Slow Horses' thrilling penultimate episode puts everyone in harm's way

I’ve been pretty critical of Slow Horses’ second season. Its insistence on splitting up the core group means the rapid-fire screenwriting from the excellent first season is neutered. The more generic spy plot in between hasn’t exactly been imaginative either. But I’ll be damned if “Boardroom Politics” isn’t an excellent, thrilling, and even fun episode of television. The penultimate hour is the best of the season so far and sets up one hell of a finale next week.

As ever, we begin with a game of “River, WYD?” When Alex turned up at the hangar, it was blindingly obvious that she was the sleeper agent he should keep an eye on. But this man is at Slough House for a reason. He wakes up helpless, tied up in the Flight Club’s office. Chernitsky’s already peeling away back to London, Katinsky’s got his own plan, and Alex has also gotten on a plane to London. Putting two and two together, River realizes there’s a bomb headed to the Glasshouse. Worse luck: It’s the exact location of A) Peter Judd’s speech, B) the anti-capitalism rally, and C) the well-secured parlay between Pashkin and Webb.

It’s overdue this season, but hell, shout out to Jack Lowden! He sells the comedy caper and “deadly ticking clock” sides of this story so well. When Kelly and Duncan burst in on a hog-tied River with Alex nowhere to be seen and a missing plane, there’s both urgency and an apology in his voice as he tells these nice people the person they thought they knew best in the world has been a Russian plant all along. Dipshit that he is, he has a harder time convincing them he’s an MI5 agent. “That’s a stupider name than Johnnie fucking Walker!” Kelly shouts upon finally, officially meeting River Cartwright.

Over in London, unknowingly in the eye of the storm, Louisa and Marcus are making final preparations for Pashkin and Webb. They pat him and his goons down, and check the briefcase Pashkin’s bringing. Then they fall for the ol’ “two briefcases in the car trunk” switcheroo! Once again: Slough House. Idiots.

Diana and Peter are on course to the Glasshouse as well. Kristin Scott Thomas plays Taverner with the practiced steeliness required by such a position, but she’s on another level when she has to make small talk with Britain’s smuggest asshole witheringly. Judd toys with Diana, sleazily implying he’s in a strong position to take over party leadership with the Prime Minister’s popularity tanking, and that he can make her career if she helps make his. It’s clever, pragmatic thinking from Judd, which would automatically disqualify him from ever holding office in the UK in real life.

Oh, and Jackson and Catherine are on their own little missions, too. Jackson is in the bowels of the MI5 records archive, trying to make sense of all these Russians killing his men and each other, and how Katinsky fits in. Catherine, undeterred by sparring partner Victor’s dressing down last week, returns to the social club and suggests a game of chess. If she wins, he tells her what he knows. If he wins, she has to join him in a vodka toast. Saskia Reeves shines again here, playing downtrodden until pulling a Queen’s Gambit-ass trick play to beat him.

Webb and Pashkin finally meet in the Glasshouse. And hoo boy, Webb really ups the “total prick” ante here. Gone is the charming slimebag version of Pashkin who chatted up Louisa at the hotel bar last week. This guy’s cold, all business. Once Webb’s done making an ass out of himself several more times, Pashkin finally does what we’ve all wanted to do since the series premiere, and shoots Webb. Hey, you gotta take the little victories. River calls in to report the imminent bombing, and as alarms ring out through the Glasshouse, all hell breaks loose. Marcus grabs a gun stashed under the table and wounds one of Pashkin’s men, but not before Pashkin and his other guy get out of dodge and trap Louisa, Marcus, and the bleeding heavy in the boardroom with a bike lock.

With chaos descending on the streets of London, we’re well set for a bonkers finale next week, but not before one last turn of the screw. Sensing some inconsistencies in Katinsky’s background, Jackson discovers there’s no such man. Whoever he knows as Katinsky isn’t a “minnow” but a whale, and has been pulling the strings since Dickie Bow fled his little shop. What does he want? Jackson Lamb. Careful what you wish for, Nikolai.

Stray Observations:

• There’s no way Webb actually dies, right? The man’s a disaster, but Freddie Fox inhales the scenery every time he’s on screen.

• Roddy and Shirley get shafted to a handful of tiny scenes this week, but we end up with Roddy following Chernitsky in the field! If the giant Russian doesn’t kill him, Jackson just might.

• Give me a workplace comedy set in the basement of the MI5 record YESTERDAY.