Failure's Contagious

**Failure's Contagious** is the first episode of the first season of *Slow Horses* and the first episode of the show in overall. It aired on April 1, 2022 in a two episode premiere alongside Work Drinks on Apple TV+.

## Summary

*River Cartwright is removed form MI5 and is in a place worse than the purgatory: The Refuge, the final destination for failed spies.*

## Plot

At an airport, River Cartwright gets ready to board his flight while waiting for someone. He talks to a team which guides him, telling him to look for an Asian male. He is asked if there is a handover and he sees the target move. However, he is told to wait and not move. He is told he can move and apprehend the subject, who he starts chasing with other agents. When Cartwright looks inside the bag, he finds the man is clean and they have the wrong subject, due to Cartwright hearing the details of the man's clothes wrong according to Webb. He is told to stand down as the team locates the real subject, but Cartwright runs towards the man anyway.

River makes it to baggage reclaim where the man is at, but he is walking straight out. Cartwright finally has a visual on him and runs towards him as an alarm starts sounding and telling people to evacuate the airport. Cartwright chases the man, who starts running down a flight of stairs. Cartwright has to take down police as he chases the man. However, when he finally reaches him, the man looks him straight in the eye as a train reaches him and he pulls a trigger to a bomb.

Jackson Lamb is awoken by his own fart and he lights up a cigarette as a woman makes it into her office. Jackson calls Catherine Standish into his office and complains about "MI-useless".

River looks through trash bags, saying he is looking for a reason to not blow his brains out. Catherine asks him if he believes Sid would be happy with him dumping the trash on the floor. She gives men old reports as she goes to another men and gives them more reports, which one finds unchallenging.

Hobden, at a diner, talks on the phone, waiting for a fin to break and asks for 2000 words on the newspaper once the event that he is waiting for happens. Sid, next to him talks and asks if she could borrow his *Times*. When she gets up, she dumps coffee all over his table, which makes him get up quickly. When he leaves, she grabs his flashdrive and connects it to her computer.

River walks up to Lamb's office and tells him that he does not know what he is looking for in the trash, to which he is told that he is looking for the remnants of a once promising career. Lamb wonders hat he has found, to which River responds that he has not found many things. He wonders if they wanted their suspect to know they were onto him, but Lamb tells him that there was no "we", but only him telling River what to do. Lamb laughs when River asks if he would be watching Hobden, saying that things did not go well last time he had had any sort of responsibility. He is reminded of the gravity of the bombing at the train station, which he says is a daily occurrence and Lamb says he would do it on the weekends as well if he did not hate him as much. He tells River that he is surrounded by fuckups in their building, but he is the biggest one. Lamb says that he does not like him and wants him to quit, so River goes back to the trash.

Sid walks up to Lamb, who congratulates her on what she had done with Hobden. River asks what was on Hobden's flashdrive, but Lamb tells them to get out of his office. River wonders why they were both assigned to Hobden, but Sid reminds him that he was not really doing much.

Lamb calls Diana and tells her that they have Hobden's laptop files. Diana says that she would not be sending a courier, but tells him to send one of his "donkeys" instead. She asks him to send Sid who was the "least shit". Lamb tells her that she owes him.

River walks up to Lamb's office, who says he meant to call Sid. However, he tells River to deliver the package to Regent's Park, which he found strange, since he could not believe it had been passed to them. Lamb says that they did not want him to deliver it, but he is being sent because Sid is not there. Lamb tells him to take the package to Webb.

River makes his way to a safe, where he makes a copy of the files to his computer before finally going to deliver the package. When he reaches the front desk, he says that he is part of MI5, but the secretary tells him that he is not showing up on their database, so he clarifies that he comes from the Slough House. River makes it to Webb's office, refusing to shakes his hand and making fun of him for being part of HR. River wonders if he was ever going to admit that he had made a mistake in the training exercise. Webb makes fun of him, later telling him that his grandfather had to pull many strings for River to not be expelled from the force altogether.

Lamb is woken up by Catherine and he pours them both a drink, which she does not take. The employees walk out of the Slough House and go about their lives, not wanting to get a drink.

River watches a video as he is approached by Sid, who startles him and tells him he looks like a mole. He tells her is is watching a video about Greg Simmonds and plays the speech for her, saying that he probably funded hate groups. She tells him there are better ways to spend his free time, saying that she had only come for her charger after getting drinks. He thanks her for the invite and she says that she has invited him before, but he has rejected the invites.

Lamb walks into Sid and River's office, saying that if people did not leave the building by 5 then he was not doing his job properly. He tells them that if he finds out they are taking part in extracurricular that activities that could ruin the balance of the Slough House, then he would make it so they wished they were in a Siberian gulag.

Hobden walks into the diner, wondering if the girl who spilled his coffee had left soon after him and if she had visited recently. She tells the waiter that if she came back, to give him a call. When Hobden leaves, the waiter throws the napkin in the trash.

At a group therapy circle, Catherine has flashbacks to when she got home and found Charles had killed himself.

River looks up information on Hobden as he drives around, walking into his grandfather, David's house. David wonders if River had heard from his mother, which he says he had, but only from a post card. River asks about Hobden and complains that it had been 8 months since he had been at the Slough House. He says that Lamb was actually living at the Slough House and had not been forgiven.

Hobden tells Jack that people would die if he did not take action.

David pours River a drink and they talk about the box he had tried to open. River says that the box had a laptop with Hobden's files. David wonders if anyone knows about his stunt, but his grandson says that nobody found out. River wants to know why Park wanted to know about Hobden and David says that Hobden had had a run-in with the MI5 before.

Two friends, one of which is Hassan Ahmed sit down at a restaurant and talk while being spied on. After dinner, one of them does standup comedy, getting some laughs out of the crowd until he makes a joke about Jesus, Allah and Buddha. In the end, he is congratulated by his friend and they talk about their plans for the next day. All of a sudden, the man is put in the back of the van that was spying on him.

River makes it to the Slough House, wanting Roddy to check something for him. He hands Roddy a flashdrive and wants to know what he is looking at. Roddy says that he is looking at the number Pi, which makes Sid realize he had copied the files and Hobden had been expecting a snatch. Sid sees his injured hand and slaps it, but River tells her that if Park was looking into Hobden, they should be making an effort as well, but Sid wants to stay out of their way.

Roddy calls River and Sid, telling them that there was a hostage that had been picked up yesterday and had popped up on a Middle East chat a while ago. The Slow Horses start watching the video, which makes Lamb wonder why. He tells them that whatever was happening would be assigned to real agents, not them since they are fuckups. They wonder what they should do, but Lamb says that nothing. River tells Sid that Hobden's old crew was the British Patriotic Party and one of them might have something to do with it. It is announced that the young man's head would be cut off the next day, but Lamb tells that that changes nothing. He asks where River is however, but he was already gone.

## Cast

### Starring

* Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb
* Jack Lowden as River Cartwright
* Kristin Scott Thomas as Diana Taverner

### Guest-Starring

* Rosalind Eleazar as Louisa Guy
* Saskia Reeves as Catherine Standish
* Christopher Chung as Roddy Ho
* Dustin Demri-Burns as Min Harper
* Freddie Fox as Spider Webb
* Chris Reilly as Nick Duffy
* Samuel West as Peter Judd
* Bally Gill as Agent Singh
* Antonio Aakeel as Hassan Ahmed
* Pierro Niel-Mee as Agent McCrae
* Steven Waddington as Jed Moody
* Paul Hilton as Robert Hobden
* Anita Anand as Herself
* Tom Bradby as Himself
* Olivia Cooke as Sidonie “Sid” Baker
* Paul Higgins as Struan Loy
* Lesley Harcourt as Agent Owen

### Co-Starring

* Kal Sabir as BBC Reporter
* Miltos Yerolemou as Theo Makris
* Michael Garner as Michael Portland
* Angela Yeoh as Professor Rachel Harrison-Smith
* Ross Smith as John
* Katie Lyons as Kirsty (AA)
* Roli Okorodudu as AA Chairperson
* Olwen May as Receptionist at The Park
* Christopher Villiers as Greg Simmonds
* Saem Ahmed as Young Asian Man
* Ved Sapru as 2nd Heathrow Suspect

### Uncredited

* Ronnie Deighton as Office Worker #1
* Liam Edwards as Office Worker #2
* Susan Fordham as Traveller #1
* Lati Gbaja as Traveller #2
* Isla Gie as Struan's Daughter
* Sabine Kviste as Agent
* Gsus Lopez as Passerby #1
* Barbara Orti as Passerby #2
* Mick Slaney as Tourist
* Rutvig Vaid as Aarav Anand (staff nurse)

## Trivia

* Slow Horses is the first Apple TV+ Plus offering to be nominated for an award from the Writers' Guild of Great Britain (i.e. WGGB.). The award, for the show's first episode of its very first season called *Failure's Contagious*, has been nominated under the Best Long Form TV Drama category.

## External Link(s)

* Watch Season 1, Episode 1: *Failure's Contagious* on AppleTV+

## References

1. ↑ Slow Horses earns Apple TV Plus its first UK Writers' Guild award nomination - iMore