The Box Set: "Slow Horses: Season Three."
Deconstructing the season finale, Ep. 6, "Footprints."
These Box Set deconstructions contain spoilers and should be read after you’ve watched the episode.
Looking back at all I’ve written about “Slow Horses” this season it seems I’m forever contemplating two realities. How is this show so good despite its weaker points and why do I love it so much?
Well, the latter seems pretty self-explanatory after reading everything previous — few series are this much fun without falling apart or needing more forgiveness than a savvy viewer is probably comfortable giving. But time and again, which is now pretty much every episode for three full seasons — and I would argue every single episode in this season — “Slow Horses” proves massively entertaining, smart, exceptionally well-paced and, for roughly 85 percent of it, believable.
It’s hard not to love a show like that.
But now that “Footprints” wraps the third season, let’s just face up to the elements that need facing in that finale:
Well, for starters, it was very convenient. The vastly under-gunned Slow Horses surviving the archival facility onslaught was, let’s just be honest here, not bloody likely. Jammed guns, missed shots, forward and backward driving prowess while being shot at with max-force machine guns, close fighting and timely last minute kills ruled the day.
For a series that hasn’t been reluctant to off a few characters, something on the level of that firefight seems a bit surprising in that only the bad guys (and Sean Donovan and his dead girlfriend’s brother — and did we really know them or care much about them? — died.
So, that’s tidy.
But in true “Slow Horses” fashion, ultimately the dubiousness of that outcome didn’t really matter because it did the same thing simultaneously at the farmhouse encounter with Lamb, Standish et all, and because it went “Home Alone” on us right with Christmas on our minds, well, yes, you are completely absolved of all sins because we get the nod and wink juxtaposition and we appreciated the balance at hand.
It’s just like “Slow Horses” that you can absolutely adore the old school work-with-what-you’ve-got cleverness of the spy craft and feel impressed by Lamb’s continuing ability to make people pay who underestimate him, while feeling as if things were a bit too clean and useful in the moment over at the archival storage shoot out.
It’s as if Lamb himself might say, “Given the choice of two depressing catastrophes or a clever send up and a feel-good cop out, I’ll take the latter every fucking time.”
But there was so much more than just making peace with the decisions in “Footprints,” right?
Smack in the middle of everything we got two intriguing slow moving trains as stories. One is the set up of the top secret “Footprints” folder that gives the episode it’s name — a massively embarrassing problem for the agency if it ever gets out and, well, yes, it all gets out, courtesy of River who, touching on the second issue here, might for once be ahead of the game in thinking how it all ends and the secret skeletons that lurk about.
Even though I haven’t read the books, it seemed pretty clear that A) River was testing whether his grandfather David Cartwright (Jonathan Pryce) was going to be protective of the company secrets, in the form of the pilfered “Footprints” folder, which explains why River didn’t exactly flip out when his grandfather casually tossed it in the fire (he had a spare back up copy, which was near the closing scene and shortly after we find out that River did indeed release the contents, toppling Dame Ingrid in the process, installing Diana Taverner as First Desk and, as Lamb indelicately intimates, one should be careful of what one wishes for).
The set up shot with River at his grandfather’s house — a roaring fire in the bricks and River setting the “Footprints” folder nearly out of his own reach — certainly seemed like a test.
There is an art, by the way, to setting up following seasons. In “Footprints” we got closure on a lot of stories, no vagueness about who lived or died and a believable procession to the next season (leaving great expectations). In short, that’s how you do it.
Stray thoughts:
What Standish knows, knew but pretended not to, doesn’t yet know, etc., well, that seems like a big deal for Season Four. I think the book readers might have a better take on Lamb’s decision-making in telling Standish some but not all and allowing her to walk away (a long way) after giving up everything he gained in S2 to help her. Seems like a lot of unfinished story there.
I’m willing to consider all “Home Alone” references.
Was Marcus just really shit at holding a machine gun or did I see that wrong?
One of my favorite so-small-you-might-miss-it moments was when Dame Ingrid, defeated, took the whiskey.
Well, so much for the theory that Ho might help.
Any idea why the park bench that Lamb and Taverner used to sit on is now in the river or at least missing?
Cheers to Will Smith for writing the hell out of this thing, or adapting the hell out of it. Either way, “Slow Horses” covers up the small amount of quibbling issues one might have with a whole lot of quality and creativity.
Pace, pace, pace. That’s how you entertain, at least in this set-up.
I hope the series doesn’t replace Duffy and Hobbs with more Duffy and Hobbs types.
OK, plenty left on the bone. Let’s hear your thoughts from this season finale and the season overall.
IMO this is one of the best things on TV right now. Yes, that's hard to defend because who can watch everything, but most of the writing is solid, all of the acting is stellar (even the non-names hold up so well against the heavyweights like Oldman and Scott-Thomas). The plots twist but they don't throw out ridiculous red herrings (hello The Killing season 1). I've been fully invested since the first minutes of season 1.
After watching EP4 I was afraid to watch EPs 5 & 6 *precisely* because they have been killing off one Slow Horse per season. And the two Horses in the facility were the ones I really like.
Them getting out unscathed was pretty unbelievable, yes, but at a certain point you have to go with it. And it was more than a bit satisfying that the two lead Dogs got their comeuppance.
Can't wait for Season 4, and when all seasons air I think I'll read the books.
A fine wrap-up from you, Tim, and great comments from everybody. Slow Horses is one of those series that I insist my wife watch with me (in return for similar sympathetic viewings by me) and I can see she both loves the wit but deplores the spy thriller tropes that sometimes veer into improbability. This season tested her more than the previous two and I can see why, and it’s the reason I rate Season 3, a gem nonetheless, as below the stellar quality of the first two seasons. Namely, they should have taken ten episodes, not six, to adapt Real Tigers the novel. Reading the book, everything makes full sense (at least in the genre world of spy thrillers), whereas the screen version has to rush the storyline, rendering it ever so slightly cartoonish. All quibbles, however ... loved every minute. And also enjoyed your comments, Tim, and those of others.