S02.E06: Old Scores

[paigow]

Season Finale:

Lamb and Katinsky go head-to-head; Ho finds himself trapped on a train with a Russian assassin.

Note: Season 3 preview before end credits

Airdate: Dec 30/ 22

Edited December 30, 2022 by paigow

[aghst]

Lot of good tension and viewers saw it unfold about the same time characters like River and Louisa were figuring out the larger plot.

Lamb was ahead of the game though, called armed response ahead, though River needed to warn his gramps.  Lamb is also quick with the gun.  He was holding it haphazardly, or so it seemed, but when it came time to grab the guns, he beat Katinsky to his and then emptied out Katinsky's gun in rapid fire, but leaving one bullet for Katinsky to kill himself.

Louisa was really grieving Min, even though they only had a short fling.  But really, if not for Marcus, she might have been killed on that roof.  Or in that boardroom, because you wouldn't expect Min to stash a gun there  I can't recall, did Marcus say Lamb told him to stash the gun?

They don't really outline which of these are field agents.  River, Shirley and looks like Marcus are, probably have hand to hand and gun combat training.  Not sure Louisa or Min does or did.

Ho is a desk jockey and Standish is meant to be office person only but both were out in the field this season.

Of course Lamb was out in the field and handled himself very well, not just tactically but probably gained more respect from Taverner.

May have to re-watch season 1 because I'm still hazy on Standish and why she's haunted by Partner, who was a traitor.   

[BingeyKohan]

I am probably revealing myself as a dumb*ss (which I accept) but I found this both unsatisfying and kind of hard to follow. 

[aghst]

9 minutes ago, BingeyKohan said:

I am probably revealing myself as a dumb*ss (which I accept) but I found this both unsatisfying and kind of hard to follow. 

It is kind of confusing.

At the start of season 2, it seemed that the old guy getting killed on the bus/train and then Min and Louisa working on the protection detail were separate cases.

Then Lamb going to see Katinsky, who was suppose to be this old KGB guy who wasn't considered a threat.  But it turned out he was the mastermind and everything was connected.

I don't think we were suppose to connect all the dots necessarily.  For instance, River guessed that the cicada or sleeper was the husband, not the wife.  Apparently in the books, it turns out the whole village are Russian sleeper cell agents and that Kelly was the only innocent one.

So the show is making moderations and fitting it into a 6-episode season, with very little slack or filler.  Not too many subplots or rather there was one big plot and it was broken up into these smaller plots which all fit together in the end.

 

 

[paigow]

29 minutes ago, BingeyKohan said:

I found this both unsatisfying and kind of hard to follow. 

Catalyst: Pashkin wanted to rip off and kill Nevsky

Wrinkle: Pashkin needed Katinsky to distract MI5. Katinsky agreed if Lamb was a target.

Diversions:

• Killing Bow aka Dildo Man
• Killing Min
• Gaslighting River with fake Code September
• Chernitsky gunning for Cartwright Sr.
• Katinsky baiting Lamb

[paigow]

3 hours ago, aghst said:

May have to re-watch season 1 because I'm still hazy on Standish and why she's haunted by Partner, who was a traitor.   

His treason was redacted / suppressed... he got an honourable burial... Standish thinks he was a hero

Lamb confessed to Katinsky that he was ordered to stand down- i.e. Do NOT eliminate Partner - however, Lamb killed Partner anyway

Standish is likely still blaming herself all these years for his suicide by Lamb

[ahisma]

Well, I’d say everyone in Slough House screws up (River assumed the husband was the sleeper agent and assumed the bomb was on the plane, Min was fatally careless, Marcus and Luisa let the briefcase out of their sight after searching it, Roddy let a known killer get behind him on the train, Catherine lets her past constantly haunt her, maybe Shirley had no screwups?). But it’s not like The Park is any better—Tavener continually backs the play of the wrong people both above and below her, her top Dog muffed Harper’s accident report, and Webb is the most obnoxious, self-centered, over-confident screwup of them all. Too bad he’ll probably be back. So I’ll keep rooting for the slow horses, as at least they’re not self-important jackasses.

[Souris]

On 12/30/2022 at 6:29 PM, paigow said:

Lamb confessed to Katinsky that he was ordered to stand down- i.e. Do NOT eliminate Partner - however, Lamb killed Partner anyway.

I thought he didn't kill Partner until he got the OK from above. River's granddad was waiting in the car for Lamb when he came out from the hit.

Shirley did have a screwup, she turned her back on the guy on the train and didn't make sure he was actually neutralized before getting Roddy to open the door.

What I don't understand is why the mom stood down in the end. Did she just break? I wouldn't think that would have been the plan, because it would have been better for them to have the chaos of a plane shot down, and I'm sure she was seen as expendable anyway.

Not as good as S1 but I still enjoyed it.

Edited January 2, 2023 by Souris

[MissLucas]

Lamb wasn't allowed to kill Partner immediately, they kept feeding him wrong intel until Moscow kicked Katinsky out - then the High Sparrow let Lamb off the leash.

I'm glad River surviving his encounter with the cicadas was not due to plot-armor but actually part of the plan. Less happy that Webb survived, he's so over-the-top it grates. 

Good to see Standish and Roddy out of the office. Standish's taking down that ass at chess last week were my favorite scene of the whole season. Seeing Roddy in the field was interesting, of course he got made but he put up quite a fight.

I was a bit confused about the scene at Grandpa's house. I assume River managed to warn him by phone and Lamb sent the police because he's Lamb who's (almost) always one step ahead? I was still surprised that there was not more confusion, River said 'Target's down' and nobody questioned his authority. At least the follow-up scene made it clear that he had identified himself as MI 5 agent in the meantime.

I wonder if there's a real world St. Leonards (and what it's called).

 

 

[aghst]

I'm actually surprised they'd allow a kill of a traitor.

Why wouldn't they just apprehend him and throw him in jail?  This is Britain, not Russia.

Maybe there's more to that story.  Standish seems loyal to Partner.

[ahisma]

2 hours ago, MissLucas said:

Standish's taking down that ass at chess last week were my favorite scene of the whole season.

And one of my favorite scenes in s1 was Standish popping across the street to use the pay phone (do they really still have those?) to get real intel, while the rest of the team were moping around in the all-night diner. She really does just get on with it, even when “on with it” is 50 storeys of stairs.

[meira.hand]

12 hours ago, paigow said:

Catalyst: Pashkin wanted to rip off and kill Nevsky

Wrinkle: Pashkin needed Katinsky to distract MI5. Katinsky agreed if Lamb was a target.

Diversions:

• Killing Bow aka Dildo Man
• Killing Min
• Gaslighting River with fake Code September
• Chernitsky gunning for Cartwright Sr.
• Katinsky baiting Lamb

I am not sure sending Chernitsky to kill Cartwright Sr. on top of the other kills, was a diversion. At this point Katinsky used him for his payment. He wanted to avenge his "joe" and as he told Lamb, all the decisions about how to handle Partner were made by the top dog, i.e. Cartwright Sr.

[pasdetrois]

Was Cicada Wife meant to provide a distraction/code September so all the other stuff could go down? Was it made clear what would happen to her?

[MissLucas]

34 minutes ago, pasdetrois said:

Was Cicada Wife meant to provide a distraction/code September so all the other stuff could go down? Was it made clear what would happen to her?

Yes, she was used for triggering code September. Apparently nothing will happen to her as the exchange between Taverner and Not-Siegfried-Farnham made clear. The story handed out to the public was that code September had been triggered by faulty radar. Going after the pilot whose Cessna presumably triggered the alarm by mistake would raise questions these two are not willing to answer because that would put a damper on their aspirations (PM and First Desk).

[kwnyc]

I knew Spider would live. Gits like him usually do.

The Slow Horse tribute to Min was incredibly moving...and clever. If someone finds the engraved plaque they had made for him (well hidden behind a chair), it would be more embarrassing to move it than to leave it (and if we've learned one thing about MI 5, it's that "Nothing happened, and it was taken care of." Soooooooo British.)

I like they they put the names of the agents who have died in the line of duty on a church wall...I believe at CIA headquarters, there's a star on the wall (no name, no info) for every agent who's died in the line of duty. And of course Dickie's fell off the wall.

Standish, who isn't an agent, clearly knows far more about the job and spycraft than the other horsies (except Jackson). I assume Roddy did go through the training, as all agents have to do, even the suits and geeks. His thoroughly poisonous personality is nearly as dangerous as a sidearm. 

Also, for someone who loves his joes and wants to protect them, Jackson sure gets them into some tricky situations. And I'm coming to the conclusion that River really isn't that good an agent. He needs more time under Jackson's tutelage (and I wonder if that's the instruction from Grandpa, who is very handy with the shotgun).

Can't wait for the next season!

 

[CaptainE]

25 minutes ago, kwnyc said:

 

Also, for someone who loves his joes and wants to protect them, Jackson sure gets them into some tricky situations. And I'm coming to the conclusion that River really isn't that good an agent. He needs more time under Jackson's tutelage (and I wonder if that's the instruction from Grandpa, who is very handy with the shotgun).

Can't wait for the next season!

 

River is an incompetent agent at best.  Holding a gun on two people, and letting a third relatively unknown actor tase him is beyond amateur.

And don’t get me started on the briefcase switcheroo.  Or Min’s obvious tailing.  Have they had any training at all?

[MissLucas]

Well, they're not for nothing in Slough House! 

 

[paigow]

Lamb needs to find out who forged his signature... next Season...

[paigow]

11 hours ago, meira.hand said:

I am not sure sending Chernitsky to kill Cartwright Sr. on top of the other kills, was a diversion.

Chernitsky knew that he was being tracked... not sure where Upshott is in relation to Casa Cartwright... Could Chernitsky get there without driving into London during a terror lockdown / alert and hoping that all the trains were not frozen?

[aghst]

Seems like Upshott is a fictional place in the Cotswolds.

It's a composite of several small towns, with those neat rows of thatch roof cottages.

You can't find a town called Upshott in Google.  But if you look at some of the pictures, you see those cottages in different towns.

Mick Herron the author apparently lives nearby.  

[abbyzenn]

Enjoyed the season.  I did have to go back and watch episode 1 of this season - all the Russian names kinda confused me.  The slow horses are screw ups (except for Lamb) who get themselves into jams and yet manage to fumble their way out.

Glad to see there is a season 3.  Sorry to see that Webb survived.

[paigow]

On 12/30/2022 at 9:17 PM, aghst said:

I'm actually surprised they'd allow a kill of a traitor.

Why wouldn't they just apprehend him and throw him in jail?  This is Britain, not Russia.

IRL several moles within MI5 / MI6 fled to Russia during the 50s & 60s.  [The most notorious was Kim Philby.]  So MI5 was not very good at the whole incarceration thing... so eliminating Partner without disclosing that another high level mole had successfully breached MI5 would be a win-win...

Edited January 2, 2023 by paigow

[ahisma]

17 hours ago, paigow said:

Lamb needs to find out who forged his signature... next Season...

Wouldn’t it have been Partner? Mole signs in Russian asset as a defector? For that matter, I wonder how much of MI5 deciding that Cicadas were a diversion, not real, was Partner’s work.

[paigow]

58 minutes ago, ahisma said:

Wouldn’t it have been Partner? Mole signs in Russian asset as a defector? For that matter, I wonder how much of MI5 deciding that Cicadas were a diversion, not real, was Partner’s work.

Likely, but there could be another twist / mole

[meep.meep]

On 12/30/2022 at 2:58 PM, aghst said:

 

I don't think we were suppose to connect all the dots necessarily.  For instance, River guessed that the cicada or sleeper was the husband, not the wife.  Apparently in the books, it turns out the whole village are Russian sleeper cell agents and that Kelly was the only innocent one.

Having bitched about it previously, the production got around the "village full of sleeper agents" by never showing anyone but the one family in the village.

[aghst]

1 hour ago, meep.meep said:

Having bitched about it previously, the production got around the "village full of sleeper agents" by never showing anyone but the one family in the village.

I guess they did it for low cost and speed.  That may have helped them keep both season 1 and 2 to just 6 episodes each and put out both seasons within one calendar year -- with probably plans to do the same for the next two seasons this year.

Like I said, I don't think there is a town called Upshott.  But it looks like they shot at different towns in the Cotswolds and represented the all as one town.  When Kelly takes him to the airfield for that joyride flight, the walk by all these places, again possibly parts of several different towns, and you don't see any bystanders anywhere.

In the books River must meet or encounter other people than just the family of three.  Oh there was a pub scene where Kelly was bartending, may have been one or two patrons, with one having some lines and the others are extras in the background.

 

[kwnyc]

I've learned that British geography is malleable. For example, it takes very little time for an assassin to get from Upshott to Grandpa's house, but it takes several hours for a small plane to fly from Upshott to London.

As someone who lives in New York City and often laughs at the geographical shortcuts on cop shows, I can respect that.

[paigow]

2 hours ago, kwnyc said:

but it takes several hours for a small plane to fly from Upshott to London.

She probably flew over Scotland first...

[meep.meep]

She had to take a Great Circle route - it's the curse of airplane travel.

[PaulaO]

Finished series 2 last night and while the assorted plots don’t make sense to me, it’s just fun to watch and try to figure out what’s going on. Why did Mother Cicada fly the plane even though I heard her husband say she didn’t know how to fly?

[aghst]

Only the mother was a Cicada or a Russian sleeper agent.

The husband and daughter were not, so she kept that a secret from them.

Mother was playing along with the plot of the villains, which was to keep the police and spies busy with the code september, thinking the plane was carrying bombs.

[Rickster]

On 1/3/2023 at 6:40 PM, aghst said:

I guess they did it for low cost and speed.  That may have helped them keep both season 1 and 2 to just 6 episodes each and put out both seasons within one calendar year -- with probably plans to do the same for the next two seasons this year.

Like I said, I don't think there is a town called Upshott.  But it looks like they shot at different towns in the Cotswolds and represented the all as one town.  When Kelly takes him to the airfield for that joyride flight, the walk by all these places, again possibly parts of several different towns, and you don't see any bystanders anywhere.

In the books River must meet or encounter other people than just the family of three.  Oh there was a pub scene where Kelly was bartending, may have been one or two patrons, with one having some lines and the others are extras in the background.

 

I'm hoping they dumped the "village full of sleepers" because they realized it was a ridiculous plot idea.

After some fits and starts for personal reasons, I finished the last two episodes. I stand by my original opinion. I liked the first book more than the second book and more than the TV adaption of the first book. The plot of the first book, with all the bureaucratic maneuvering and infighting seemed very plausible. In the second book, I found the sleeper village unbelievable and the convolutions they went through just to hack into a computer system a little crazy as well. However...the second book made for better TV. Maybe I'm just getting comfortable with the cast, but the second season had a lot more edge of your seat tension as well.

Looking forward to the third season.

 

 

[Mrs. Stanwyck]

On 12/30/2022 at 6:29 PM, paigow said:

On 12/30/2022 at 3:06 PM, aghst said:

May have to re-watch season 1 because I'm still hazy on Standish and why she's haunted by Partner, who was a traitor.   

His treason was redacted / suppressed... he got an honourable burial... Standish thinks he was a hero

Also as she explained to the Chess guy, he helped her get sober and kept her employed.

[lidarose9]

Behind the times, just finished this.... Struck me: Lamb is the anti-Smiley. When we meet him, Smiley has been shoved out to pasture and is discredited like Lamb. He makes himself invisible by being ordinary, small, nondescript, and so does Lamb. It's just that with Lamb, he goes for the whole grungy drunk smoke working class dirty raincoat type. Smiley was the aging bachelor uncle, retired schoolmaster look. All that boozing and snoozing with Lamb is a cover story; he can sober up for field work any time he needs to.

I knew Min or Louisa would die cuz they were happy together -- tired of that predictable trope. And River was just a dumbass throughout. They really are bad agents.

My big gripe was the editing: Mom's plane was in the air way too long with London in the distance, River was writhing on the floor too long, the evacuation and crowd scenes went on too long. They were working too hard to cut back and forth between scenes. I see this all the time these days: time gets prolonged and shortened to make believe things are happening simultaneously when they just simply could not.

But overall I love this show and have recommended it to friends. Hope they can keep it up with season 3.

[LisaM]

I loved the books and, of course, am constantly comparing them against the series. In the books, Lamb is much grosser than Lamb in the series - he is constantly farting and is even more slovenly. I don't think that the Lamb in the series is portrayed as even close to the repulsiveness of Lamb in the books. Shirley Dander is very different in the books than in the series so far - both physically and in terms of her mental stability. Will be curious to see if her character changes in the next series. 

I love Catherine. She is competent. The rest have some splashes of competence but then do something stupid which helps to explain why they are in Slough House. 

KST is perfect as Lady Di. 

[Kel Varnsen]

On 2/1/2023 at 1:05 PM, Mrs. Stanwyck said:

Also as she explained to the Chess guy, he helped her get sober and kept her employed.

He paid for her rehab right and then gave her a job as his assistant. Which had to have been a pretty big deal since I think they said Partner was the head of MI-5. So his assistant would need a fairly high security clearance, so giving that job to even a recovering alcoholic would probably be a huge risk.

This show is really enjoyable. One thing I really appreciated was the comment that River tried to call his grandad, and Lamb called him and the cops. A lot of other shows wouldn't do that.

It also blows my mind that Gary Oldman is Lamb. The first thing I think of when it comes to Oldman is Gordon from the Dark Knight movies. Yes I know the last one came out 15 years ago, but even so if I didn't know it was true there is no way I would think that those two characters are the same guy.

[Natalie25]

On 9/29/2023 at 10:08 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

He paid for her rehab right and then gave her a job as his assistant. Which had to have been a pretty big deal since I think they said Partner was the head of MI-5. So his assistant would need a fairly high security clearance, so giving that job to even a recovering alcoholic would probably be a huge risk.

I think she was already his assistant (or that was my impression). Which was probably why he paid for her rehab.

[Lady Jane]

On 9/29/2023 at 7:08 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

It also blows my mind that Gary Oldman is Lamb. The first thing I think of when it comes to Oldman is Gordon from the Dark Knight movies. Yes I know the last one came out 15 years ago, but even so if I didn't know it was true there is no way I would think that those two characters are the same guy.

I first saw him as Sid Vicious in Sid & Nancy, so you can imagine how I feel seeing him here and as Churchill. 

 

[Hanahope]

i got the impression that Partner was Second Desk and Cartwright Sr was First Desk (which is why River wasn't drummed out altogether).

yeah, the agents are in Slough House for reasons, they make stupid mistakes. its why they are usually given real grunt paperwork to do.   though river really didn't make a mistake landing him in slough house, that was lady di's machinations.  but river definitely proved he's in the right place this season.  

very enjoyable show.  i love how Gary Oldman is just absorbed into the role.  

i'm guessing that Chernitsky realized that River put his cellphone in Chernitsky's jacket pocket and that's why he drove to London and then ditched the car and jacket.  Shirley did a decent fighting job, but didn't finish.  

i guess we have to have Webb around as a foil.  mores the pity.  

[Milburn Stone]

On 4/23/2024 at 2:37 PM, Hanahope said:

i guess we have to have Webb around as a foil.  mores the pity.  

I know. There's "love to hate," and then there's just hate.