I Was At The Opening Night Of The Fifth Step Tonight!

I was at the opening night of The Fifth Step tonight!

I was 1 metre away from Jack Lowden. 🤯 It turns out he doesn't just live in my television but is, in fact, a real living breathing person. Also, he is very ginger (affectionate) IRL.

If you're going to see the play, be assured it's really good! If you're thinking of going, you should! It was funnier than I expected but also had Things To Say about addiction, 12 step programs, modern masculinity, and religion. Also, you get to hear Jack Lowden use his natural accent for once and now I wish they had just let River be Scottish.

More Posts from Generalpenguinangel and Others

5 months ago

Okay, Slow Horses fandom, serious question: we all know that in season 1 / book 1, Sid is at Slough House because Taverner sent her there to keep tabs on River. But. Why!?

Sure, he caught her Up To No Good. But:

1. He has no idea that he has any dirt on her

2. He's been very effectively removed from any position with any kind of authority or access

3. His reputation has been thoroughly destroyed and to anyone who might have listened to him before, he is now a cross between a laughing stock and nuclear waste. He's untouchable and non credible after Stanstead/King's Cross.

4. She already has Jed Moody on the inside at Slough House. Sure, he sucks but he's there.

5. Sid is not a fuck up and Lamb's not an idiot, so placing her there risks drawing attention to something that Taverner is hoping no one ever notices.

Also, what is the budget line item for this? "0931. Surveillance misc. personal"? I know it's the security services but it's also government. You probably can't get a highlighter out of the stationary cabinet without filling out a form in triplicate.

So what is so important about River that he gets his own marker on a full time basis? I like to think that there is something deeper to the whole situation but honestly I cannot imagine what. And what did Taverner tell Sid to look for?

I love imagining the surveillance reports this must have generated though.

"Day 42. Subject is still sulking. Took coffee black instead of usual milk and sugar - sign of growing despair? Was called a "dumb cunt" by J.L. Visibly did not appreciate this. Spent 3 hours and 17 minutes playing spider solitaire instead of working. Otherwise no suspicious activity."


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5 months ago

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.


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5 months ago
📷 Jack Lowden By Matt Easton
📷 Jack Lowden By Matt Easton
📷 Jack Lowden By Matt Easton

📷 Jack Lowden by Matt Easton

4 months ago

For my money, the most (only?) interesting thing about Frank Harkness is seeing where River Cartwright gets his crazy streak from.

River spent most of his childhood and youth raised by his grandparents, in what I can only imagine was a mostly pleasant stereotypically repressed British upbringing. His hometown is wealthy and picturesque. He probably went to a nice university and did mostly normal university things there. And yet he is, canonically, a maniac, who is ready to commit violence at any given moment. My two favourite examples:

s1: beats his erstwhile friend unconscious

s2: chokes a random cab driver (and then tells him "I'm one of the good ones". Lol, okay honey bunny)

And he also has the other side of the coin, which is that he's unruffled by the prospect of enduring physical violence himself.

And Frank sees this in him, instinctually.

When Frank tells Taverner that River is a poor fit for MI-5 and that's why he's mouldering in Slough House - ask yourself, where is the lie? River is constitutionally ill-suited for life in a modern bureaucratic institution, even if that institution does spy stuff.

He would never join Frank's operation because unlike Frank, he has good in him, or at least he wants to do good. But ooh, he also wants to be good at what he's doing. He wants to feel good in the way you feel good when you're doing something that comes naturally to you.

The most best thing about the scene between Frank and River at the bar in season 4 is when Frank gives him a few crumbs of praise and River just fucking eats it up, despite himself. Because actually he IS good at the kinetic stuff. But what drives that side of him is also what gets him continually shit on by the Service. And it must feel amazingly good to have someone recognize and validate that potential in him, even if it's coming from his nutcase absent father.

Lamb sees River's potential, of course, but he never shows it or overtly encourages him because Lamb understands him and knows that he's already got a big head and no impulse control and that he needs to learn to get over himself and calm the fuck down. He doesn't need the OB filling his head with Rudyard Kipling nonsense or Frank Harkness selling him American-style on the glamour of being a mercenary. He needs someone who can show him how the world, in all its ugliness, really works. That's what's going to keep him alive and possibly intact in some sense.

I think this is all pretty obvious but I've been trying and failing to plot a River Harkness AU so here are some thoughts that arose on father/son dynamics.


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2 months ago

OP, thank you for seeing this and saying this.

Guess what, FRANK? The reason you can work so hard at being a doctor is because your wife gets up every time a kid is puking at 2 am and every morning 365 days a year to make then breakfast. She makes sure there's milk in the fridge, toilet paper in the bathroom, and clean underwear in your drawer. She sends your mother her favourite flowers for Mother's Day and writes your name on the card. And she probably quit her consulting job at McKinsey to do all that.

And that's why he actually doesn't deserve Mel. He doesn't understand or respect the woman he already has. Addiction? Yeah, whatever. Call me when he goes to rehab for being a sexist jerkoff.

Honestly This Is The Only Thing He Deserves An Ass Beating For. Everything Else He Can Recover From

honestly this is the only thing he deserves an ass beating for. everything else he can recover from


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4 months ago

River in the first frame all "can't you just abandon me in the garden and leave like an adult with some fucking dignity instead of embarrassing us both in front of my friend"

Revisiting This Scene For Giffing Inspired By @countessrivers Posting About It The Other Day Bc It Really
Revisiting This Scene For Giffing Inspired By @countessrivers Posting About It The Other Day Bc It Really
Revisiting This Scene For Giffing Inspired By @countessrivers Posting About It The Other Day Bc It Really
Revisiting This Scene For Giffing Inspired By @countessrivers Posting About It The Other Day Bc It Really
Revisiting This Scene For Giffing Inspired By @countessrivers Posting About It The Other Day Bc It Really

Revisiting this scene for giffing inspired by @countessrivers posting about it the other day bc it really is just. River's expression in the first one is so just, fascinating. Exhausted and disappointed and realising he's been betrayed again, but still just overwhelming sad about it. The way his eyes track down to look at Spider's hand clutching onto him, his lips, his eyes, the last contact they'll ever have, and then it's just.

So deeply embarrassing and pathetic!! Spider being like. hah! You moron! worried about children dying! Louisa just. Had enough. The 'sniper' going for his 'gun', pulling the most insane faces in the background. Spider gripping River's clothes about as long he can justify it's all so -

why can't you just break up like normal people?


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2 months ago
PATRICK BALL As Dr. Frank Langdon
PATRICK BALL As Dr. Frank Langdon

PATRICK BALL as Dr. Frank Langdon

The Pitt – 1.01: 7:00 A.M

4 months ago

How do you picture young Jackson Lamb? Gary Oldman in State of Grace for very young, and then him in Romeo Is Bleeding/Leon while in Berlin

There are so many pictures from State of Grace where I see Jackson…

This moment, for example, gives me

How Do You Picture Young Jackson Lamb? Gary Oldman In State Of Grace For Very Young, And Then Him In

This

How Do You Picture Young Jackson Lamb? Gary Oldman In State Of Grace For Very Young, And Then Him In
How Do You Picture Young Jackson Lamb? Gary Oldman In State Of Grace For Very Young, And Then Him In

And this gives me Standing by the Wall (Jackson, Molly, Otis photo)

How Do You Picture Young Jackson Lamb? Gary Oldman In State Of Grace For Very Young, And Then Him In
How Do You Picture Young Jackson Lamb? Gary Oldman In State Of Grace For Very Young, And Then Him In

Romeo Is Bleeding & Leon ? Maybe Jackson undercover if he had to cut his hair…. 🙃

How Do You Picture Young Jackson Lamb? Gary Oldman In State Of Grace For Very Young, And Then Him In
How Do You Picture Young Jackson Lamb? Gary Oldman In State Of Grace For Very Young, And Then Him In

And bonus: when I see Gary as Rosencrantz I think baby Jackson 😁

How Do You Picture Young Jackson Lamb? Gary Oldman In State Of Grace For Very Young, And Then Him In
2 months ago
— Mhairi McFarlane.
— Mhairi McFarlane.
— Mhairi McFarlane.
— Mhairi McFarlane.
— Mhairi McFarlane.

— Mhairi McFarlane.

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Just out here working through my sexual obsession with Jack Lowden.

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