Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Slow Horses (TV), Slough House - Mick Herron Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive

River Cartwright is Harry Potter and James Webb is Draco Malfoy.

Discuss.

So I gather that there's some disagreement on the internet over whether Dr. Frank Langdon is an evil manipulative meanie or a hapless victim of addiction as a disease but can we all at least agree that whatever fuckass dinosaur of a doctor prescribed him benzos for low back pain like it's Y2K needs to be on a prescription monitoring plan? Goddamn man, maybe look at a guideline from this decade before handing out highly addictive meds of dubious benefit like Jolly Ranchers on Halloween?

(BTW I don't think Langdon actually has serious ongoing chronic pain. I think he minorly fucked his back once and probably would have been fine in the long term with some good PT but he didn't do the exercises because it was Covid and he was too busy working. So it kept bothering him and he had the misfortune of a benzo Rx landing in his addiction-prone personality lap and fast forward to present day here we are. /headcanon)

All of this. I am so obsessed with imagining their relationship before the series starts.

Also, River is all about River in a lot of ways. And he's sad about Spider's death because it's not only the final death of what their *relationship* once was, it's also a symbol of him losing who *he* once was. Or who he thought he was going to be.

I think that the insane yearning and obsession they have for each other is driven a lot by how needy they both are for a certain kind of success and recognition. They recognize each other as fellow travellers. They also have those feelings you have when you have a crush on someone and it's kind of about how you think that person has something amazing about them that makes you want to bask in their aura but also you kind of resent them because you're envious of their sparkle.

The seething disdain they feel for each other after the Falling Out is a reflection of their disappointment in how the other has failed to live up to the (still nascent) image they projected and the grimy mirror that holds up to their own respective reflections.

Instead of Britain's most dangerous field asset, River is a fuck up who can't follow basic instructions (for his surveillance assignment - hence Stanstead/King's Cross). Instead of an astute political operative climbing the ranks and pulling strings behind the scenes, James is babysitting a bunch of filing cabinets and only gets trotted out when some woman with actual power needs a biddable warm body for her own purposes. They both suck and they hate looking at the other man and being reminded of the abjectness of failure, of falling short, of being so desperately close but so far. It's embarrassing watching the other one hanging from the cliff by his fingernails while he puts on a show like he's still climbing the mountain.

I think the saddest thing about their relationship is that these boys never even really knew each other. And they couldn't because they didn't even know themselves. They were too young and trying too desperately to outrun themselves and become perfect, unassailable, lovable.

They're both so deeply lonely. And then Spider dies and River is even more alone. They ended up hating each other but James also understood what it was like to live with that black hole in the centre of himself and there was a type of company in that, even after the love was gone.

river and spider are just such a tragedy to me. the way they both (in the books) are just. constantly wistfully thinking about Back When They Were Friends… and it’s about more than just their friendship in a lot of ways, it’s that Back Then was when they still had bright unbounded futures, back when they thought they’d wander straight into influential spots at the service and be bestest friends forever while they changed the world and got everything they ever wanted.

and like. the thing is, that is already gone. they’re never getting that back. even if they somehow put all their bitterness and history aside and became close again, it wouldn’t be the same as before… they’ll never get that youthful optimism that (in my head at least) defined their pre-series relationship back. that version of their friendship is gone forever already.

but then spider dies and, well. now it’s really really gone. now even the hope of a “different from before but close enough to what they had once” reunion is gone.

just. agh. this idea of like. that, that version of their relationship, the version that they miss, is already dead and buried before the series starts and there’s no getting it back. there’s already no getting it back. but they still keep hoping (or at least, river keeps hoping, though i think spider does too) that it somehow, against all rules of logic, WILL come back anyway. until spider dies and river has to face that that hope, while impossible before anyway, it now for real actually impossible impossible…

heartbreaking, man. they’re such a tragedy.

my prayers have been answered

Generally, I'm not sure I totally get the whole "whump" thing. But that first gif, where he's being perp walked out of the Park by Hobbs with blood all over his face? Is that what you guys are talking about?

JACK LOWDEN as River Cartwright in SLOW HORSES Season 3 (2023)

I know we been knew that fandom in general is terrible at tolerating gray areas, but I find myself beyond irritated with this song and dance when it comes to the Pitt because the fallibility of the characters is the whole entire point.

The show is not subtle about its themes. Every single episode and character arc is hammering home that impossible, high-stakes judgement calls are an occupational hazard and a torturous burden placed on healthcare workers, and they can never be 100% sure in the moment if they're making the right decision. Sometimes you order a BiPAP and you accidentally make the patient's condition worse; sometimes you do a REBOA against literally every superior's instruction and you save a life. You do your best in the moment, and it's only after the fact, once the results come in, that people will decide whether you're a stupidly cocky student or a heroic cowboy-doctor.

That trade-off is present even when it's not life-or-death. Taking extra time and care to get to know your patients is great for the ones already in the bed; it's not great for the ones still out in the waiting room. Which type of patient satisfaction should we prioritize? Do you involve law enforcement before you know a crime has been committed? When does preemptive action prevent harm and when does it cause more? How do you adhere to "Do no harm" when someone always gets shortchanged no matter what decision you make?

Hell, the inherent unfairness is baked into the very premise of a teaching hospital: these patients didn't necessarily sign up for their once-in-a-lifetime emergency to be a med student's teachable moment. Nobody really wants a newbie doing their stitches—but also, practical experience is an absolute must for medical training. Without interns now, you can't have experts later, so here we are.

So with all that in mind, I don't think debating which character was Right or Wrong in a given scene has ever been a less productive way of engaging with a show. For all I disdain the mentality that refuses to engage with the Trolley Problem because "the REAL problem is whoever tied those people to the tracks in the first place!!1!" sometimes you actually are supposed to consider the bigger, systemic picture. The Pitt is inviting us to engage with very real problems with the state of healthcare in modern America by showcasing how it's literally impossible for these doctors to make the perfect decisions every time, and no it's not fair. To anyone.

idk I just think in light of that very clear message, fighting over which blorbo was the rudest or made the worst fuck up or whose reaction to stress and trauma is more valid is the height of media illiteracy.

Thoughts inspired by @saulbetter's recent posts.

This show is kind of sold or discussed as "spies! but they suck at being spies!" But the thing that all the slow horses actually have in common isn't that they're bad spies, it's that they're people without social capital. They actually range from competent to excellent at the technical aspects of their work (Ho, Catherine, Marcus, Shirley, Coe, and even River are all good at the hard skills of their jobs. We are told Louisa screwed up but in both show and books she is shown to be one of the most reliable performers on the team). But they don't have friends or patrons to protect them when things go sideways.

The reason they're the rejects is because they're loners who struggle to connect with other people for all their various reasons (childhood trauma, job-related PTSD, addiction, personality disorder, inherent temperament). So they're playing checkers when their internal opponents at Regent's Park are playing chess. To the extent that they even realize that the social/political game exists (Ho and Catherine mostly don’t), they're bad at it (Coe, Lech) and/or think they shouldn't have to play it (Marcus, Shirley). River impressively manages to be deficient in all three aspects: totally naive to the politics of advancement within the Park, bad with people, and so committed to his own view of himself as a Boy Scout that he thinks he shouldn't have to sully his hands with any of it.

This is why the show is such a brilliant office drama. This one is for all the folks who are good on paper but bomb in interviews, for all the people who are promoted based on their technical mastery and then shit the bed as managers because they're illiterate at reading people. This is why it's such a stroke of genius that River's ascendant career is cut off at the knees by tailing Taverner. He's so full of himself and such a try hard that he mistakenly thinks doing an unrequested extra credit assignment about his boss makes him clever instead of creepy, annoying, and red flagged as a potential troublemaker.

Unfortunately, because Mick Herron is unable to let the story or the characters grow, this excellent premise results in some deep weirdness later in the book series. (Weirder than the deadbeat dad child soldier sex cult plotline, you say? Idk, you be the judge.)

Book spoilers under the cut.

First, let’s talk about Lech Wicinski. (I know, no one wants to talk about Lech Wicinski, but he is the curly-haired insomniac introvert of my heart so I’m going to talk about him.) I love Lech but parts of his origin story are so stupid. He’s just a normal guy who is comfortable in his niche and relatively unambitious and gets screwed by ambitious people’s big ego shenanigans, which he falls into by accident when he unthinkingly steps outside his work comfort zone for a minute. So far, so good. But then, while he’s desperately trying to save his job and reputation, he’s also… not? Like, why would this sort of overly serious but otherwise very normal young-ish middle class man immediately and inexplicably decide not to seek medical treatment for a profoundly disfiguring injury? Why does he never even actually try to show to his fiancee that the revelation that causes the breakdown of their relationship was completely fictitious? It makes no sense! Except, the author is lazily destroying Lech’s social capital to make it make sense that he’s now a slow horse for life. 

Similarly, River can’t have Sid in S1 because she is a bright and well-rounded person while he is cute but also an idiot nepo baby manchild. So do the books resolve this imbalance by allowing River to grow - or even just change - in response to various challenges like dashed career aspirations, finally meeting his psychopath biodad, the steep mental decline of his beloved father figure, etc? No. Instead of letting River at least attempt to grow up, the books put River and Sid on a level by cutting Sid down instead - putting her in protection (ie. cutting all her social ties) and giving her a traumatic brain injury that hollows out her previously bright personality. Heaven knows we’re all miserable now. Sure do hope they fix that plotline for the show! I love them as endgame and I honestly think the show could do something so satisfying and poignant with them finally finding their missed connection but the books make the way they finally get together so creepy and sad.

Reblogging for #2

some more for the collection while i finish writing the fic!

Keep Still Slow Horses, S04E05