Wow. Slow Horses may already be in its fifth season, but it’s still as sharp, unpredictable, and wickedly funny as ever. The tension has reached new heights, with betrayals, reckonings, and a death so absurd it’s shocking even by Slough House standards.

There’s a destabilization plan unfolding across London, but no one—not even Jackson Lamb—has quite figured out who’s pulling the strings. Multiple attacks have shaken the city, and MI5 suspects the next step will be the assassination of a populist political leader. With the mayoral elections days away, both candidates, Zafar Jaffrey and Dennis Gimball, are under threat.

Roddy Ho, the loyal fool

The episode opens with Roddy Ho being interrogated at Regent’s Park, now under Emma Flyte’s command. She’s been brought in to play the “good cop,” hoping to coax him into helping MI5 locate his girlfriend, Tara, who’s suspected of being part of the terrorist group. After Tara leaves a voicemail apologizing and claiming she didn’t realize how serious things were, Flyte tells Roddy a manipulative story about once falling in love on an undercover mission—hoping he’ll buy the emotional angle.

Roddy does make the call, pretending to cooperate. But, in true Roddy fashion, he sabotages the operation by warning Tara to run before the two-minute trace window is up. What he doesn’t know: technology has evolved, and MI5 can now trace calls in thirty seconds. Tara’s location is revealed anyway.

By the time Flyte and her team arrive at her hideout, Lamb has already beaten them there. He found the flat through old-fashioned fieldwork—staking out the fake address Tara had given Roddy and discovering the real apartment opposite it. When Flyte arrives, Lamb informs her that Tara is on her way to Roddy’s place. Sure enough, Tara is arrested after a short chase, brought down by Lamb himself.

While the interrogation drags on, Lamb manages to reach the young woman’s apartment first. He waits for Flyte, warning her: “Tara’s incompetent.” That’s exactly why he’s sure she’s hiding at Roddy’s place — and, once again, he’s right. Tara tries to run, but Lamb stops her, and she’s taken in for questioning. Lamb insists on being part of the interrogation, something Flyte initially refuses, until Lamb threatens to expose her team’s incompetence to Diana.

Whelan’s scandal—and his revenge

Meanwhile, Claude Whelan receives an email that could ruin him: Dodie Gimball plans to publish compromising photos of him with a sex worker from a Copenhagen trip. Rather than panic, Whelan digs into MI5’s classified archives and uncovers a bombshell.

Dennis Gimball, the anti-immigration, family-values politician, turns out to be the son of an illegal Turkish immigrant. His father, Yusuf Özil, served prison time before Dennis was adopted and reinvented as a right-wing poster boy. The irony would be delicious if it weren’t so grotesque. Whelan confronts the Gimballs at home, threatening to leak everything unless they kill the story.

It works—sort of. Dodie is horrified to learn her husband’s true origins, given her long history of racist articles. But Dennis secretly records the entire exchange, leaving Whelan vulnerable to yet another scandal. In Slow Horses fashion, no one wins—only loses a little slower.

Two rallies, two disasters

With both candidates holding rallies on the same night, the Slough House agents are split up.
At Zafar Jaffrey’s event, Shirley and Catherine Standish spot a man in combat boots—Farouk, leader of the Libyan terrorist cell behind the recent attacks. Shirley tails him, and Catherine realizes too late that he’s assembling a sniper rifle on a balcony. She hurls a bottle to cause a distraction, saving Jaffrey’s life but failing to capture the shooter. Shirley narrowly escapes being run down by a white van—a grim reminder that the threat is far from over.

Meanwhile, at Dennis Gimball’s rally, River and JK Coe are on edge, expecting an assassination attempt that never comes. Instead, chaos erupts when Tyson, Jaffrey’s chief of staff, confronts Gimball privately, begging him not to exploit Jaffrey’s son’s eco-crime scandal for political gain. Gimball responds with racist insults; Tyson punches him; River intervenes.

Then, in pure Slow Horses absurdity, Coe accidentally knocks over a can of paint that plummets from the scaffolding—landing squarely on Gimball’s head. Instant death. The agents look at each other, speechless, and then quietly walk away. And if that weren’t shocking enough, without calling for help.

Aftermath

Lamb was right again: chaos reigns, and someone wanted both leaders neutralized—one saved, one dead. But who’s orchestrating the attacks remains unclear.

London is reeling, the Slough House agents have literally dropped a body in the middle of it, and Jackson Lamb is about to face the bureaucratic nightmare of explaining it all. Somehow, you just know he’ll do it with a cigarette, a sigh, and an insult.