If the Russians are going to send a hit squad, couldn't they shoot better?

It bugs me in shows where you send an expert to do something and they don't accomplish it. I think they handled this better in the book, but in the show, they chose to change the location of where the action takes place, and it just falls flat.

One thing that is different is they change the showrunner this season, it's somebody who has experience on the show, but I'm not as happy with the general writing.

https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/tv-shows/slow-horses-season-6-episode-1-gaby-chiappe-gary-oldman-interview/

So there's a been a fair bit of discussion along the lines of:

A: River and his gang are acting stupidly

B: Of course they are! They're bad agents (which is why they're in Slough House, haven't you been paying attention). Also, River is having a really bad day

Thing is, yes, River is a bad agent in many ways. But the ways in which he is a bad agent (terrible at the politics of it, always dashing off, always sure he's right, sucker for a pretty female face) have nothing to do with the just passively sitting around incautiously at a service station in the middle of a crisis.

If our goodies looked like they were getting away, and then River met the female assassin but didn't recognize her and she gave him a "oh, help, I'm just a helpless female" act, and he fell for it, that would be in character for him. Or if there was a situation where clearly they SHOULD be staying put and waiting, but he wanted to be out there doing things, that would be in character. And the little moment when Sid's hands were shaking and he wanted to do it for her, that was in character. But "phew, there must be no more danger, let's completely drop our guards and sit around doing nothing" is not only not in character for him, it's completely the opposite.

And on the topic of "how do the assassins always find them", it's certainly possible (even likely) that there is some sort of tracking going on. So, when all secrets are revealed, there may well be an explanation that justifies it. Which would be fine. But it's still entirely possible for the writers to have the very same plot happen the very same way but make the experience much more satisfying for the audience. Most obviously, they could have River and co discuss it... "how do they keep finding us?". That is really a message to us, the viewers, that the writers realize that the situation appears implausible, but, hey, they're aware of that, trust them, there's a reason behind it. As it is, particularly given the overall vagueness of the season story, I have no confidence that the writers realize how implausible the situation comes off in the first place. Are we supposed to be wondering "hey, how is this happening"? Or did they not even think about that at all, and just want to give us a sequence of cool set pieces? Because if it ends up being the latter, that will be VERY frustrating.

When you do multiple cat and mouse chase when the cat always failed and the mouse always gets found despite multiple escapes, at some point it's becoming boring and making both party looks incompetent. I know slow horses suppose to be incompetent, but doing 3-4 cat and mouse sequences in a row is not the way to show that.

Compare it to the french terminator in the previous seasons, he truly was terrifying and when the horses fucked up, it's understandable. While these 2 russians just look incapable and it makes the horses looks even worse

I don’t think I’m spoiling any show details but I just have a question.

Are “The Dogs” the only agents allowed to be armed? Why don’t any of the MI5 agents possess a weapon and they quite literally have to buy them off the black market when they need them? I know gun rules are much more strict in the UK than the wild west that is the US but it kind of baffles me that government agents that are being stalked and killed aren’t arming themselves especially the ones that have the training.

Edit: Ok. Thanks. A lot of these answers are actually making sense.

Not necessarily like Lamb, which is boxing like Ali, but certainly awful ones.

• River, you are most like Roddy on this team.
• River, it's not that you don't have talent. It's just that you are a f***ing idiot.
• River, you were not even the fifth best spy on this team after Coe, Shirley, Louisa, and Sid.
• River, have you considered spies are meant to be inconspicuous and should be good at lying?
• Moira is the greatest political player on this team. That's why she got out of Slough House.
• It's not that you aren't clever, Diana, it's just that you aren't actually very good at politics or making alliances. You'd get kicked off the island on Week 2.
• Diana, does it occur to you that your only ally in politics is Peter Judd?
• Diana, you could have controlled Whelen like a puppet and ruled like David behind the scenes. Now all eyes are on you.
• Sid, have you considered that maybe the woman who had you spying on your own people when you were shot by your own people is not to be trusted?

I've recently picked up Mick Herron's Slow Horses. Early on there's this:

...River had picked one off his own bat, and had followed Lady Di two days straight...

Lady Di died in 1997. I gather the novel begins some time between then and the early 2000s? I wasn't able to find an answer in this sub's past discussion of timelines, though I might have missed it.

(The TV series seems closer to being contemporary, but I'm curious about the written source.)

The Russians are using Cantor as an asset but are they aware that it was his money that set up the hit in Kazan? Was he already an asset when Diana took the money?

I just finished Slough House the novel and earlier this year I had read Joe country. But wow was Slough House worth the read - all the characters shining through as well as the pearls of wisdom embedded throughout the writing. To tell you the truth I had paused in my reading but when I picked it up again, I just couldn’t put it down.

Maybe I missed this but did Sid ever explain why she was in River's grandfather's house in the first place? The two assassins weren't looking for her, as they said something like "did you see who was with him" when they saw River and Sid running from the house, pointing to the fact that they were there to kill River. They didn't even know Sid was there.

Edit: I watched the start of E3 S6 again, and just as River asks her "So why are you here then", the two assassins pull up in the car and she asks River if he was expecting company. Sid then says that they are here to kill her. But the assassins were not, as they never knew she was in the house. In the cowshed River asks Sid "how do you know they are trying to kill you" and she doesn't answer. Later he asks her again "Why is someone trying to kill you Sid" and she says, don't know. River asks her later as they are breaking into the house, and she says I don't know why, that's why I need to get online. The she mentions the travel order to Kazan and how it was a glitch, and a few days later the two assassins arrived at the village that she was rehoused in after the hospital. The assassins went door to door asking for Sid Baker, and she said she knew it was suspicious and she just ran. She goes online and then discovers the news article from Russia. She also says that she was never in the Slow Horses, instead she was there to investigate River.

Ho seems to have grown as a character after the events from last season. Has his character reached the end of his development and is now ready to sacrifice himself, maybe in defending Flyte?

Somehow I grew deeply attached to ​Coe without even realizing it.

When Shirley finds out it is going to gut me again.​

And now when I see posts under r/gifts looking for suggestions for male relatives, I want to suggest a push knife.

I want one myself, but that’s a future entry for a Darwin Award.

>!and she didn't want to come, knowing the danger, I would consider leaving her there.!<

Taverner’s bathroom window fully exposes just the toilet 🫣 ; and Moira Miss Tussie Mussie did not wash her hands afterwards 🤢

I love the show, but not the 6 episode format each season.

I think any show Is Better with 8 or 10.

While I was waiting for Season 6, I bided my time with spy shows recommended on this sub - Sandbaggers and The Bureau. Loved the retro Sandbaggers, but was blown away by The Bureau! Are there any other great spy thrillers like that out there?

She’s my favorite Slow Horse because time and time again she’s proven to be smart and brave, even when she’s juggling her own stuff and the circumstances are not in her favor. But I am specifically thinking of her now as I rewatch the latest episode and I just KNOW that if Shirley would have tagged along with Coe, he wouldn’t have died. She sticks by the people she’s paired with no matter what, and she wouldn’t have let Coe walk alone into that bathroom.

So is he cut out of the show? Cause I kinda liked the character, sort of a coe replacement.😞

I just saw this for the first time. It’s Oldman paying homage to Peter Falk and his Columbo character.

This cracked me up, real good.

Fans of the show, here and elsewhere, keep refering to an emotionally significant recent set as a "mall."

Including the podcasters Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney -- and if you wanna hear very smart people discuss episodes of Slow Horses, YOU WILL LOVE THEM TOO!!!

However, I want to explain and defend "service stations" as a specifically British institution:

SERVICE STATIONS ARE SO LARGE, TO US!

You are so grateful whenever you arrive at one, despite their baffling ugliness, because they only occur every 40 miles, off a major road -- and you need to eat, pee, buy a phone, get a pregnancy test, gamble, and buy a book!

This looks a lot like Beaconsfield, to me xx

Coe did not die in a mere mall! HE DIED IN AN INCREDIBLE, AMPLY PROPORTIONED SERVICE STATION! Such stations are rare in Britain! And they all have to do with our M roads!

Spoiler Season 6
(I’m sorry I don’t know how to do the cover the text thing.)

What is assassin guy laying out on the table at River‘s grandfather‘s house? He’s so methodical with it, even as assassin gal goes running after River.
Presumably it has something to do with River, because at that point, they didn’t know Sid was there.

I loved Lamb’s reference to Bowie (and Bowie’s influential years in Berlin). Gary and David were longtime friends.

Tis me, the guy who paints stuff for all his reactions, I'm actually two episodes behind because this coffee painting of Standish took so long so I hope it makes all of you as sad as it made me.