Work Drinks

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

## Summary

*River and Sid join forces. A mistakenly fired weapon has dire consequences.*

## Plot

Three men prepare to drink tea. Someone wakes up from his nap and joins the men, saying he would like to a PlayStation. One of the men says that he served his country and has killed men before, saying he has killed 5 at least, but maybe 9 more. The men celebrate that they got over 1,000,000 views on the news. They go to check on Hassan Ahmed, who they are holding hostage, telling him that he would remove the tape off his mouth so he could ask them for things if he needed to. The man asks to be let go, but the man says that he is dangerous and would cut his head off like Afghans allegedly do and are experts in.

Diana walks into a meeting room, where she says that the hostage is Hassan Ahmed and goes to Leeds University. She says he is law-abiding and the kidnappers call themselves Sons of Albion and they have 17 similar groups under their radar at the moment.

Lamb opens his window and is approached by Catherine, who tells him that Cartwright was not answering his phone. Lamb tells her that when Cartwright comes back, he wants him tied to his desk doing nothing.

River walks down the street and into Webb's barber shop. Webb taunts him saying he could not afford to go to a place like that one, but River says he only wants to know what was on Hobden's USB. Webb tells him that is classified, but River thanks him for letting him know that there was nothing important in it, leaving afterwards.

Catherine goes and sees River with Roddy, telling him that Lamb wants everybody back at their desks. River wants Roddy to help him get into Hobden's emails, but Roddy says there is little point to that because the Park would not give them bonuses or medals for helping out, so River tries bribing him. River tells Roddy that he knows why he is in MI5, which scares him. Roddy says that he could not get into his emails because Hobden has no email presence.

Lamb lights up a cigarette as Catherine wonders if he is not only worried about River, to which he replies that it was not a coincidence that Diana Taverner ran a special op on a right-wing reject just as some nationalists kidnapped "a brown kid".

Sid gets a call, which she does not answer and goes to her office where River is cleaning up the trash. River tells her that he wanted to find out if the USB stick had what the Park was looking for, but it was not. HE says that what he was doing could get him kicked out for good, but he has one lead which could possibly be bullshit.

Diana meets with Mr. Moody at a stadium, wanting to know how he had found out about what she had told Lamb. He says that there is a bug since he never believed in that lazy bastard since he is never given anything relevant to do. She tells him that he would do a few things for her off the record. She hands him a bug, saying that Slough House may be a dead end, but it is still part of the service. She says that if it gets out it has been compromised, his former chums in the Dogs will tear him apart. She tells him that Lamb is a burnout for a reason and that when he was in the field, he had more to worry about than screwups like him.

The kidnappers watch the news, saying that the whole world was looking at them. One man tells another that they could never speak a word of it when they were done. He says that they would pretend they did not know one another and were never there. He says that he is proud of what they are doing for their country. He goes upstairs and uses a phone, which he hides once he is finished using it.

Diana gets back to MI5, where an agent tells her that it appeared the man is being held in London since the background has London brick and have it limited to certain areas.

Hassan is visited by a man who gives him a bucket to go to the bathroom in. He tells Hassan that they would chop his head off in the morning and fight for their country, but Hassan says that he is British, which the man says is only because he passed the citizenship test. He says that he was born there, but the man says that it is not the same. Hassan asks if he thinks Churchill would be proud of what he is doing, calling the man a coward. The man tells him that talking about cowardice, he could not even go on a pub stage, getting close to him and scaring him.

Hobden calls Nick Drew, asking to be put on whoever was on the news desk, but gets no answer. He does this many times until he leaves the restaurant, followed by River, who picks up a cellphone that he threw away. River follows him throughout the city until Hobden makes it onto a bus and another one after that, sensing that he was being followed. Unbeknownst to him, River had already been waiting for him on that bus.

Lamb asks Catherine to get him Taverner on the phone, however, Diana does not pickup. He tells her that he wants to tell her about the results to her test. He asks when Cartwright had left and is told that about two hours ago. He invites Catherine for a drink, but she does not want it.

Slough House workers get ready to leave and walk outside together, but none of them want to have drinks with their colleague.

River waits in a car, where he is joined by Sid, who tells him that she had been following him all day long. She asks what he found in Hobden's trash and he says that Ho predicted that Hobden would have turned his computer to ash and he found evidence to confirm this. He says that in order to get Ho to help, he would tell him why he was in Slough House. She asks him to break it to her because she knows that Ho is only there because he is an insufferable prick. River asks Sid if she believed that Roddy could find out why Lamb is in Slough House, but she says that he would already have done so. River asks Sid why she is there, since Lamb and he could see that she is not like the others. She says that the decision to go to Slough House came out of nowhere and is none of his business. He tells her that he is waiting for Hobden to sleep so he could steal his laptop.

Louisa walks into a bar, where she sits down next to Min, who also avoided going out with Struan. They start talking and she says that she does not have friends she could talk to about work since everyone at the Park shunned her. He says that he was shamed by everyone after he left a top secret file on a train. He says that he remembers the day it happened and was called a fucking idiot by his ex-wife.

Catherine walks into Lamb's office and puts out his cigarette. He asks for Ho, but she says that he is gone. Lamb asks her to get him back then.

Hassan trips and he slides towards a small wooden door, which he starts taking apart.

River says that Hobden was calling many journalists. Sid gets a call from her Aunt Zadie, who had been calling her all day long. She does not reveal who Aunt Zadie is and says that there is a reason she did not tell him why she is in the Slough House. He tells her that she does not need to tell him because the only possibility of her being in the Slough House must have to do with her personal life. She says that it is his business, since she did not follow him today, but Taverner did. She also tells him that she is not watching Hobden, she is watching him. River laughs but finds out she is serious. She says that he is the reason she was assigned to Slough House and they see movement outside as someone tries to get into Hobden's apartment.

River walks in and hears struggling. A masked man with a gun is holding Hobden, so River tells him that there would be reinforces in minutes and if they saw him with a gun, they would just kill him. There is an explosion and River tries fighting the man, but is taken down. At the entrance, Sid struggles with the man. River hears a gunshot and rushes to the door, where he finds Sid had been shot in the head.

## 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
* Bally Gill as Agent Singh
* Antonio Aakeel as Hassan Ahmed
* Stephen Walters as Zeppo
* Brian Vernel as Curly
* Pierro Niel-Mee as Agent McCrae
* David Walmsley as Larry
* Steven Waddington as Jed Moody
* Paul Hilton as Robert Hobden
* Melissa Suppiah as Mrs. Fatima Ahmed
* Olivia Cooke as Sidonie “Sid” Baker
* Paul Higgins as Struan Loy

### Co-Starring

* Tom Bradby as Himself
* Kal Sabir as BBC Reporter
* Ravi Aujla as Mr. Abdul Ahmed
* Sam Hazeldine as Moe
* James Faulkner as Charles Partner
* Miltos Yerolemou as Theo Makris
* Hywel Morgan as Steve Johnston
* Billy Wright as Barman
* Johanna Taylor as Nell Wiseman
* Kurt Egyiawan as Roger Barrowby
* Michael Fenton Stevens as Leonard Bradley
* Joseph Thompson as Derek Rothery

### Uncredited

* Omar Alboukharey as Train Passenger
* Pierre Bergman as Hotel Passerby
* Ray Burnet as Whitehall Mandarin #1
* Kemal Shah as Whitehall Mandarin #2
* Sabine Kviste as Agent
* Barbara Orti as Passerby
* Mick Slaney as Tourist
* Rutvig Vaid as Aarav Anand (staff nurse)

## External Link(s)

* Watch Season 1, Episode 2: *Work Drinks* on AppleTV+