Slow Horses season 2 episodes 1 & 2 recaps & review

In the first two episodes of Slow Horses season 2, the team investigates the death of a former agent who was kicked out of service before the Berlin Wall fell. The episodes are now streaming on Apple TV+.

Episode 1 recap: Last Stop

On a regular day at his store, an old man notices a familiar face walking right in front of him. The old man follows this person around the city, only to later die sitting quietly on a bus.

The next day, Jackson Lamb visits the bus and discovers the phone this old man has tried to hide near his seat. The man left a note on his phone. The word he spelled out is ‘cicada’.

Back at the Slough House, Catherine is still taking care of the place. River is out there, interviewing for a new job.

Louisa and Min are now working for Webb. They are tasked to keep a security check on the meeting between Webb and Arkady Pashkin, a representative of Illya Nevsky.

Everyone gathers at the Slough House to pick up the case Lamb has brought for them. Slough House is investigating the death of Richard Bough, an ex-service agent who got kicked out before the Berlin Wall fell down.

The team notices that he is following a bald man in the CCTV footage. To investigate further and follow this bald man, they need hard drives from the local station’s data center. Though River volunteers to bring them, Lamb assigns the job to Shirley.

She plots a plan to break into the station’s data center and manages to retrieve the drives.

Meanwhile, River spends time with David, who is surprised to hear that Richard Bough was still alive after all this time. They discuss cicadas, who were basically sleeper agents embedded in British society.

Back in the day, the presence of these agents was considered a hoax, as their leader, Alexander Popov, turned out to be a bogeyman.

Richard Bough had claimed that Popov abducted and interrogated him. He also suggested that they poured drinks down his throat.

Cicadas were thought to be nothing more than stories. Therefore, Bough was kicked out of the force for using cicadas as an excuse to drink.

River comes back to the Slough House and examines the footage from inside the train and wonders who came close to Richard.

He then visits Lamb and shows him how the man Richard was following managed to get his hands quietly on Richard, which suggests that he might’ve dosed Richard.

River even guesses the message Richard left on his phone, which reads ‘cicada’. River theorizes that Richard was probably not lying about the existence of cicadas.

Richard must’ve recognized that bald man as one of them and chased him. Probably, this group is active again and up to something.

Episode 2 recap: From Upshott With Love

Jackson Lamb visits Nikolai Katinsky, an ex-KGB agent, to learn more about cicadas.

On an ordinary workday, not long before the Berlin Wall came down, Nikolai had overheard two men talking about cicadas. One of these two men asked for funding and support for the cicadas to be continued. This man addressed himself as Popov.

Nikolai suggested that the voice of the other individual is quite similar to a man named Andrei Chernitsky. He described Chernitsky as a big bald bull, much like the man Richard was following.

Lamb enlists help from Diana and also informs her about Webb poaching Slough House members.

River tries to hunt the bald guy by following the trail left in CCTV footage. The last thing Shirley tells River about him is that he walked to the taxi office.

River talks to the woman at the taxi office and learns that the taxi driver recognizes the bald guy as he was the last fare of the night. River struggles to retrieve information from the taxi driver and eventually finds out that the driver has been paid for lying.

River goes hard on that driver and forces him to open up. The driver gives River a phone number and takes him to the place where he dropped that bald guy.

The location is Upshott Flying Club. Roddy locates the phone number the taxi driver gave and finds out that the phone is in Estonia.

The taxi driver escapes while River searches for clues near the club. River later runs into Lamb on his way back. He tells him everything he has discovered so far.

The bald guy met someone at Upshott before flying to Estonia. Lamb theorizes that the bald guy wanted someone to find the trail.

He commands River to investigate Upshott further. He offers him a shiny new ID and informs him about Andrei Chernitsky.

Meanwhile, Louisa and Min meet Arkady Pashkin’s security guards, Piotr and Kyril. Min begins to suspect that these security guards are hiding something. Min follows them around the city, and this results in him getting captured by Piotr.

Diane, back at her office, confronts Webb about his business with Slow Horses and Arkady Pashkin. Diane hears the proposition he has about this meeting and allows him to conclude his business.

Review

• Slow Horses hasn’t lost its touch at all. The second season progresses with the same tone the first one did and there is nothing to complain about that.
• The mystery around cicadas is certainly well-captured. It keeps the viewers on the edge as it has that mythical element to it.
• The addition of Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Shirley Dander is welcomed. In the very first episode of the second season, the character gets a fair share amount of screentime to prove why she is a valuable addition.
• Lastly, the sub-plot involving Min, Louisa, and Webb is heavily overshadowed by the storyline of cicadas. It just feels less important at this point.

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