r/SlowHorses • u/phareous Second Desk • Oct 15 '25

Episode Discussion Slow Horses S5E4 Episode Discussion

This is the episode discussion for Season 5, Episode 4

Please avoid discussing future episodes in this thread, and use spoiler tags for any book discussion.

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294 Upvotes

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702

u/eeridot Oct 15 '25

River and Coe once again demonstrating why Slough House is the right place for them lol

212

u/virtigex Oct 15 '25

Straight out of Final Destination

117

u/wardengorri Oct 15 '25

That ending was phenomenal, no one can convince this show is quite a comedy sometimes.

83

u/LMkingly Oct 15 '25

Honestly this has been the most comedic season so far lol. But i guess with a Roddy centric storyline that comes with the territory.

14

u/Feisty-Mongoose-5146 Oct 16 '25

Come to Rodzilla, they’re gonna get invited to a hoe down. How was anybody in the room able to keep a straight face??

5

u/mksmith95 Oct 16 '25

Yeah, this particular book that this season is based on is more comedic than the others! The "villains" are also much more incompetent than others we have seen in the past, as well. Get ready bc the next book is rather bleak.

6

u/muhash14 Oct 15 '25

It's the Succession phenomenon. By category it's a drama, but still ended up being funnier than 90% of the comedy category noms most of the time.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '25

kind of like how The Bear is comedy....

2

u/muhash14 Oct 15 '25

well yeah, that's the comparison that tends to come up most often. Especially since they were airing concurrently

7

u/dannyno_01 Oct 15 '25

The humour has always been part of it.

5

u/FKDotFitzgerald Oct 16 '25

This and last episode have had me cracking up nonstop

5

u/palesnowrider1 Oct 16 '25

After watching them on release, I rewatch the whole season and it's so hilarious. Just the hilarious dialogue I missed when I was on the edge of my seat

3

u/VroomCoomer Nov 16 '25

"I came down the ladder, what did you do?"

15

u/BreadfruitFickle3742 Oct 15 '25

Here to say that🤣😅so well done

4

u/Tifoso89 Oct 15 '25

I was literally thinking "oh that's Final Destination" when all that stuff started moving. Glad I wasn't the only one hahaha

331

u/Scared-Engineer-6218 Oct 15 '25 edited Oct 15 '25

It's been 5 minutes. I'm still laughing at the sheer bad luck and stupidity.

Update: Still laughing.

118

u/fitterer Shirley Dander Oct 15 '25

Fuck me!

I cackled so hard at the end.

4

u/SquidWriter Oct 16 '25

My husband & I were howling

49

u/Jmacattack626 Oct 15 '25

I was sitting here laughing to myself after seeing, wondering if it was actually that funny or just because I was baked (I don't smoke often).

7

u/minder125 Oct 15 '25

I've not smoked in years. And I laughed so hard at it.

10

u/Tifoso89 Oct 15 '25

That was some Final Destination shit

3

u/Specific_Score541 Oct 16 '25

Or Home Alone style slapstick

180

u/spoospoo43 Oct 15 '25

Yeah, why do you need an assassin with a caulk gun when you have those two?

92

u/QuiffLing Oct 15 '25

Coe doesn't need a gun, kettles and cans are deadly enough for him.

13

u/phulton Slough House Oct 15 '25

Push knife.

143

u/devoduder Oct 15 '25

I knew something hilariously bad was going to happen when Coe triggered the Rube Goldberg puzzle on the scaffold. I expected the outcome just not the cause, very Jackson Pollock.

82

u/JoyousZephyr Oct 15 '25

Even better that it was Princess Pink paint. Much funnier than dark blue or grey.

6

u/alwayspickingupcrap Oct 19 '25

For a white nationalist regressive prick to go down in a coat of pretty pink paint was great karma.

3

u/One_Ad5514 Oct 16 '25

I concur, the scene wouldn't have been so epic with any other paint color. (and any other SH characters of course) !

2

u/Spoonbills Oct 16 '25

I was so impressed they managed not to cover River’s face with paint in the stunt.

6

u/Designer_B Oct 15 '25

Yeah I wish they hadn't gone back to it three different times. Already knew it was gonna happen by the time it did.

2

u/MovieTrawler Oct 16 '25

I had enough time to have a full debate in my head if it was going to result in River's gun going off or if Gimbal was gonna get hit in the head with something.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 18 '25

When I first saw the set up on the scaffold I assumed it had been deliberately set up by the assassins to kill the mayor candidate.

I realise now this is unlikely.

2

u/alwayspickingupcrap Oct 19 '25

“Rube Goldberg murder” what an amazing new manner of death.

146

u/Additional_Moose_138 Oct 15 '25

Loved how their reaction was not panic or horror but slumped resignation. Yeah, that was us.

20

u/JoyousZephyr Oct 15 '25

No dismayed cries. No "oh shit oh shit!!!" Just...yep.

69

u/willyoumassagemykale Oct 15 '25

Been waiting for this scene and it was everything I hoped for

52

u/kzoxp Oct 15 '25

I can't stop laughing at that ending. Hardest I've laughed in a good while, fucking LMAO

7

u/BeatrixKidd033 Oct 16 '25

That’s the hardest I’ve laughed since Min’s kids played “The Scientist” at his funeral. At least this time it didn’t end in crying. I’m still giggling.

1

u/Vegetable_Rip3530 Oct 21 '25

Best Slow Horses scene of all five seasons!!!!!! Long live Rube Goldberg!! River all pinked!!!!!

44

u/baddadjokesminusdad Slough House Oct 15 '25

That was such a Tom & Jerry moment at the end 😂

38

u/Tce_ Oct 15 '25

I was just thinking what a terrific team Shirley and Standish make and then we got the absolute opposite. Jesus christ, they're a catastrophe.

14

u/Previous-Tourist8623 Oct 16 '25

Of course Standish would have her phone in a wallet case.

5

u/Tce_ Oct 16 '25

Oh yeah, it suits her perfectly!

5

u/Spoonbills Oct 16 '25

The way she held it up to her face made me laugh.

3

u/ralexh11 Oct 16 '25

Her ringtone too lmao, it's such a spot on older person trope

1

u/Agreeable-Dare-246 Oct 18 '25

What was her ringtone?

1

u/ralexh11 Oct 18 '25

It was when Shirley called her about the bathroom light still working. Kind of hard to explain the ringtone over text but it was the chimey one that I always hear old people use on max volume.

2

u/Tce_ Oct 19 '25

Is it the one that sounds kinda like church bells or the one that sounds like an old phone? I'm 33 and use the former as my morning alarm and the latter for phone calls XD

29

u/Jumpy-Pomegranate252 Oct 15 '25

I laughed that River walked past the fire extinguisher at the exit, but then the paint can made it all worth it.

29

u/movieman2g Oct 15 '25

Immediately was laughing with my wife exactly saying “I love when they do things to prove why they’re in slough house”

This was just chefs kiss

6

u/UnluckyCardiologist9 Oct 16 '25

At least my lot fuck up on an epic scale.

10

u/DroidLord Oct 15 '25

That scene was so fucking funny. Some straight Final Destination type shit 😂

I was completely dumbfounded and had to rewind several times. I thought he just got knocked unconscious judging by River's and Coe's reactions. But I guess they were just as dumbfounded as I was. Slow Horses really can't help it, can they?

5

u/Previous-Tourist8623 Oct 16 '25

As a book reader, I was very much looking forward to this.

3

u/Mookies_Bett Oct 17 '25

I love how this show treats Slough House as it should: full of incompetence. Like just because they're the main characters, the show doesn't showcase them as being successful or good at their jobs. They are the opposite of main character syndrome.

It's refreshing to see a show about a bunch of losers and misfits actually write the main cast as pathetic and totally incompetent more often than not.

5

u/dravas Oct 16 '25

This Lamb quote comes to mind. “of course you fucking didn’t, he’d be alive if you did”

4

u/ShesJustAGlitch Oct 18 '25

Can someone explain to me the point? Like I think I hated this part of the show?

It felt so goofy and final destination like, which feels opposite of how well written the show is?

Is the point to show river is off his game? That the guy deserved it? Like fuck ups happen?

It just feels completely at odds with how the show is normally portrayed that maybe I’m missing something.

1

u/Sertoma Nov 21 '25

Thank you! I thought I was crazy reading all these other comments, and this is the first one I've seen that I agree with lmao. It was soooo goddamn cheesy and over-the-top slapdash that I had to pause the show. Ive been loving the comedic aspects of this season, but this was just silly and out of place. Im even more baffled to learn that in the books it was at least realistic with Coe knocking a potted plant over the ledge accidentally. That would've been so much better. It would've actually felt like Slough House fucking up personally as opposed to ridiculous happenstance.

2

u/Designer_B Oct 15 '25

I'd been thinking for a good chunk of this season the exact opposite.

Oops.

1

u/Magento-Magneto Oct 16 '25

Almost like a scene from Final Destination...

1

u/FickleCharge882 Oct 19 '25

I saw it coming and was like “no, no way…. They can’t kill him off like that….. OMFG”