“Slow Horses” Conclusion: A Destabilization Strategy

Before this fifth season brought him closer to the center of the action, Rudy was undoubtedly a misfit among the bugs at Slough House, an office jockey holding court on his computer, issuing Snide Japes to anyone within earshot. He appeared to be a one-man Stater and Waldorf, tolerated mainly for his ability to access CCTV footage and occasionally hack into sensitive databases. He was particularly antisocial and antisocial in this area, but the depth of his narcissism and stupidity remained under wraps, most likely because he was far from the VIP list. He was a cushion and a keeper for writers to sit on when they needed comic relief.

And as the fulcrum of the entire terrorist plot this season, Rudy’s character has done a lot to establish the tone, which is more effective than usual, despite setting off the carnage that is certainly the most horrific sequence the show has done yet. And although this week’s episode moves forward with the pop sickness, especially the “lockdown” scenes at Slough House, Roddy became a cartoon of arrogance who was giving up feeling a bit out of sorts with the rest of the cast. Granted, he’s not an agent at Slough House nor is he kept to the same level of competence (or semi-competence) in the field, as he’s really as useful as Savant is to the office’s annoying technology. But his behavior during his interrogation with the bar edges too far into inept.

At the end of the last episode, Rhodey is drawn in by Regent’s Park for his connection to a string of terrorist activity across the city, while Fleet and a team of other agents keep the rest of the Slough House Under gang in check. Roddy is thrown into Interrogation Room 8, aptly named ‘The Fright Cube’, but if he is ever up to the steely confinement games, he is determined not to give his captors the pleasure of seeing him. On the contrary, he bounces around the cage like an embarrassed zoo animal, displaying a macho performance of resistance to his invisible audience of creeping agents. He acts like he’s the main character of one of his favorite action movies. “No prison has been built that can hold me,” he says. “The only prison I fear is the prison of the mind, and I came out of those years.” And when Taverner finally enters the room, he mimics Anthony Hopkins in… Silence of the Lambs: “Hi, Clarice.”

The core of Taverner’s questions are compelling because they link him to the invisible community, the Incel community that never produced the Abbotsfield Shooter and are supposedly angry, lonely, violent young men. It’s an offshoot of his insistence that his relationship with Tara is authentic, because he clearly doesn’t fit the pattern: “You’re not a Lothario,” Taverner tells him flatly. “You are not James Bond. Your relationship history consists of a series of extremely awkward, prematurely ended encounters followed by periods of intense neediness and borderline harassment until you are blocked.” Kristin Scott Thomas, an actress who disdainfully cuts with the bloodlust of a Xenomorph, doesn’t want to waste time on Rudy’s romantic delusion. The situation is very urgent.

However, the revelation she comes out with at the end is so startling that it begs credibility. Rhodey doesn’t seem to think of anything relevant or connected to Tara until he remembers the time he demonstrated by hacking into the MI5 database and then leaving her alone in the room for 20 seconds to pick up pizza. These are relevant details, Rudy! People often lie to themselves to hide painful truths, like, for example, believing the woman everyone thinks is cheating on you is actually in love with you. But to treat sensitive information like this, in front of someone who is now suspected of helping a terrorist group, is a bit ridiculous.

It’s also a massive security breach that widens the competency gap between Rhodey and his sidekicks at Slough House, who are usually flawed to the point of underestimation. With Flyte and her team, led by Stern Devon Welles (Cherelle Skeete), tasked with keeping Slough House under wraps, it’s up to Lamb and company to figure out how to get themselves out of the park’s confinement. There’s a comically failed effort by River to use his soon-to-be phone to keep Shirley in the field. But when he is struck dead at his desk, Lamb resorts to his trusty weapon, his unholy flatulence, to hatch an escape plan.

After Lamb returns from the gas on his way to an escorted trip to the bathroom downstairs, two important developments occur in short succession. Still listening to podcasts under his hoodie, the COE offers a sound working theory that sinister forces are enacting a step-by-step “destabilization strategy” that began with the Abbotsfield incident and has continued with other destabilizing acts, such as several car engines exploding from spilled fuel on the streets of London or the bombing attack on Zoo Penguins. The next step, Coe suggests, is a political assassination, which now puts both mayoral candidates in danger. With that threat in the air, Lamb loads the court with a story about her boyfriend’s tragic interrogation session under the Stasi, a tale so riveting that he is able to dismantle his captors and mount his people into a coordinated rebellion against Welles and the other agents in the room. He works to such perfection that Lamb offers them a rare and exhausting compliment: “It was a lot of attention for once.”

With the Slough House team now freed to confront the next step in the terrorist’s plot, Slow horses Heading into the back half with a lot of strong momentum. Rudy aside, the layout itself was as confident and fragile as ever, and the rivalry between Slough House and the park seemed to be wandering out into the open once again. And with Roddy Under Wraps, the park has its resident wacky, Claude Whelan, ready to step into the spotlight.

“I don’t understand. Why are all these burned out cars still on the road?” It’s funny that Whelan, the first desk officer in the park, had to explain everything to him as if he were six years old.

• Shirley to Lamb after I let a particularly virulent fart fill the room: “It’s as if you’ve got the grave of poverty in the asshole.”

• Rudy tries to convince the bar during interrogation: “I have a lot NOM DE GUERRE: Clint Wolfe, Dragon Slayer, human tripod, true king of Gondor. Sometimes, Ice Monroe. “

• Although the show refers to Gimball and his wife as right-wing agitators, there’s plenty of equal-opportunity mockery of Mayor Jaffray, who shows up at every event with canned political language and “Make Londerful Again” good-guys. That Tamper Fuel turns out to be Jaffrey’s son is a great development, not least because it’s an example of a spiteful child taking climate action whose father lacks the will to address it. “Plastic politician,” the child calls him.