Jack Lowden As River Cartwright Slow Horses – S01E04 – Visiting Hours

Would you believe me if I told you this occurred to me about 5 minutes after my previous post and I was like "Oh. DUH."

The whiplash i get from seeing season one feotus zygote river- bro was a little stream a canal at best- and season two's I'm just a little lad who loves berries and cream river with the nerdy specs and sneakers

AND FRICKIN DAD BOD RIVER IN SEASON THREE? WHOS A LITTLE ROUGH AROUND THE EDGES AND MEAN LOOKING?

like i understand that season one and two were filmed one after the other and in the break before season three jack lowden had to play a- lmao- 'jacked' up mafia gangster in a biopic tv show BUT STILL

In the slow horses universe, what'dya guys think happened to him in the interim? Looking like he drank depresso expresso no milk extra salt every morning ass character development

Why does no one write this?

River's mother suspecting he's into Diana Taverner... This gives me very, very interesting ideas...

(Lady Di would totally ruin him. Coercion and manipulation are sure to be involved.)

Reblogging for #2

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

Jack Lowden as River Cartwright Slow Horses – S01E03 – Bad Tradecraft

My first thought when they revealed his addiction was that he's almost definitely been driving his small children around and taking care of them while impaired (from drugs and/or withdrawal). He's deffo got pills hidden in his house. His wife, justifiably, is probably going to go mental when she finds out and realizes all the implications. This is going to create massive trust issues, completely aside from whatever other marital problems they may have.

Then, add on to the child endangerment that it seems he is the sole or primary breadwinner. So his addiction may also threaten the financial stability of his whole immediate family.

This is all before you even get into his apparent lack of respect for unpaid caregiving/the strain on a marriage of two kids under four/they got married young maybe before they really knew themselves and what they wanted out of life/why the fuck is anyone in their life circumstances even talking about a Birkin bag.

I honestly admire Frank/Abby supporters because it shows a remarkable faith in forgiveness, love, and the institution of marriage.

let's speculate wildly about langdon's marriage, shall we!

a needlessly thorough breakdown of a single scene from 1x02 and what i think it might say about langdon, his addiction, and the state of his marriage

under the cut bc i get rambly!!

so a lot has been said about frank and abby's marriage based on the hints we get here and there in the first half of the season. i've even gone as far as saying they have a canonically bad marriage, which may be a little harsh, but i don't think anyone watching with a keen eye can say in good faith that the langdon marriage has been presented to us as particularly healthy or uncomplicated.

he works a physically and emotionally demanding job for long hours and mediocre pay, and we can infer that she either works from home or is a stay-at-home mom to their two young children. he clearly feels some measure of guilt about the way he preforms the roles of husband and father, trying to make up for his shortcomings with gifts and grand gestures, while ultimately being shown to be ignorant, almost to the point of contempt, of his wife's needs.

and this is all before we (and abby!) find out that he's been putting his life, liberty and livelihood in jeopardy with his substance abuse.

so, i think it's fair to say that we can expect langdon's marriage to be a significant point of contention when we pick back up for season 2.

of course, almost everything that we can say about abby langdon at this point is pure speculation. we haven't met her! we don't even get to hear her voice on the phone! we're only getting bits and pieces of this woman, mainly filtered through langdon's unreliable flawed perspective. so if we want something based in canon to say about the way langdon thinks about abby, his kids and his marriage, we'll have to look at some characters we actually get to see on screen.

we may not get to see abby and tanner, but we do have amanda and tyler:

(and also drew, but he's kinda whatever to my points here.)

tyler is the four-year-old boy from episodes 1 & 2 who comes in lethargic and unresponsive—mel asks for langdon's assistance on the case, and they find out that tyler is sick because he ingested some of his dad's pot gummies. this causes a lot of tension between tyler's parents, amanda and drew, who get defensive when they find out they've been reported to the department of children youth and families (pittsburgh's version of CPS/DCFS). the parents argue, robby breaks it up as the Voice of Reason, mel frets about potentially tearing apart a family, and langdon with his "fellowship in cynicism" argues (correctly) that they're white and therefore won't face drug charges or have their kid taken away. we find out later from kiara that tyler is going to be fine, but that his parents "might need counseling."

and the shift from hell continues!

(side note: i'd actually forgotten, but the STEMI with me, mel moment comes right on the heels of kiara updating mel about tyler!!)

so it's a relatively 'easy' case, and it comes very early in the season, the first time we see mel and langdon working together one-on-one. it's almost forgettable compared to everything that happens later, and it's only after what we learn about langdon's addiction that the last scene with tyler and his parents starts to feel thematically important.

basically, langdon's reactions in this scene are really interesting.

it all starts normally enough with mel and langdon updating the parents on tyler's status, and answering amanda's questions about the potential long-term affects of THC on her son's brain. on my first watch, i was mostly attuned to mel, and her reaction (that langdon totally clocks!!) to amanda's derogatory worries about her son getting autism. but on rewatch, it's what comes next that really stuck out to me.

langdon starts the interaction very polite and professional with both parents, but when amanda gets upset about the mandatory reporting, he immediately gets very defensive, taking on almost the kind of tone we later see him use on santos. he starts talking to her like she's crazy, escalating the situation and making amanda even more upset. he even reaches out in a kind of placating move and she tells him to keep his fucking hands off her, leading to this shot:

which. yes. is the basis of this whole post. but come on. this isn't zoomed in by me, this is the shot as it appears in the show. a mom justifiably angry about her husband's drug use and the way it's endangered her child, juxtaposed against a defensive langdon's wedding ring and the bracelet from his own four-year-old son. you could write a fucking thesis on this shot alone. i mean, i basically am. but never mind.

and langdon's reactions to amanda only get more tense when she starts going off on drew, telling him to stop speaking for her child and that he needs to "get a fucking hotel."

look at the way this is blocked! poor mel is running off to get help, but the guys in the background are framed together in opposition to amanda, and they're both looking at her like she's crazy. in fairness, she is very much freaking out here, but she's also scared for her son, she no longer trusts her husband, and she's just been told that the police may be getting involved. langdon doesn't know it yet, but he's getting a little sneak preview of what his night with abby is gonna turn into!

and when robby comes in to play moderator and calm everyone down, langdon is again alone in the shot with amanda, making a series of increasingly freaked out/guilty expressions as she tells robby that she wants to stay with her son instead of her husband because she doesn't want him around:

patrick ball's acting in this whole scene is so subtle and nuanced as langdon low-key wigs the fuck out in this situation. he is visibly shaken after everything goes down and has to physically psych himself up to get back in the game as robby leaves.

so much about the way this is shot, acted, and edited feels vitally important to langdon's characterization in retrospect. and the defensive way he reacts specifically to the woman in this situation leads me to believe that, at least in the immediate aftermath of abby finding out about everything, langdon is gonna be a fucking nightmare. and while i don't think it would be fair to assume that abby is gonna react exactly like amanda does in this situation, i do think the similarity of the names (abby/amanda & tanner/tyler) and the fact that the boy is the exact same age as langdon's son does invite us to draw a comparison.

long story long, i love that while we get to see first hand how langdon's addiction makes him react defensively and lash out at santos and robby, the show also gives us this glimpse into how langdon and his wife will react to his addiction becoming public in his domestic sphere.

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.

Not exactly my thing but reblogging because I like the energy. Those two would make River and Spider look like two kittens fighting over a piece of string.

I'm only 2 and a bit seasons in but by some cursory ao3 scrolling it seems no one is matching my freak re: Slow Horses

not one single fic for Jackson Lamb/David Cartwright? Hello??? Don't call yourself a fan of old man yaoi if you don't want Jonathan Pryce and Gary Oldman to fuck nasty. Gary Oldman yaoi, come on, it's IN THE NAME

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.

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.

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