Review: Slow Horses, "Judgment Day" | Season 6, Episode 6

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The opening scenes of “Judgment Day” erase all mystery of where this season of Slow Horses is headed in its climax. With last week’s reveal that Jane had survived the car accident, we begin as she stitches herself up in a public restroom, brandishing a map with a large X on it. To be honest, I originally rolled my eyes a little that Jane had somehow managed to figure out the location of the Slow Horses safe house (read: Diana’s vacation home), but then I remembered that she had been driving Coe’s car, and it was his map she was following. And since Frank and his men have already found it, and River heads there as soon as he’s let loose by the dogs, we know we’re headed for an old-fashioned shootout.

Judging these sequences is always a bit weird. Slow Horses is very good at delivering action from a production standpoint, and there’s always a real sense of danger. However, it’s also a question of what kind of storytelling the show has built up to this point, and whether the action serves those arcs in a compelling way. We’re now past the point where the actual plot of the season is going to change: we know all the players, we know all the games, and now it’s just a matter of how that crescendos into a gunfight in the countryside.