[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Slow Horses Season 5 premiere “Bad Dates.”]
Slow Horses isn’t known for romance, so when it’s going to go there, it’s going to in the exact way you’d expect from anyone at Slough House. Such is the case in the Wednesday, September 24, Season 5 premiere, when River (Jack Lowden) goes in for the kiss as Louisa (Rosalind Eleazar) informs him of a major decision she’s made.
As the new season of Slow Horses opens up, there’s a shooting as well as what seems to be an attempt on the life of one of Slough House’s own, Roddy (Christopher Chung); Shirley (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) is certain that’s what it was, while Roddy himself laughs it off. Meanwhile, Louisa’s ostensibly taking a mental health break from Slough House, but, as she confides in River during their separate farewell by the Thames, she’s not coming back. She can’t deal with everything that’s happened, she explains, and he’s not letting himself feel things he should be while she wants to feel things again. He takes that to mean she wants him to kiss her and does just that, but he’s off-base.
Louisa can’t believe he’s made it about himself, and River tries to turn it around, calling her out on her plan to not tell anyone she wasn’t returning to Slough House. She needs space, and that means she’ll reach out to him when she’s ready.
“That’s one of my favorite scenes we’ve ever done,” executive producer Will Smith tells TV Insider.
When we tell him that it feels like Louisa’s doing the right, mature thing and taking space she needs to properly cope with loss, while River’s doing everything he can to avoid doing so (such as regarding developments about his father and grandfather), Smith says, “That’s a great observation. I wasn’t even aware that is exactly in a nutshell … my intention in that.”
He raves about Lowden and Eleazar’s scenes together, especially in the car in Season 3 and the pub in Season 4. “They have such amazing chemistry together and individually, they’re such incredible actors. You just really believe it, and they’re so soulful,” says Smith. “It just felt this was a progression and this is where it’s going to go and it’s going to be messy and awkward and awful, and they’re just supreme in that scene.”
He continues, “I just think it’s the wrong time for both of those people. And it is one of those in another time, in another world sort of moments. There’s also a sense you don’t know how much it’s like, they’re falling towards each other because they’re the only two in the office. But that’s the sort of cynical read of it. They’ve nearly died together, they’ve both suffered loss and grief, and they’ve got that shared bond. So I think they probably would understand each other more than anyone else. And I think if you do that job, you probably have to go out with somebody who does that job, otherwise you’re just never going to really connect with someone.”
Saul Metzstein, who directed Slow Horses Season 5, also praises the actors’ chemistry and the aforementioned Season 3 scene. “I don’t know that I had to do too much, to be honest. They more or less worked that all out themselves, so, I don’t think it was a terribly complicated thing to do. What we did is, we put them in a sort of classic location, which allowed them a lot of flexibility. We actually originally thought they were going to be walking and talking, and then somehow when they rehearsed it, it just seemed to be better to sit there,” he shares.
“You kind of know from drama that they’re meant to get together in the same way that when you watch the beginning of a Meg Ryan film, she’s meant to get together with a guy she doesn’t like immediately. But of course, being Slow Horses, it can never quite work,” he continues. “We worked quite hard on that thing of, ‘I want to feel things,’ and that she should just give him enough opening that he goes in for the kiss. It’s just very embarrassing for any man who’s ever had any anxiety about going in for the kiss, and I think Jack plays that awkwardness brilliantly. And I think as the program has developed, he’s just become more and more confident playing a guy who makes bad judgments and things like that. I think he’s become very at ease with it. I love her reaction to the kiss. I think most men and women at some point will have an awkward relationship with that moment, which is definitely what we wanted to do.”
What did you think of that River and Louisa moment? Let us know in the comments section below.
Slow Horses, Wednesdays, Apple TV+
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