After the start of a strange but effective act of sabotage, London braces for more extremism. The eco-terrorists have successfully completed their goal, but another team has been trying to kill Roddy for several episodes now. Can Slough House come together and actually make headway despite being separated? “Tall Tales” digs into the evolving situation and how MI5 will handle the emerging threat.
Slow Horses “Tall Tales” Plot
Taverner (Kirsten Scott Thomas) watches the local news as she’s brought back to MI5 headquarters. Roddy (Christopher Chung) is moved to interrogation while Taverner gets an update from her team. They believe they’re caught in an act of sabotage meant to slow traffic across the city. Climate change protesters seem to be the focus of the investigation. Whelan (James Callis) receives a call from the man he met on his jog, once again threatening blackmail.
From a parking structure, Farouk (Monty Ben) and his team, Sami (Ahmed Elmusrati) and Kamal (Fady Elsayed), watch the chaos. They joke about the next stage of their plan while holding a canister, which will result in a massacre. Slough House is stuck listening to Flyte (Ruth Bradley) receive a briefing over the phone. River (Jack Lowden) tries to warn Dander (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) to stay away from the office, but the noise on the street makes it impossible to hear the message. Flyte takes everyone’s phones except for Coe’s (Tom Brooke).
Roddy rants to himself and monologues about his alpha male tendencies while a room full of MI5 agents watches from the other side of the glass. They’re fascinated with how weird he is, but the agents are interrupted by Taverner. She threatens to hurt Roddy if he does not help.
Dander arrives and meets Flyte’s dogs downstairs. They bring her up to the room with the rest of Slough House, and while Flyte refuses to give them more info, Coe believes there’s a plan in place to destabilize the government. Disrupting transportation is step three of a plan he’s heard on the internet.
River and Lamb want to focus on the connection between Roddy and the execution of the Abbotsfield shooter. Thanks to Taverner and Flyte’s lack of correction, they now know the two are connected. Lamb lets out a fart so rancid Flyte and her dogs let him leave the room to clean up. He goes to the bathroom, accompanied by Welles (Cherrelle Skeete), who has already taken away the gun he was hiding in the bathroom.
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Sami approaches a homeless man on the street. He offers him money and drugs if he drops off the canister Farouk held earlier. Whelan asks the MI5 legal counsel about his options should a scandalous story be published. As he does, they see an explosion in the distance. Whelan returns to the floor, where there seems to be confirmation of a bomb. Flyte leaves Slough House to deal with the bomb while putting Welles in charge of keeping them secure.
Taverner interrogates Roddy, who continues to insist that he is a highly sexual creature. However, Taverner knows that his last connection was aware of Roddy’s job and that he is often very needy in conversations with women. She asks what made Tara different. Flyte arrives at the zoo where the bomb went off. It killed 22 penguins but had no human casualties. The homeless man tells Flyte everything in a brief interrogation.
Elsewhere, Mayor Jaffrey (Nick Mohammed) receives a briefing from Tyson (Abraham Popoola) about the bombing. They’re in the middle of a funeral, and Jaffrey excuses himself. Tyson also reveals that Gimbal (Christopher Villiers) dropped out of the debate that night. Jaffrey decides to hold his own event so that he does not lose any momentum.
Slough House hears about the penguins, and Lamb realizes that Coe is right about the plan to destabilize London. Killing penguins caused everyone in the room to act in disgust, which means it’s controlling the media narrative while pushing it away from Abbotsfield. The next stage of the list is to assassinate a populist leader, and Lamb demands Welles pass on the message to let the Park know what is happening. However, she does not believe Coe’s rantings and tells everyone to sit down.
Taverner continues her interrogation of Roddy and reveals to him that his last relationship was with a bot. MI5 thinks he was being probed for weaknesses, and Tara provided him with information to exploit him. Her phone is dead, and she’s not at the address she provided. Roddy still does not believe it and thinks Farouk only tried to kill him because Tara fell in love with him.
Jaffrey arrives at another campaign event when suddenly the eco-terrorist boy emerges. It turns out Irfan (Bilal Hasna) is Jaffrey’s son. As they walk toward each other, the police realize Irfan is on social media taking credit for the petrol sabotage and arrest him. Jaffrey accuses him of doing it to embarrass him, but as he’s hauled away, Irfan calls him a plastic politician.
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Lamb tells the group waiting at Slough House about the brutal tactics of the Stasi during the Cold War. Standiff takes away his lighter and cigarettes while he talks, but it becomes clear to Slough House that his story is telling them how to make weapons out of what is around them. River is next to an aerosol can, and Standish now has a lighter. At the end of the story, they use the materials to take down Welles and the extra dog. Slough House splits up between the two rallies. River takes Coe to Gimbal’s rally, while Shirley and Standish go to Jaffrey’s rally.
Taverner continues to question Roddy, and just when she gives up, he reveals he hacked the MI5 database in front of Tara. He doesn’t believe she could replicate it, and he left her alone for only 20 seconds. However, Taverner realizes Roddy was the breach after all.
Was “Tall Tales” worth watching?
Yes, “Tall Tales” might be a short episode, but it’s perfectly paced and effective in its goals. The Penguin killing was a shock, but Coe was onto the plan early. Writer Sean Gray does an excellent job with the development in the episode, while director Saul Metzstein shoots the heck out of it. Slow Horses needs these bridge episodes to get us to action set pieces, and given the amount of action in the first two, this was a great point to take a breath and reset the board.
Oldman is phenomenal in this episode, handling everything from the comedy of Lamb’s farts to the brilliant storytelling. This feels like an obvious event from his past, and while he refuses to acknowledge it to Standish, it feels likely that of his many “Tall Tales,” this one is based in reality. Oldman is so integral to Slow Horses and its style that it’s no wonder he’s willing to do the show forever. It’s been said before, but “Tall Tales” is another piece of proof that this is the role he was born to play.
There was a part of me that hoped Roddy was not stupid enough to give away the farm. However, even if that lead turns out to be nothing (which has happened before on Slow Horses), it once again proves he’s a nitwit. We love Chung in this show, and the choice to finally promote him to a series regular is well-deserved this season. “Tall Tales” gives him the comedic showcase scene while also reminding us how starved and lonely this guy has always been. This was Chung’s best performance yet, bringing all the elements of Roddy to light.
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With the race to save each of the politicians, Slow Horses splits up the team again. It seems like River is destined to kill Dander, and while it won’t be intentional, not giving her a gun feels like a horrible mistake. We hope we’re wrong next week, but it feels like Nick Mohammed and his team are in grave danger.
Watch Slow Horses on Apple TV+. New episodes are released on Wednesdays. “Tall Tales” released on October 8, 2025.
