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Spoilers follow for Slow Horses season 5 episode 6.
Slow Horses season 5 has officially wrapped, bringing Claude Whelan’s comical stint as its MI5 boss to a close in a make-or-break finale that sees his bureaucratic rigidness confronted by real-world danger.
Following the episode’s release on October 29, fans of the Apple TV spy show will now know that the fifth season’s ending pushes Whelan to his breaking point after being threatened at gun point by one of the Libyan terrorists that had been behind numerous attacks on London.
Saved in the nick of time by none other than Slough House agent River Cartwright, Whelan doesn’t have time to properly recover, because he needs to save his job by shifting the blame of the agency’s mishaps – and who better to pin that all on than Jackson Lamb.
The plan ends up backfiring, though, when Lamb outmaneuvers Whelan by blackmailing him in return with a recording that reveals the MI5 boss previous threats and scandalous affair that came to light in Slow Horses season 5 episode 4.
Lamb’s final checkmate move brings what James Callis described as Whelan’s “most impactful role” in Slow Horses to a close, as he’s forced out of his role as head of first desk, leaving Diana Taverner to take the reigns.
Being the fall guy will undoubtedly take its toll on Whelan, but Callis says that his character is more likely to be left reeling from the shock of almost being killed.
“That kind of thing doesn’t just glance off people,” Callis told TechRadar. “Maybe if you’re special forces and used to that sort of combat zone, but if you’re used to running strategy out of an office, that’s not what you strategized for. There’d be some kind of emotional fallout [because], realistically, if you’ve been in any form of a hostage situation, or if someone’s really pulled a gun on you with intent, you’d probably be in therapy afterwards.
“One imagines a very different person emerging from all this. I don’t quite know if it would be a phoenix rising from the ashes, but there are certainly a lot of ashes,” Callis added.
Why Slow Horses is the perfect British spy show
While such a shift in power dynamics would leave a character like Whelan lashing out in anger, Callis plays the whole exchange with Lamb at the end of episode 6 with a cool composure that masks his underlying embarrassment. It’s part of the show’s quintessentially British tone, showing humor and restraint even amid chaos.
“And that’s part of the Englishness of it all, isn’t it?” Callis said. “The stiff upper lip, the idea that what doesn’t kill you makes a great story. There’s a lot going on under the surface. You think you’re okay, you convince yourself you’re okay… and then afterwards comes the delayed shock.”
It’s this formula that has helped to make Slow Horses one of the best British spy shows in not just in the UK, but globally. In fact, classic espionage with a helping of Britain’s signature sarcastic wit is particularly popular in the US, Callis pointed out.
“Slow Horses is emblematic of something distinctly British,” he said. “There’s this seesaw between how seriously you take something and how you approach it with humor, and I think the self-deprecating comedy really travels well, even across the pond. In America, you don’t see this as much.
“As an audience, we’re not always laughing with the Slow Horses, we’re laughing at them,” he continued. “Roddy exists in a world slightly apart from everyone else, Shirley is immediately spiky and aggressive, and River is paddling around trying to keep up. And Claude, well, we certainly have fun at Claude not being so comfortable.
“The British do this really well. We know about crushing embarrassment, like showing up late to a party and having only one chair in the center you have to walk through everyone to reach. That awkwardness, that social cringe, it comes naturally to us. It’s part of our charm, and part of our fragility.”
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