Slow Horses season 4 episode 2 catches us up on what really happened with the shooting at the Cartwrights. Shortly after David (Jonathan Pryce) kills the fake River, the real River (Jack Lowden) arrives at the house. He finds his grandfather in the bathroom, confused if this River is real or an imposter. To solve this, River has him ask something only the real River would know. David asks what he and his KGB counterpart did when they met in Berlin in 1982. When River answers they got into a snowball fight, David knows this is his grandson.
David explains he thought it was River initially, but when he called him "gramps" he got suspicious. When the imposter lunged at him, David shot him. It's a good thing he did, because River finds drugs on the body, figuring they were going to knock David out and kill him. River also finds a return train ticket to France, a receipt from a cafe called Le Blanc Russe in Lavande and a passport with the name Adam Lockhead.
All of this flusters David, so he hits his panic button, which puts them on the clock. If David talks to the police, River worries he'll be taken away. David has an outburst, yelling at River not to speak to him that way because he's his father. That slip-up convinces David that River is right. River says they need to get somewhere safe, but first, he leaves behind his phone and wallet to make it look like it's really him, then shoots the imposter in the face to obscure the body (promptly puking after seeing the result).
Digging into the Park's past
At the Park, Giti Rahman (Kiran Sonia Sawar) reports to Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) that Robert Winters' passport appears to have been issued by the agency 28 years ago; was Winters one of their agents? After confirming this was brought straight to her, Taverner arranges for Flyte (Ruth Bradley) to take Giti to a safe location so they can dig up everything they need to on Winters (in reality isolate her).
Lamb (Gary Oldman) is also trying to comb through the past. Once Standish (Saskia Reeves) confirms River is headed to France, the Slough House head tries to get some answers out of David. But David is confused, and despite Lamb thinking it's all an act, he isn't able to get a clear answer out of him. He'll have to find out what the connection is between David and France on his own.
River's trip to France
River arrives in Lavande, but the town is practically deserted. He is able to find Le Blanc Russe, where he asks the bartender if someone who looked like him came in a few days ago. The bartender says yes, telling River the man lived just a little bit out of town in a place called Les Arbres.
River immediately heads in that direction. However, someone is now watching him. A man in a truck talks to someone on his phone, confirming that "it's him."
A spy's job
Despite their different styles, Lamb and Taverner have always been two pros of the spy game. We're reminded of both of those things in this episode.
With Taverner, she patiently sits as Whelan (James Callis) talks about how the Park needs to be more transparent and install a culture change. Taverner dances around whether or not she agrees with him, noting they are at a heightened threat level at the moment. She does have some housekeeping for him though, having him sign condolence letters for the agents who died in the apartment bombing.
Later, Taverner checks in on Giti, telling her there must have been a glitch: the Park created a fake ID for Robert Winter, not Robert Winters, 30 years ago, telling her the bomber has nothing to do with the Park. However, as she tells Giti this, she is destroying all evidence related to the ID in the archive.
Taverner then has another meeting with Whelan, this time on a bus, away from the eyes and ears of the Park. She tells him Robert Winters was actually the Park's fake ID (or cold body, as she puts it), but she's deleted all records of him. Whelan is upset she didn't tell him sooner so he could take it to the Prime Minister and begin an inquiry. That's exactly why she didn't tell him.
When Whelan insists they divulge this, Taverner pulls out a trump card: Whelan authorized the sequestering of Giti (the documents she said were condolence letters). Whelan didn't read the document, but he's now complicit in the act. Whelan thinks Taverner is doing this out of revenge for him getting First Desk. She rebuts she didn't apply for the job, yet she is still doing the key bits, pointing out the job isn't "big picture," as he puts it, it's putting out fires every day.
At Slough House, Lamb chastises Roddy (Christopher Chung) for stealing River's computer, telling him River isn't dead. The whole team is confused. Only JK (Tom Brooke), saying something for the first time, realizes Lamb never said River was dead. As to why he strung them along, and devastated Louisa (Rosalind Eleazar), Lamb says River is a Joe in the field, and you never blow a Joe's cover (he particularly emphasizes this for JK). Louisa asks how they can help River? Nothing, Lamb says, just let him retrace the assassin's steps in France. "France is big," Marcus (Kadiff Kirwan) astutely points out.
But Lamb and Taverner aren't the only spies doing their job. A delivery guy (Tom Woznickza) with a French accent arrives at the Cartwright house. He asks the police what happened? They let slip a young man died. As he leaves, the Frenchman discreetly places a camera in the stonewall. Once in the car he calls someone, a bearded man whose face we don't see, and tells him David is still alive and either River or Bertrand (the imposter) was killed instead. The bearded man knows that Betrand's passport was used to get into the country, so he'll wait to see who shows up, but the Frenchman should get to his next target: an old employee of David's (Lamb?).
Office gossip
A few Slough House things to note in this episode. Shirley spots Marcus has a gun in his bag, somehow inferring this means he's gambling again. Marcus eventually admits he's planning to sell the gun on the street to get money for a bet on a sure thing, then pay his debts and buy the gun back before anyone can do something bad with it. Noting the desperate nature of this, Shirley says Marcus should have come to her as a friend. Though, can she give him £10,000 to keep him from losing his house and wife?
Elsewhere, Lamb finally meets Moira (Joanna Scanlan), who has cleaned Lamb's office (much to his dismay). He takes her to lunch where he pokes a hole in her sunny disposition about being at Slough House by reminding her only two types of people end up there: screw-ups and those that have pissed someone off. He doesn't think she is a screw-up, so he offers her a deal: use her connections still at the Park to get info on when and why David was ever in France during his career and he'll get her back to the Park. She agrees.
Les Arbres
River arrives at Les Arbres, an abandoned-looking estate with weaponry and bullet casings lying about in the yard. When River feels the kettle is still warm in the house, he realizes he is not alone. He searches the house, taking a special note of a mural of a valley and animals before eventually finding a picture of a group of men, one of which is Robert Winters.
River then realizes a fire has started downstairs. As he tries to make his way out he is hit in the back of the head by the bearded man (played by Hugo Weaving). They fight, but the bearded man is scared off when the Frenchmen that was tracking River comes in with a shotgun. He grabs River, takes him out of the house and puts him in a van. River tries to thank him, but is quickly knocked out with the butt of the shotgun and driven off the property to who knows where.
New episodes of Slow Horses premiere Tuesdays exclusively on Apple TV Plus.
