As “Slow Horses” (season 4) races towards its finale with episode 6, the show reveals itself very much to be a Cartwright family saga, for better or worse. It manages to sideline the rest of the Slow Horses other than the central cast, but its choice to withhold answers to the mystery until the final episode is a major swing that works for the most part. It creates a far more soap operatic story, but it never betrays its espionage roots, thus maintaining its sheer consistency.
Slow Horses (Season 4) Finale Episode 6 “Hello, Goodbye” Recap:
Where is River Cartwright being taken to?
The fallout of the blistering attack on the roads of Central London could still be felt, even as we see ambulances having arrived, along with MI5, to control the damage, both physical and informational. As the police arrive, Flyte wakes up, consciousness seeping with the realization of the horror that had just occurred. A call from Taverner wakes her up somewhat. However, the details of the event that occurred (one man killed four dogs and kidnapped Cartwright) are enough to send Taverner, Whelan, and the entire Park into a tailspin.
After all, both Whelan and Taverner are joined at the hip in trying to restrict their complicity in the cold bodies’ debacle, and now this is out of control. Whelan assumes operational control from Taverner and executes a shoot-on-sight order, even for River Cartwright, because he logically wonders whether Cartwright is now on their side.
Meanwhile, Patrice finally brings the boot-imprisoned River Cartwright to a very public place, at a restaurant on the top floor of another mall. There he comes face-to-face finally with his father, Frank Harkness. The conversation between father and son is disconcerting for River, to say the least. While River had figured out that his mother had been at Les Abres way back in episode 2, due to the painting on the wall resembling the postcards she would send him for his seventh, eighth, and ninth birthdays, he wasn’t prepared for the callous acknowledgment by Harkness.
According to Harkness, River’s mother was there for him; the impetus for the relationship was only from her end. For him, she was a means to an end, to secure funds and means. The conversation tended towards peculiar because he is essentially being offered a job by his father, as his father had been reasonably impressed by how Cartwright had evaded three agents at the train station. He, however, believes that River needs to apply counterintuitive thinking: “If someone is pursuing you, stand still.”
River isn’t exactly welcoming of this proposition, but his furtive call to Louisa is caught by Harkness, who lightly berates him for lack of focus before taking the phone away from him and throwing the sim in the beer bottle. An important piece of information that River managed to glean from Harkness is that the bombing by Yves, one of his soldiers, hadn’t been a declaration of war against the West. The fact that it was unplanned was due to Yves declaring war on Harkness.
What key events unfold as the Slough House team faces new challenges?
At Slough House, while Standish brings in David Cartwright and attempts to make him comfortable, Louisa receives the missed call from River and further is kept abreast of the occurrences of the night due to a live-action replay of those events courtesy of Ho. While Louisa would go to Gresham Street to retrace River’s steps (with begrudging assistance from Ho), Marcus, meanwhile, would try to haggle a way to get his gun back. The entire season had shown Marcus walking a tightrope between maintaining his gambling addiction as well as trying to get the weapon back from the gunsmith, who has a pretty informed connection with triads.
Louisa meets up with Flyte, who remembers her from the debacle at Standish’s house and is livid. Louisa ignores it and tries to convince Flyte to either rescind the shoot-to-kill order or call off the dogs, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Lamb manages to get to Chapman’s office and breaks into the now empty room, going through his answering machine to find a message from Moira informing Sam about David back at Slough House, before finally rummaging through the pockets of the now-dead Chapman.
We rarely see Lamb choking with emotion, but we can see the anger bubbling at the surface as Lamb walks out with Chapman’s half bottle of whiskey that he takes a big swig of. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Lamb, Patrice had connected his phone to Chapman’s answering machine, so he too learns about David’s location.
How does River deal with Harkness?
Back at the restaurant, Frank tries to convince River to join him while he moves forward with his plan to kill his grandfather. Unsurprisingly, River refuses. Frank, without even a hitch in his voice, threatens that he wouldn’t hesitate to slit his femoral artery in a public place and walk out, not even worried about killing someone in public. But before he could make good on that threat, River sees a group of dogs entering the lawn of the restaurant.
The rest of the episode would oscillate between two attacks on two locations. On the one hand, Slough House is attacked by Patrice, who, like the titular Terminator, is an unstoppable machine. His stoic figure belies the menace he is carrying, and the best Ho could do is run. Standish and Moira barricade Lamb’s office and try to load the gun in the second drawer, but to no avail because they are understandably panicky older people locked in a room and sitting ducks.
Meanwhile, Harkness walks out of the restaurant holding River at gunpoint as a shield against all the dogs. As typical with the park depicted in “Slow Horses,” the dogs are unaware of which orders to follow and thus are unable to decide whether to point the guns at River or point them away. In the confusion, Harkness, impossibly unflappable, manages to shove a grenade into River’s jumper and walk away. Half comic and half-terrifying scenario in which River and Louisa barely manage to grab the grenade, with Louisa throwing the grenade away in a fountain where it safely explodes underwater.
Louisa, Flyte, and the dogs follow River’s lead as he chases through the station until his racing leads him to realize his father’s advice to think counterintuitively, and he suddenly pauses before walking calmly up to one of the lounge sofas and sitting beside an unflappable Harkness. Harkness, impressed upon River being a quick study, surrenders and tries to congratulate him. But River retorts with, “You put a grenade in my hood. Don’t fucking “son” me,” which is a fair retort.
Who dies fighting against Patrice at Slough House?
Meanwhile, back at Slough House, under siege by Patrice, the new guy Coe tries to slow Patrice down, while Marcus manages to engage in a shootout and try to ensure Shirley is locked safely in Lamb’s office. Meanwhile, Standish and Catherine safely stash Ho and David in the bathroom, while Marcus reassures Shirley that he has got it and walks out again to kill him, only to be shot dead by Patrice. Shirley, unaware of Marcus’ death but realizing Patrice is slowly moving towards the office, prepares herself with Lamb’s gun, finally loaded, pointed, and beginning to fire.
She misses, and as the injured Patrice moves forward with his gun outstretched, he is distracted by an empty bottle of whiskey thrown at the back of his head. Lamb then runs forward and punches him, knocking him sideways, before Shirley strikes him with the butt of the gun and knocks him out. As Lamb and Standish finally drag the injured Patrice to the air conditioner vents and snap the handcuffs, Lamb gets a call from Molly, the librarian, who pretty evidently calls him about the envelopes.
Shirley, enraged by Marcus’ death, moves to kill the handcuffed Patrice in anger but is assuaged by Coe, who reminds her that Marcus would have wanted her to love herself and not go down this path. No such advice for himself though, because he shoots Patrice in the head without even flinching.
Slow Horses (Season 4) Finale Episode 6 “Hello, Goodbye” Ending Explained:
How does Harkness manage to free himself from the clutches of the Park?
At the Park, Taverner believes she would be walking into an interrogation room to peacefully question Frank Harkness, but Harkness, due to his failsafe, believes that he would be set free very soon. Instead, he jokes about how he would approve of River being fired from the Park, or even propositions Flyte to join him if she ever would go freelance.
The next morning, as dawn breaks, Taverner enters the battered Slough House to meet with Lamb, where they check out the envelopes left addressed to all the heads of state. Lamb informs Taverner that if they don’t let Harkness go within the next 12 hours, the contents of these letters would go up on the web, revealing all the details of the wetwork Harkness had been doing on behalf of the Park for years. Harkness’ plan is he would not release that information in exchange for letting his client off his back. Taverner, ever the politician, plans to put that responsibility squarely on Whelan.
One of the rare moments of emotional poignancy we experience from Lamb as well as Taverner is when Taverner wishes him sorry for the loss of one of his employers and soldiers, and when she mentions that he would be getting five years’ worth of salary from the Park, Lamb emphasizes that despite Slough House being a desk job, Marcus had been a field agent, and so he should be getting his salary sent to his family for over ten years at the very least. As Taverner walks off, she asks derisively who would collect Lamb’s money after he is gone, to which Lamb proposes a marriage of convenience with that same sarcastic tenor.
At the Park, Whelan is visited by Moira, who, in no uncertain terms, informs him that she knows about Whelan’s involvement in having her sent to Slough House. She blackmails him by stating that she would reveal his nightly adventures of curb-crawling unless she is reinstated, and Whelan being the slippery sod that he is acquiescing to.
How does River’s story with his grandfather finally end?
River meanwhile finally relents, accepting Louisa’s advice during the first episodes, and finally has his grandfather admitted to an old age home with all the comforts that the Park could supply in that old age home reserved for retired agents. While River knows he is doing this for his own good, he is effectively losing the only family he had, and his heart further breaks because of David’s look of abject betrayal that he feels towards his grandson on account of River having brought him here instead of allowing him to stay at his home on Tunbridge Wells.
The final scene shows River meeting Lamb at a bar, where Lamb hands him a form notifying an account of his movement on the field, signifying an operational bonus. When asked if that is the only reason he had been called to meet, Lamb begrudgingly allows him to order a drink, but only if he gets his own, and they don’t speak a word. The season ends with the two battered agents sharing a drink as the world, filled with foibles and terror, moves on.
