S04.E05: Grave Danger

[Snazzy Daisy]

Synopsis:

Quote

Lamb questions David about France as River comes face-to-face with the enemy.

Air Date: Oct 02, 2024

 

[Snazzy Daisy]

Quote

“It’s you and me, we’re the only ones left.”

No daddy, there’s River in the trunk… hyperventilating! 😆

That ending is freaking intense! The horror on Emma’s face, her delayed response to open fire, Patrice the Terminator approaching the car, River fighting him while handcuffed and the sound of River’s heavy breathing at the end.

Emma Flyte is quite a useless Dog. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Well, Frank Harkness has conquered his dream of having a deniable assassination squad which the killers are raised from birth.

Who would’ve thought that “sending a message” literally means sending letters in envelopes. Very old school.

The five letters are addressed to — Mike Peterson, Jim Lanford, Claude Whelan, Jean Fraser, and Natalie Hensley. Claude aside, who are these people?

Roddy falling for a chatbot is a parallel to Molly falling for Frank’s impersonation of an ex-colleague (Mitch Philpott).

Coe does a great job at profiling Shirley. 👏🏻

We finally hear from Isobel Cartwright, River’s estranged mother.

A confrontation between father and son in the season finale next week should be interesting…

 

[MissLucas]

Well, Flyte has just earned herself a space at Slough House. That was abysmal, she better hopes Taverner or Lamb never get to see CCTV coverage of that 'incident'. I'd send her back to the Met checking parking tickets.

Ho falling for a bot seems OOC. I know he's full of himself but he of all people should be aware of bots and their tricks. I hope his revenge is epic.

Dark Horse aka Coe just made sure that folks will cease even their feeble attempts to communicate with him.

I did not expect Molly to be the leak. Harkness choose his target well, bastard knows what he's doing. I hope Molly gets her revenge. The letters are an interesting late mystery.

I also did not expect Mama River to make an appearance. I guess we'll see her next week. 

Whelan just dropped the act for a moment when he wanted to put Giti in a concrete box. Oh Sir Galahad, your troubles are just about to start LOL!

 

Edited October 2 by MissLucas

[sharifa70]

I like this show but I’m having a little trouble staying interested in this season. The baddies just seem so…cartoonishly violent. Like, “we’re baddies, we kill people, that’s what we do” seems to be the whole storyline. I’m fast-forwarding a lot because: yawn. I hope the next episode gives us a point because this episode was just more of the same.

[aghst]

How did Flyte become the top Dog?  I can understand her being physically overpowered.  That may be why Patrice didn't kill her.  Because he was just wantonly killing, like the civilian whose car he commandeered, no reason to shoot him but left Emma alive?

But she froze first and then panicked, emptying all her bullets to a bulletproof car door and glass.

Why were they so panicked to run away?

Looked like they could have driven around the garbage truck or turned left.

Neither Emma nor the other dogs have actually been in combat situations, just trained a lot?

Apparently MI5 is more of an intelligence unit.  It's not known if they really have muscle like the Dogs.

Harkness is just outwitting MI5 easily.  Molly isn't suppose to be incompetent.

Ho is all about tech and hacking and he's getting phished?

Author has a pretty dim view of MI5's competence, aside from Lamb.

Actually, the lesson so far is that regular MI5 isn't much more competent than the Slow Horses, if at all.  In fact, it's Slough House which puts the case to rest in the previous 3 seasons and presumably will for this finale, not the Dogs, not Taverner but whatever Lamb comes up with.

Presumably River will escape or get rescued, though if Harkness is his father, they probably won't kill him.

Also strange that they can outwit MI5 and presumably London Metropolitan police and other UK intelligence and law enforcement.

But Frank is in fear of the Saudis with the plastic sheets and saws?  Patrice is a dead eye shooter and presumably so is Frank.  They seem to improvise pretty well to come out on top of any situation, so far.

So the one guy went off the reservation to blow up the shopping center.  Hope there is more explanation of that.

 

[paigow]

Conventional wisdom holds that the best assassins have no family ties... James Bond was an orphan... Treadstone / Blackbriar brainwashed candidates to forget their original lives. Agent Smith and his sons are in the same chain of command,,, a violation of best practices. 

[paigow]

On 10/2/2024 at 3:34 AM, Snazzy Daisy said:

The five letters are addressed to — Mike Peterson, Jim Lanford, Claude Whelan, Jean Fraser, and Natalie Hensley. Claude aside, who are these people?

Likely they are:

• Successors to people that young Harkness encountered in setting up Les Arbres - Molly seems to recognize them
• Linked to whoever the real Westacres target is
• Past customers of Harkness & Fils

[Rickster]

5 hours ago, paigow said:

Likely they are:

• Successors to people that young Harkness encountered in setting up Les Arbres - Molly seems to recognize them
• Linked to whoever the real Westacres target is
• Past customers of Harkness & Fils

I would guess Whelan’s equivalents in other intelligence services.

[kwnyc]

Wow! Claude really folded like a cheap suit, didn't he? I keep thinking there's something else to him, but maybe not. 

One more episode? How are they going to tie this all up? I wait with bated breath.

[MissLucas]

Connecting the letters to other intelligence services (Five Eyes) seems to be the favorite theory floating the internet. It's possible Harkness approached all of them with his insane scheme and has dirt on all of them. If true it make him a super-villain and does not shed a particularly good light on all of them. Did nobody bother to keep tabs on the former CIA-guy with the crazy plans? Or were they all compromised like MI5? Again - super-villain.

[aghst]

Yeah I've read that too.

But he's afraid of being chopped up by Saudi Dexters so they're more of a threat to him than UK and US intelligence?

 

 

[meep.meep]

Loved Taverner's disdain for people wanting to project onto other screens.

Hoody guy is bonding with Ho for some reason.

Perhaps someone could explain Harkness's great plan - other than breeding a group of super assassins, I've got nothing.

[aghst]

I don't know if Coe is trying to be helpful to Coe or clowning him for being deceived by a bot masquerading as a woman interested in him.

 

[Kel Varnsen]

3 hours ago, meep.meep said:

Perhaps someone could explain Harkness's great plan - other than breeding a group of super assassins, I've got nothing.

Yea I am a bit curious too. Who were they trying to kill with the original bombing(was it an enemy of the guy in the hotel who was going to chip himnup). And was it really going to be so obvious to David Cartwright who the assassin was that they had to kill him too. And if that was the case how did they manage all the other assassinations over the years?

Although the end credits where you could hear River breathing over the music was really effective.

Edited October 5 by Kel Varnsen

[paigow]

19 hours ago, aghst said:

But he's afraid of being chopped up by Saudi Dexters so they're more of a threat to him than UK and US intelligence?

Harkness is a target with differing mission parameters...

Capture / Kill

• MI5
• CIA

Kill

• Angry Saudi client

[Mrs. Stanwyck]

22 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Yea I am a bit curious too. Who were they trying to kill with the original bombing(was it an enemy of the guy in the hotel who was going to chip himnup). And was it really going to be so obvious to David Cartwright who the assassin was that they had to kill him too. And if that was the case how did they manage all the other assassinations over the years?

The way I see it is that original assassin went rogue when he bombed the shopping center.  As soon as they found the fake identity, David Cartwright would have recognized it as one that he gave to Harkness all those years ago.  He could have gone to First Desk and told the whole story and then all of MI5 would have come down on Harkness.  By assassinating David before he could do that, no one would know who was using the cold body identity.  Killing David was all about damage control.  Harkness promised to kill everyone who could connect the dots so his client wouldn't have to worry about Harkness getting caught and selling him out.

[Rickster]

The other person who could have made the connection between the cold identities and Les Arbes was "Bad Sam", which is why he had to go too.

[Milburn Stone]

On 10/2/2024 at 1:25 PM, sharifa70 said:

I like this show but I’m having a little trouble staying interested in this season. The baddies just seem so…cartoonishly violent. Like, “we’re baddies, we kill people, that’s what we do” seems to be the whole storyline

The show this season seems at once too simple and too complicated. I keep thinking I'm missing something, but maybe I'm not, because your summary, @sharifa70, is all I'm getting out of it. All I know is, I've never before had the sense that I couldn't follow Slow Horses, and this season, I do. It may be because I keep thinking there's more there than there is.

Of course the characters are still wonderful.

[Kel Varnsen]

On 10/5/2024 at 9:42 PM, Mrs. Stanwyck said:

The way I see it is that original assassin went rogue when he bombed the shopping center.  As soon as they found the fake identity, David Cartwright would have recognized it as one that he gave to Harkness all those years ago.  He could have gone to First Desk and told the whole story and then all of MI5 would have come down on Harkness.  By assassinating David before he could do that, no one would know who was using the cold body identity.  Killing David was all about damage control.  Harkness promised to kill everyone who could connect the dots so his client wouldn't have to worry about Harkness getting caught and selling him out.

I feel like when the season is over I will need to rewatch the first episode. Just to see how the timeline between the bombing, the figuring out the name and then the guy trying to kill David plays out. 

Plus it seems like Harkness would have been better off leaving things alone. Sam didn't seem to care, even if he knew the names on those passports. And with David's dementia he didn't seem like much of a threat. And even if killing them both had worked, I have to imagine that someone would have noticed if David and Sam had died at around the same time. Even if it was just Lamb or Standish.

[aghst]

Harkness seems like a true believer so he wouldn't let things go.

Plus it seems he needs his "business" to continue and MI5 has the potential to stop it.

Because once he sorted this business with the shopping center and the Saudi clients, he would want to continue more assassinations using those dead MI5 identities.

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, aghst said:

Harkness seems like a true believer so he wouldn't let things go.

You're probably right he wouldn't. I just think it is funny in hindsight and knowing what we know that he would probably have been better off just letting it go.

[paigow]

5 hours ago, aghst said:

he would want to continue more assassinations using those dead MI5 identities.

Harkness & Patrice are unemployable... the Saudis will leave a 0 Star rating on YelpKill.