‘Slow Horses’ Season 3 Finale: Saskia Reeves Breaks Down Jackson Lamb’s Shocking Betrayal

Sharon Knolle
·4-min read

This story contains spoilers for the Season 3 finale of “Slow Horses” and from the Mick Herron book series

In the Season 3 finale of Apple TV+ spy series “Slow Horses,” longtime MI5 colleagues Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves) and Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) parted ways after he told her a devastating truth about her beloved late boss, Charles Partner.

After Lamb saved her from kidnappers, Catherine tried to get him to admit he is actually fond of her after working together all these years.

Instead, he took pleasure in telling her that Partner, who she believed had died by suicide years before, was a traitor. He added that her old boss only kept her on because she was an alcoholic who wouldn’t notice he was selling secrets to the Russians.

An understandably shocked Standish quit on the spot and told Lamb she was done with him. TheWrap spoke with Reeves about the momentous, seemingly unhealable rift between the two cast regulars and what we might see in the upcoming fourth season.

TheWrap: At first, Catherine is very touched that Lamb has come to her rescue. And then he tells her that her late boss was a traitor who was setting her up to take the fall for him. That’s a huge, huge betrayal.

Saskia Reeves: Yeah. It’s a shocking moment for her. Which is why I think she says, if you don’t mind my French, “F,U. Jackson Lamb, f—k the lot of you.” I think she’s just had it, that’s it. She’s had enough. And Catherine never swears. Jackson Lamb swears all the time, but she never swears. So that was quite a big thing for her to do that.

So of all the things that Lamb says to Catherine, what do you think was the most hurtful?

That Charles was only keeping her close because she was a drunk. [Lamb] helped her go to rehab. He helped her, she thought, recover. And I think after Charles Partner was killed, or when he committed suicide, as she thinks, she fell off the wagon a few times.

Lamb tells her, doesn’t he, in the end of Season 1 that he gave Charles Partner the gun. But she always blamed herself for his death. And she falls off the wagon, and then gets back on it because otherwise she’d probably kill herself.

And that’s when Lamb picks her up and says, “Okay, I’m going to offer you a job.” I imagine her self-esteem is very low. It’s a job that she can do incredibly well. She hasn’t sunk to the bottom like all the other [agents in Slough House].

She really gets a chance to shine this season as she gains the trust of her kidnappers and mines them for information.

I don’t know if anybody would have quite approached it the way she did. Knowing what she knows, and getting sort of caught up in their emotional reason why they need the information that they need. You have to remember she’s not a spy. She’s a secretary, a very, very good secretary.

Do you think Lamb is actually fond of her?

Yes. They’ve been part of MI5 since before the [Berlin] wall came down, they’ve been through so much together. They know the same people from before. And they’re both more analog than digital. She knows [he used to be an] exemplary member of MI5. And he knows her to be an incredibly experienced supporter of the head of MI5. I think he respects her, but he’s also a frightful bully and, and in some areas, a coward who doesn’t want to face his own alcoholism.

So he pushes her, he keeps pushing her to see how far she’ll go, to test her. I think she interprets that as, “He’s trying to break me. He’s trying to push me off the wagon, and I refuse to be pushed off the wagon.” And the longer she stays sober, the stronger she gets. And I love how strong she is. She’s very smart. And she’s kind but she’s f—ked up. Which is what holds them all together, isn’t it?

Gary Oldman in Season 3 of "Slow Horses"
CREDIT: Apple TV+

He has one one big secret left: As the viewers already know, he was the one who killed Charles.

Right. That hasn’t come out yet. Which is why when she asks him, “Do we kill our own?,” she’s not aware of how close she is to the truth.

I haven’t read the books but I assume that does come out at some point.

It does come out, but I can’t remember which book it happens in. I’ve read them all a few times.

Actually, it’s a conversation I want to have with the showrunner Will Smith. What are we going to do with this piece of humming knowledge, this thing that won’t go away? This thing that Jackson did, but he did it under the umbrella of David Cartwright (Jonathan Pryce). And that relationship will be unfolded in Season 4.

We get a few glimpses of Catherine in the Season 4 teaser trailer. Will we see her back at Slough House?

I can’t say anything!

Seasons 1-3 of “Slow Horses” are now streaming on Apple TV+. Season 4 is expected to debut this fall. The series has been renewed through Season 5.

The post ‘Slow Horses’ Season 3 Finale: Saskia Reeves Breaks Down Jackson Lamb’s Shocking Betrayal appeared first on TheWrap.

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