The 'Slow Horses' Season 2 Finale Settles "Old Scores"

After all this international espionage, the high-ranking diplomats, and gruesome assassinations, Slow Horses Season 2’s action has revealed its true motive – petty revenge between two old-timers. Humiliation was on the cards for Jackson, River, and the entire intelligence force. Still, we got to the finish line by the skin of their teeth (a trademark for Slough House) in a finale that clipped along at a killer pace and directly and satisfyingly addressed our outstanding questions. It’s difficult to tell if Season 2 was an overall upgrade from Season 1, but as it stands, these final few episodes did a lot to assure return visits when future seasons arrive.

Two forgotten assets, Jackson Lamb and Nikolai Katinsky, lead a barren, vengeful chess game, with our scant remaining characters placed strategically across the board. As River and Nikolai agree to meet at Niki’s office, Marcus and Louisa are trying to break out of the boardroom Pashkin, and one of his heavies have locked them in. Louisa feigns making a tourniquet for the bleeding Russian goon trapped with them, opting instead for a bit of torture to figure out Pashkin’s plan.

The plan was to drain Nevsky’s funds, confirming what we knew from “Boardroom Politics” – the rich political player was just a pawn for high-ranking Russian political powers. When Louisa and Marcus break out, they discover Pashkin’s other goon dead in a bloody, ransacked room – Pashkin has stolen illegitimately sourced funds (apparently, diamonds) back from Nevsky, obtained using the oligarch’s severed thumb. Nice. It doesn’t stop the fact that Alex is inbound on a plane with a bomb.