Better than outstaying its welcome, I suppose, and at least season five is already in the can.
Almost kicking the can this episode was Regent’s Park archive empress Molly Doran (Naomi Wirthner). She held her nerve in the face of Evil Frank, but proved to have cocked up majorly in dishing out former agents’ home addresses like jelly babies. Like Ho falling for that “I greatly enjoy conversing with you so informally” chatbot, Molly fell for Frank’s impersonation of an ex-colleague and led Bertrand straight to David’s bathtub. People eh? Always the weak link.
Was your heart in your throat when Molly prepared herself for that gunshot? Mine stayed roughly where it usually sits. Any sparring partner of Jackson’s is a friend of ours, of course, but we’re barely on nodding terms with Molly, which means that her loss wouldn’t hurt the same as that of say, a Shirley or – heaven forfend – a Standish.
It was nice to follow Molly to her artily decorated home though, even if the visit was interrupted by Hugo Weaving grinding his teeth and chewing up the scenery. I think I’ve worked out what it is about Weaving’s performance that doesn’t quite fit in Slow Horses: there’s no discernible irony there. Every other main character in this show is as good comedically as they are dramatically, but Weaving just gives generic bad guy. There’s no quirk or grounding Mr Kipling Angel Slice, only smug, self-serving evil, which, frankly, we already get enough of from our political class.
They’re a very literal family, the Harknesses. When Yves mentioned his “brothers” in that suicide video, he meant the genetic kind, and when Frank said he wanted to “send a message” this episode it turned out he was talking about the kind you get in an envelope rather than the decapitated-head-in-a-box variety. Five of those envelopes are now sitting on Molly’s bureau addressed to: Mike Peterson, Jim Lanford, Claude Whelan, Jean Fraser, and Natalie Hensley. Whelan aside, any clues as to who those others are?
Whelan’s route out of First Desk was plotted with Ho’s discovery that he’s a fancier of… what’s the correct parlance these days? Let’s go with ‘Winchester Geese’. For all his talk of Activating Accountability and Accessibility, Whelan’s triple-A promise turned out to be a triple load of Arse. He’d banished Moira to Slough House to cover up his kerb-crawling habit, and was all for doing a Watergate on Park records the second it became clear that MI5 IDs had been facilitating Harkness’ death squad all this time. James Callis, I’ll say it again, is extremely good casting for Slow Horses. There’s an actor who can clown.