#which Could Mean Absolutely Nothing At All

Can we fix it? No, we can't!

Due to Park budget restrictions, Lamb has tasked River with fulfilling a number of odd jobs around Slough House.

Jack Lowden as River Cartwright SLOW HORSES 3.04 “Uninvited Guests”

Apple

Summary: Teenage River visits his mother in France.

Adult language

No warnings

Gen

746 words

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When River arrives, the house is dark and empty. He floats through it like a ghost, present without leaving an imprint anywhere. Two days later, the door opens. He recognizes his mother's tinkling laughter. He's not sure if the brittle note was always there or if he just didn't notice it as a boy.

The burble of a conversational duet flows closer and then they stumble into the kitchen, where he’s sitting at the table. After a minute the man starts sliding his hand up under his mother's skirt and he realizes that if he doesn't announce his presence, they're never going to realize he's there. Zero situational awareness. He coughs and they jump apart.

“Oh! River! What are you doing here? You scared me half to death skulking there.”

He gets straight to the point. “Where were you?”

“At a party down the coast. Marvelous people. Marvelous wine. Some of the Cannes crowd, you know.” River really did not know. She paused a moment, taking in his presence. “What are you doing here?” River felt the genuine confusion of her question like a blow, hot poisonous shame immediately flooding his body. Again. Not fucking again. How does he keep falling for this trap? Stupid stupid stupid.

“I'm visiting you. We had agreed…” he heard the choked sound in his voice and hated himself for it. He cleared his throat. “You agreed that I would come visit at the term break....”

“Oh! Is that this week!?”

“Yes. Obviously.”

“Oh." Her face fell. "It's just, we hadn't exactly planned on you, darling. Gavin's friends...they have the yacht in port at Monaco... Well, it's not exactly an event for children…”

“I'm not a child.”

“I just wouldn't want you to be bored. You understand, don't you?”

“Oh River, don't be like that. Maybe you could come back next week?”

His shoulders tensed as he pulled into himself. “You don't want me hanging around ruining your image, you mean.”

“I have school next week.”

“You could miss a few days to see your own mother, surely?”

“I have O Levels prep”, he muttered.

“And that's a higher priority than me?” She managed to sound extravagantly wounded.

“You make everything a higher priority than me! Do you even remember I exist when I'm not around?”

Boyfriend #178 stepped toward River, a hand extended, and placed his arm between them like a boxing referee. 

"Now son" he started but River turned on him before he could get his platitude out.

“When I need your input I'll ask her for your credit card number.”

“Have some respect for your elders”, his mother hissed. River turned his scowl back on her.

“You're a fucking bitch.”

“Now look here you little shit, I know I'm not your father but I'll be damned if I let you speak to her that way.”

“Jokes on you, mate. I don't even have a father.”

“You do,” Isobel interjected hotly.

“Could have fooled me”, he shrugged.

“You're just like him”, she muttered, lip curling almost imperceptibly. But River saw it. It was hard to shake old habits and his included frequently scanning his mother's face for signs of gathering weather.

“Whatever. Bye.” He scraped the chair back roughly and went to collect his things, flipping a two finger salute over his shoulder as he left the room. When he got upstairs, he packed slower than he needed to, to give her a chance to come find him. Apologize. Yell at him. Anything. An hour later, he left without a word. No one tried to stop him.

Three days later, he opened the kitchen door in Tunbridge Wells.

“You're back early, River!”

His grandmother was in the kitchen,  busy at the counter. He could smell food. His stomach rumbled audibly. The pocket money he'd left with hadn't been meant to cover two and a half unscheduled days in Paris on the way back and he hadn't exactly been on three squares.

“Yeah. Mum got busy, so.” Rose put an arm around him. 

“She does get busy, sometimes”, she said in a knowing tone. 

“Yeah.” It came out as a sigh.

“Your grandfather's out in the garden. I'm sure he could use some help.”

“Okay. Thanks Nan,” he mumbled around the piece of bread she'd handed him. He opened the door again, wondering if his cover story about what happened in France would make it past the OB's radar. He was finding lately that he was better at lying than he would have given himself credit for.

Keep Still Slow Horses, S04E05

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.

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)

SLOW HORSES 3.01

Jack Lowden as River Cartwright Slow Horses – S04E03 – Penny for Your Thoughts

The fandom is definitely sleeping on this knowledge. Every serious runner I know is ready to gnaw their own arm off after max three days without vigorous exercise.

i don’t think we’ve addressed that langdon runs marathons and takes 13 minutes in an ice bath yet. that’s fucking crazy. it also shows us how devastating a back injury would’ve been for him if he went from running marathons to not being able to run at all. kill one healthy coping mechanism and an unhealthy one develops in its place maybe.

PATRICK BALL as Dr. Frank Langdon

The Pitt – 1.01: 7:00 A.M