Slow Horses episode 5, “Circus”, is aptly named as the penultimate episode of season 5 continues to dazzle, surprise, and amuse like no other series on TV right now. We pick up only a few hours after far-right mayoral candidate Dennis Gimball (Christopher Villiers) was slain by the oldest murder weapon in MI5’s great book of “Ways to Kill Your Enemy”: a paint can be dropped from a great height. While there is no such book, there is a manual which is likely titled something like “How to Destabilize a Country”.
It’s a favorite manual of MI5, as Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) explains to a disbelieving Whelan (James Callis) and a properly alarmed Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas), and it appears that the Libyan terrorists whom we’ve been following all season are giving the English a taste of their own medicine. There weren’t many threads in this season of Slow Horses that had me scratching my head, but if there were any, episode 5 has cleared everything up and put us on a straight path for a fantastic finale next week.
Lamb & Taverner Are On The Same Page For Once
We Get Some Fascinating Insights Into The Terrorist Cell
In what has been a puzzling, though absorbing, side story in season 5, we’ve come to know the terrorists at the center of Slough House’s woes. These are bad men to be sure, but they’re realized characters, and the opening of the episode reveals layers to their operation. The ostensible leader, Farouk (Monty Ben), is hell-bent on completing their mission, threatening his compatriots if they even think about running. His animosity may be personal. Sami (Ahmed Elmusrati), the one who seems least comfortable with the group’s actions, is terrorist royalty.
His father once led Farouk, but Farouk won’t let his respect for that man keep him from blowing Sami away if he loses his nerve. With Gimball dead (no thanks to the Libyans), it’s time to move on to step 6 in the destabilization strategy: blind them. Lamb cottons on to their plans after debriefing Coe and River, who manage to lie for all of 10 seconds before Lamb sniffs out what really happened. He was tipped off in part by Coe not having his hood on for once. River and Coe continue to be an incredible match.
Lamb takes his findings to the Park, and he gets a first-hand look at Whelan’s incompetence. The extremely brief moment of camaraderie between Lamb and Taverner as they observe Whelan is one of the little dashes of magic that make Slow Horses so great. From what everyone can deduce, it appears that the airlines are next on the Libyans’ list, and we’re treated to the horrific thought of a plane crash landing somewhere in London. Taverner locks down the airports, but Whelan’s got other plans.
Tara Has Been Playing Everyone Since The Start
Roddy Ho Warns Of A Virus Attack That Shuts Down The Park
Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung) is still locked away in the cells, but by how much he seems to enjoy being the center of attention, I don’t think he would leave even if he were invited to. Tara (Hiba Bennani) is also questioned, tearfully explaining her story as a Libyan refugee who got into social justice movements in college, as so many do. What she didn’t plan on was being the target of terrorists who threatened to skin her alive if she didn’t do what they said, namely, honeypot Ho.
Whelan sees a way to use Tara, however, and falls a bit for her in the process, neatly tying Whelan’s storyline back to Dodie Gimball’s (Victoria Hamilton) threats to expose his penchant for call girls. More disconcertingly, this appears to link with a brief phone call between River and the elder David Cartwright (Jonathan Pryce), in which, in a heartbreaking moment of lucidity, David warns River that the Destabilization Strategy requires two honeypots.
Tara is to lead MI5 to the terrorists. Although terrified, she’s convinced by Whelan to go through with the plan and possibly save hundreds of people. At the Park, Ho is called in to solve a related hacking problem no one else can, although he warns about a possible virus. When the computer virus shuts down the electronics at the Park, Ho’s smug smile is so bright it could probably power everything back up.
This massive breach coincides with the final part of the Libyans’ trap. Tara was no victim; her story of skinning and blackmail was a lie. Nor she walks through London, she ditches her tracker and loses the Dogs. When she pulls up her hair, she no longer looks like a frightened young girl. And when she slides into the car alongside Farouk, it seems that she might just be the brains behind this whole operation. Slow Horses has carefully laid out a tricky, winding plot this season, but “Circus” leaves us with only one road left to go down.
- Release Date
- April 1, 2022
- NETWORKS
- Apple TV+
- Showrunner
- Douglas Urbanski
- Directors
- Adam Randall, James Hawes, Jeremy Lovering, Saul Metzstein
- Writers
- Mark Denton, Jonny Stockwood
- Lingering questions have been neatly answered
- A legitimate twist that I did not see coming
- Filled with some of the funniest and smartest moments in the series
- Shirley and Standish are sidelined for most of the episode
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