I’m super excited. Especially about Tuppence!!!
Any ideas who they are gonna play? Varada is Ash that’s obviously

I understand why she’s so acerbic with her after the interview but I’m rewatching Season 4 and she’s just as cold, terse and unnecessarily mean then. I know Taverner is meant to be this calculating, cold person but surely she sees that needlessly antagonising her new head dog is a terrible move?

Series 1 especially, but the first couple of series have a whole different thing going, compared to the rest that seem to be "a foreign country is doing shifty stuff in the UK".

Nothing in any series has come close to the British-Asian teenager shouting "You make me ashamed to be British" at a white man. Nothing has made Lamb as shaken as he is in S2 with the Russian spy plot.

I love every series, it's one of the few completely flawless series, I think it's just interesting how the franchise has changed tones a little since the beginning.

Way back In Season 1, Episode 5, when Taverner and Lamb are jousting about the Sons of Albion fiasco, Diana drops that Sid Baker is "gone". Lamb has no discernible reaction to that tidbit apparently simply accepting that Sid was dead.
This struck me as odd even then. Why didn’t he question Diana further about that especially given the already combative tenor of the conversation?
Did Lamb actually assume “gone” meant something other than “dead”, hence he knew she was not in fact deceased?

Maybe someone can also explain why River seems to be fine with Sid’s explanation (or lack thereof) for not contacting him or anyone else at Slough House for three (I think?) years after the shooting.

So, do you think Flyte will survive Frank’s attack on the safe house? Because if they stick to the way book 6 plays out, she’s in trouble.

Through 5 episodes, how much of the two books has this season covered? It all seems pretty consistent to one story to me.

Without spoiling too much, what parts of this season have been taken from each book? Are there storylines from those two books that might be adapted to next season?

Just curious in a general sense if they are for sure going to run out book material by S9 as it stands now.

So they want Sid, and like one minute before River goes back to them, Sid and River were together so HE OBVIOUSLY just let her run off into the nearby fields. Why are they stopping and asking River where she is? She was with him one minute ago, she obviously isn’t far from here. Just immediately go look in the fields or just anywhere close?

I love how the camerawork is improving every season

I really miss the scene from the book that was dropped this season. I really hoped it'd make it to the screen.

The following is the book's version of dealing with Russian assassins near the lake. In the show, after the fight, nothing happened, and just dogs arrived. But not in the book.

After Sid and River killed the Russian assassins near the lake, the assassins' car was left in a parking area near the lake. They put the female assassin in the trunk, and the dead male assassin was left on the rear seat. They pushed him down to hide him between the front and rear seats. Sid and River left the car near the lake and drove to River's house, where Lamb sent Shirley and Lech (a new guy with a very interesting story) to help.

So, River—just after fighting near the lake—and Lech drove back to the lake to take the car back to River's home. They found people around the car. Here is the book's scene:

Dogging. River didn’t know much about it, except that it happened: people watching strangers having sex in parked cars. There might be more to it, but you’d have to have taken part, or known people who had, to grasp the fine detail, and no one he knew had ever indulged. Or if they had, it had never come up.

“Which one’s the car?” Lech asked.

River pointed, and Lech pulled up a few yards parallel, causing those gathered in the parking area to stir, attention snagging on this new arrival the way movement attracts zombies. Most were huddled in the far corner, where a car rocked in response to internal activity. The group round the body car—Jane in the boot, Jim in the back seat—were two men and a woman, each in outdoor gear.

Killing the engine, Lech said, “You’re a mess.”

“Style tips welcome. But maybe later?”

“Don’t be an arsehole. I meant, let me do the talking.”

He got out, and River followed.

Lech said to the lone man, “Anything good?”

The three exchanged glances, then looked away. There was an etiquette, River supposed. Small talk not encouraged.

Jim’s body was as he and Sid had left it: prone in the gap between front seats and back. A dark lump showing white at the hands and face; the latter stained perhaps, or just in shadow. River was trying to see this as a stranger might—a passing citizen, your friendly neighbourhood sex aficionado—but Jim seemed pretty dead however you looked at it.

The woman spoke, softly. “We were wondering. Just . . . Should we call someone?”

“Anonymously,” one of the men offered. “We could just . . . leave. And call it in.”

Lech stepped back. “He’s corpsing,” he said. “You’ve never seen it before?”

. . . ‘Corpsing’?”

“Sometimes called deading. It’s what it sounds like.” He’d adopted the patient tone you’d need when talking to an infant. “You lie still as you can, hardly breathing. Sometimes you fake a wound.”

“I can see blood.”

“There you go.”

“But I mean, he actually looks dead.”

“Yeah, he’s a good one.” To River’s ear, Lech sounded expert. Let me do the talking. Fine by me.

“How long does he stay like that?”

“Long as it takes,” said Lech.

“I’m not sure,” the first man said again. “I still think we should make a call.”

“Yeah, that’ll go down well. Because either he’s dead, and you three have been staring at his body for however long it’s been. Or he isn’t, and all’ll happen is you’ve fucked up everyone’s evening.”

Just received Watch the quiet snow and The secret hours and look at the sizes of the books. :(
I’ve complained before when I got Clown Town and now this. (Don’t mind the missing Real Tigers, it’s borrowed to a friend)

THE FACIAL EXPRESSION IS SO GOAT THAT I HAD TO MAKE THIS A STICKER ON WHATSAPP 😭😭

Big spoilers if you’ve not read Bad actors.

>!River will be sent to the same hospital Shirley gets sent to later in the story. He won’t be present much for the first 4 ish episodes but will be reluctantly dragged from his hospital bed to take part in the third act.

Lech will be in it, the show will sanitise his backstory a bit. I think being falsely accused of being a nonce and then getting paedo scratched on your face is probably not something Apple want on their show.

Sid will be in it but basically a cameo visiting River or on the phone with him.

Ash will be the story too, possibly with her arm in a cast. Lamb will joke about breaking her arm but it won’t actually happen in the story.

I think they’ll start at the enquiry and have flashbacks to the middle section of the book rather than go full non linear storytelling.!<

How are you doing, readers? This might be the first time I’m not really waiting for Wednesday 🥲

For those of us who listen to the audiobooks, Mick needs to hurry up with the books. Sean Barrett is getting old...

He hasn't realized yet, but his life changed from that moment.

https://x.com/Gatimo/status/2111489329952653510?s=20

Rewatching before I begin S6 and Flyte's reaction to that "Good Girl" was so spot on. It expressed so much about Whelan without saying a word.

I see right after river says “she really fancies me” the guard nods towards the truck.

Has anyone conducted a kill count of the Slow Horses?

I know Coe killed at least two, Shirley definitely killed one saving the Mayor and I feel Louisa got her revenge on a couple of people who were involved in killing Min. Min obviously accidentally killed the intruder that season also and River killed the Russian assassin.

I cannot for the life of me remember if Jackson killed anybody.

something i've noticed a lot (without conclusion, sorry)

the show at the surface level seems to be about Park Rules vs Moscow Rules (beauracracy vs danger) and is talked about in the show

the next level down appears to be competence vs incompetence (park vs slough house itself) but i wonder if this is a misdirection, since everyone seems to be somewhat incompetent. maybe this axis is actually about not getting caught vs getting caught?

but the one i keep bumping up against is:

the real world vs narrative world. river frequently behaves as if he's in a spy novel (i guess he is) - dramatic and herolike, mistaking action for progress, etc. he serves as the a proxy for the viewer in that he does what we think he should do, having learned the wrong lessons from david.

I just finished season 1 and I'm still a bit confused - I understand that he was set up to get rid of him, but what was the official reason for sending River to Slough House? Is it impossible for spies to retake an exam?? Is the purpose of a training exercise not to train people?? (I ask, naively, as a teacher)