 3 & 4 Recap
Episode 3: Drinking Games
The previous episode ends with a gun put at Min’s (Dustin Demri-Burns) head and being told that he is being taken away. When the blindfold is removed, he sees Piotr and Kyril, with whom he had spoken before, and has a couple of drinks with them. They make him drink a couple of vodka shots while staying sober. Afterward, Piotr takes him back by his bicycle and practically escorts him. Meanwhile, River (Jack Lowden) goes to Upshott to get intel, as Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) ordered him to.
Bespectacled River goes to a bar and asks for a room while introducing himself as Johnathan. He goes undercover while mentioning himself as a journalist for The Times, writing an article about village life. Kelly (Tamsin Topolski) from the pub takes him to his room and gives him a basic introduction to the village. Back in slough’s house, Standish (Saskia Reeves) figures out that Lamb has sent River to Upshott to learn who Dickie’s murderer is. Lamb has gathered the knowledge that Chernitsky is behind it, whose profile in their files is fairly patchy.
Hearing him blabber, she realizes that River has been sent to the killer’s den without any helping hand from Lamb. That’s when he gets a call telling him about one of his agents getting murdered. It turns out it is Harper who got hit by a car. The woman who was driving this car sat nearby, shaken by the incident. Louisa (Rosalind Eleazar) gets worried, thinking that Harper’s death is her fault since they argued right before he went out to meet his son.
Later at night in Upshott, Kelly’s father – Duncan (Adrian Rawlins), walks past the hotel and speaks about Jonathan, aka River. He is unsure about his identity as a journalist. The following day, he plans to go out and wander around the town to get more information. But Kelly invites herself for a walk with him. While walking through the peaceful streets of this village on their own, the topic of her father comes up when she mentions him being the owner of a local flying club. After a job in the city, her father came here and made his hobby of flying into his profession.
Meanwhile, Lamb gives Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung) Harper’s smartwatch in the slough house to hack it and know the places he went to in the 24 hours before he got killed. Louisa comes back to the slough house and has a conversation with Lamb about Harper’s death. She feels it to be the case of drunken driving. She asks Lamb to vouch for her with Webb (Freddie Fox), but he does not see the point since he has no relation to the task assigned by the young fella. Instead of wallowing in sadness, she mentions her wish to get back to work, as Lamb has always done after any tragedy in his life.
Meanwhile, Webb informs Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) in the headquarters about Harper’s death while working on a task he assigned. He mentions it is by accident, thus nothing serious, and asks for his replacement. While he wants it to be the slough house, she denies doing so since he already asked Harper and Louisa right under Lamb’s nose. In Upshott, Kelly takes River to their flying club and, before going on board, tells him to keep his phone, keys, and wallet back so they won’t fall out. After an adventurous ride with this skilled pilot, he comes to the ground and sees a car drive back from where they landed. When he asks about it, she mentions it is her father.
Lamb goes to a laundromat and meets an old associate to gather intel about the woman who hit Harper with her car. The man gives him a file that shows her identity – Rebecca Mitchell (Emily Bruni) and notes about her meeting with some people from Moscow. While Roddy and Shirley (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) have their usual arguments, Kadiff Kirwan (Marcus Longridge) walks into their room. He speaks about finishing a task assigned by Lamb and informs them about Arkady Pushkin (Alec Utgoff), about whom he cannot find much information.
While Lamb follows Rebecca around the city, he gets a call from River to inform his suspicion that Duncan is keeping an eye on him. Kadiff and Louisa go to a hotel to meet Piotr and Kyril. The two take these officers to another tower to meet Pushkin. He mentions going through jetlag and eating food in front of them. He says he works for Mr. Nevsky and is responsible for seeing that he walks in and out unobserved.
While an anti-capitalistic protest is going on in London, the minister still decides to go along with his speech in a shrine of capitalism in the city. Taverner gets roped in instead of Duffy and is required to put on a happy face out of obligation. River goes to Kelly’s house for a meal with her family. Her mother, Alex (Catherine McCormack), invites him in and offers him a drink. He goes to the garage to find tonic water and finds Duncan. Kelly pops in by that time, and they start having food with drinks.
River tries to gather more information about Duncan’s past, his beliefs, and his politics in general. Duncan stays defensive about sharing even the smallest detail. Meanwhile, Rebecca returns home, locks her door, and gets shocked to see Lamb sitting there after walking in. He keeps asking her how she hit Harper, and she repeats the rehearsed answer to him. He mentions that he understands that she is not safe but assures her safety if she shares the truth. He goes through her bag to find an envelope full of cash. She only mentions that she wasn’t driving the car and that he wasn’t killed by getting hit by a car.
Roddy is given a task to look at the security footage, and while he gets bored, Shirley is persistent and finds Andre Chernitsky (Marek Vasut) they were told to look for. Then she discovers that he never left for Estonia. Standish walks in, learns about this intel, and discovers that Chernitsky is still in the country. Around the same time, a guest comes in to meet the Troopers. The River gets a call from Standish, who informs Chernitsky still being in the UK, which is right when he (Chernitsky) walks into their house and introduces himself as Leo.
Episode 4: Cicada
Rebecca narrates the actual incident that happened with Harper, where she was told to drive her car to a car park and to get out. She saw Harper with two guys (Piotr and Kyril). This is right when Piotr is escorting on his bike when she mentions Kyril choked him. Right after her car hit him and his bicycle, Chernitsky came out of the car and dragged him away. She shares this piece of information, and then Lamb decides to leave. She gets a contact number from Lamb for her safety. He also mentions an elaborate plan so that she can change her identity with the help of it. However, upon calling, she learns that it is just the contact number of a nearby food joint!
While spooked by the big reveal from Standish, River still tries to stay committed to Jonathan’s role and gain more information from Duncan and Leo/ Chernitsky. Meanwhile, Louisa walks into a bar with a cutter in her purse, hoping to have drinks with Pushkin and speak with him. She suspects him to have murdered Min and wants to get some intel from him. On the other hand, Lamb walks into a place hoping to find Nevsky and learns that it is just a decoy location, making him not know the real one. In the house, he gets a message on the phone from this place from Nikky, and while having a conversation with him, Lamb tries to find him but fails in doing so.
Back in the slough house, he mentions to Standish that under Nevsky’s orders, Chernitsky murdered Harper with something on his hand that can kill a person with a touch. Louisa has a casual conversation with Pushkin, opening up about her not wanting to die like her partner – Min. She looks into Pushkin’s eyes to locate a trace of guilt while he presents himself clueless about Min’s murder. He then asks Roddy to bring the names of locations where Harper stopped during his bicycle journey 24 hours before getting killed.
During the dinner at the Troopers’, Chernitsky keeps mentioning having seen River’s face somewhere before, and River does not let his cover get blown despite this Russian’s constant attempts. While Chernitsky leaves, River decides to follow him. Meanwhile, Lamb goes to an import & export office and asks the manager about a parcel that was picked up by two Russians and then learns that it is a small item with no details. He then calls Shirley and asks her to meet at Nevsky’s place.
River calls Roddy and tells him to track the service phone on Chernitsky to help him (River) follow him. Meanwhile, Standish finds a document under the name of Krymov and decides to get the intel by herself by erasing his signature on it and meeting him to procure it. Meanwhile, Lamb and Shirley reach Nevsky’s place in his car and walk right inside when they see the door open. While looking around in this huge mansion, they find his bloodied dead body, adding to which he shot himself to save himself from the agony of a long and painful death.
While by then, they thought Pashkin worked for Nevsky, Lamb figured out that the hierarchy differed from what they believed. He has a suspicion that Pashkin’s men killed Nevsky. Standish meets Kramov at a bar and, in a tradeoff of information, shares a personal detail of hers related to alcohol but gets only a minor detail about Pashkin. He then also insults her for not being experienced enough to do such deals with someone.
Slow Horses (Season 2) Episode 4 Ending Explained
Louisa goes up to Pashkin’s hotel room with her bag, hoping to kill him. Kadiff stops her at just the right moment and has a discussion about the impulsiveness of her actions. He calls Lamb, who orders him to keep an eye on her for fear that she might do something like this. She takes his phone, speaks directly with Lamb, and mentions her suspicion that Pushkin killed Min. Lamb says that Puskin did not kill Min, but he seems to be the person who ordered the kill. He calls her to go on a meeting with Puskin and to stand down.
While following Chernitsky, River, along with Kaminsky, reaches the place where he is. He points a gun at them when Alex Trooper walks in from the back. She mentions them to be planning a surprise. He keeps mentioning Duncan as a sleeper agent for the Russians, and despite her constant perusal to make him think otherwise, he does not let go of his deduction. She then comes close to him, lasers him, and speaks with Chernitsky and Kaminsky in Russian once he falls down. The episode ends with them mentioning that they will now ready the plane and keep him outside.
While the episode sheds light on Pashkin being the probable mastermind behind the operation, Alex’s relation to all these Russians is also an intriguing segue that this episode leads. River seems not to mess up as Lamb always assumes he would. While he is in his element, Shirley seems to be a strong contender behind the computers and on the field.
Next Episode (23rd Dec) >>
Slow Horses (Season 2) Episodes 3 & 4 Links: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes
Slow Horses (Season 2) Episodes 3 & 4 Cast: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jack Lowden, Saskia Reeves, Rosalind Eleazar
Where to watch Slow Horses (Season 2)
