Slow Horses Season 4 Premiere Recap: Slough House Investigates the ‘Death’ of One of Their Own

Apple TV+’s Slow Horses Season 4 premiere, “Identity Theft,” wasted no time ramping up its stakes. Rather, it slammed us with explosions, murder and emotionally fraught espionage, all while building to a major new threat that will rattle Slough House’s very foundations…

The Bachelorette Finale Recap: Jenn Makes Franchise History -- But Did She Get a Fairy Tale Ending?

“Identity Theft” is classic Slow Horses from the get-go: Roddy ( Waterloo Road’ s Christopher Chung) shows up for a Christmas party at a fried chicken joint, but his colleagues aren’t there. His calls to his fellow Slough Housers go unanswered until Louisa ( Harlots actress Rosalind Eleazar), always eager to take the mickey out of the cocky hacktivist, answers and explains that their boss, heavy-drinking, gas-passing Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), lied to Roddy to get him out of his hair.

As Roddy leaves the restaurant, a car bomb explodes in a nearby shopping center. MI5 rushes to manage the chaos, but the scale and suddenness of the attack have caught everyone off-guard. Was this an isolated incident? The first step in a larger criminal plot? These are the questions plaguing Second Desk Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) as she eyes the wreckage. Her superior, new First Desk Claude Whelan (Battlestar Galactica’s James Callis), is of little help.

The next day, River (Jack Lowden) tells Louisa his grandfather, legendary spymaster David Cartwright ( The Crown ‘s Jonathan Pryce), is losing his memory and suffering from extreme paranoia. Louisa urges River to visit him, reminding her friend that it’s his turn to step up, that his grandfather cared for him when others wouldn’t, and he needs to show up for the only family he knows.

River is right to worry about his grandfather. The elderly Cartwright is convinced he’s on someone’s kill list (to be fair, he almost certainly is) and can barely return from a grocery run without scrambling for a shotgun. Firearm in hand, butt planted firmly in the most advantageous corner of his living room, he nods off.

Someone pounds frantically on the front door before a voice claiming to be River convinces David to answer. “River” hurries in and offers to run him a bath, but something is off. The camera makes a point not to show us the guest’s face Suspicious, David follows “River” upstairs and, in a moment of confusion, shoots him dead.

Lamb, arriving at the Cartwright house soon after the shooting, meets new MI5 head of internal affairs Emma Flyte ( Ted Lasso ‘s Ruth Bradley). She wants him to determine whether or not the faceless body slumped in David’s bathtub is indeed River. He gives the grisly scene a once-over and confirms the corpse’s identity. For someone so fiercely protective of the spies in his charge, Lamb seems unperturbed by the younger Cartwright’s death. He departs the scene and sits alone in his car, and for a moment, convinces us that he truly believes River is dead.

Only Murders in the Building Boss Breaks Down [Spoiler]'s Return and Charles' Visions of Sazz in Episode 2

Meanwhile, Taverner sends a task force to scope out the bombing suspect’s apartment. The subject of the search, a man going by Robert Winters, is nowhere to be found, and his living arrangements appear oddly devoid of bombs or booby traps. A simple tug on the blinds proves otherwise. Winters had rigged the shades to trigger an explosion when opened, and explode they do.

The Slough House crew, having learned of their friend’s “death” via Roddy’s callous swiping of River’s hard drive, reels at the news. Lamb is notably absent, though.

That’s because after leaving the Cartwright house, Lamb heads straight to his former office administrator, Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves), who resigned last season after new details about her dead mentor came to light. The exchange is awkward, but Lamb gets right to it: He believes River is alive, and he knows Standish has seen both River and David since the murder. Standish denies any knowledge of the situation, but Lamb all but forces her to prove River is alive but off the grid, and David is asleep in Standish’s bedroom.

“Identity Theft” wraps up with River tearing through the French countryside in the backseat of a taxi, equipped with a fake passport and the determination to find out who’s after his family….

Want scoop on Slow Horses , or for any other TV show ? Email InsideLine@tvline.com , and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!

English Teacher Premiere Recap: Does FX's School Comedy Make the Grade?