Slow Horses Season 4 Episode 6 Review: Hello Goodbye

Slow Horses Season 4 Episode 6, “Hello Goodbye,” closes out another fantastic season. This finale is action-packed and still manages to deliver some emotional moments.

One surprising thing about “Hello Goodbye” is that it feels unfinished. Multiple storylines aren’t all that wrapped up, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in some instances, but it’s simply curious.

Harkness is in custody, but thanks to his blackmail failsafe, it seems very likely that he’ll be released. In his brief chat with Diana, he shares that he’s River’s father, and if he decides to keep talking, he could reveal what David did years ago to get his daughter back.

The Park spends the majority of the season hunting down the Cartwrights, and yet the season ends without us learning if they are going to press charges or punish either Cartwright for their actions. The Park setting David up at the retirement home suggests that all is good, but we don’t know that for sure.

This is the biggest storyline that needed a bit more closure during this finale. River should have had a sit down with both Diana and First Desk and hashed everything out, perhaps Jackson could have sat in on this meeting and fired off some sarcastic quips now and then if he felt like being supportive.

Speaking of First Desk, Claude needs to go. A kill order on one of their own seems like a huge overreaction, and also it can’t be great that First Desk is susceptible to blackmail as Moira brilliantly proved. Here’s hoping Diana can be rid of him next season.

Another bit of unfinished business worth discussing involves Catherine.

As many people pointed out throughout the season, she’s still employed by MI5, despite her attempts to quit. On “Hello Goodbye,” she proves that she knows Slough House (and Jackson) very well, as she could locate various things hidden away in Jackson’s office when Moira could not.

She’ll likely make her way back into her old job at some point, but it’s unclear if the reason she left has been resolved yet — Jackson lying to her.

The two don’t necessarily reconcile during Slow Horses Season 4, but Catherine does begrudgingly put her differences aside to help River and David out.

It wouldn’t feel right to just have her back in her role next season without some sort of conversation about everything. It doesn’t necessarily have to be with Jackson — he’s not one to have a constructive conversation — but Catherine needs to discuss her thoughts with someone.

Do you think we’ll pick up next season with Catherine back at Slough House?

There’s a lot to get through, plot-wise, in this episode, so it’s not a huge critique that some threads are left hanging, but it just feels strange that so much is unfinished. We’ll just need Slow Horses Season 5 to make it up to us and address some of these fairly early on.

With a seemingly indestructible assassin on the loose, constantly dropping people left and right, it is sadly unavoidable that we would lose someone. It would not have felt believable if everyone came out of Patrice’s visit to Slough House relatively unscathed — Roddy’s scratch doesn’t count.

Still, it’s heartbreaking to lose Marcus.

The show is smart to focus not on the moment he died but on Shirley’s reaction to his death. The fact that Jackson knew how close the two of them were and tried to protect Shirley from the pain of seeing Marcus’ body says a lot.

Slough House just healed from losing Harper, and I’m not ready to see them all grieving again.

What did you think of this episode of Slow Horses? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Slow Horses Season 4 is now streaming on Apple TV+.

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