A review of the Slow Horses season finale, "Judgment Day" — with spoilers — coming up just as soon as I'm obviously not Lazlo...
Alan Sepinwall
Two things can be true. Slow Horses Season Six was a lot of fun in a lot of ways, particularly in seeing so many former characters returning at the same time. But mashing up the plots of two books, on top of bringing back Louisa, Harkness, Moira, and everyone else, was more than a six-episode season could comfortably accommodate.
Even after multiple explanatory scenes across multiple episodes, I still couldn't tell you exactly why Harkness' team and Jim and Jane are both required to deal with the problem, for instance. And some ideas introduced in the season — Catherine's world is rocked upon learning that Lamb assassinated Charles Partner, Flyte very reluctantly teams up with the Slow Horses — didn't get nearly the room they needed.
And yet the individual moments — every second of River and Sid's banter, Coe's delight at Jim recognizing the push knife, Shirley's astonishment at finding a spear gun (and Reece using it to save Ho's life) — were so spectacular that I'm largely inclined to forgive the narrative clumsiness relative to other seasons. This ideally should have been eight episodes, maybe even 10. But enough of it worked that I can accept the messiness of it, especially since the plan is to go back to adapting one book per season.