This article contains spoilers for the latest season of Slow Horses.
Slow Horses director Adam Randall has responded to one particular fan debate around a key scene in the most recent season finale.
During the last episode of Slow Horses’ sixth run, several remaining members of the Slough House team were seen gathering in a church, where they raised a toast to the colleagues who had been killed in preceding episodes.
Sir Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb led a tribute to “every Joe who’s fallen in the field”, while Shirley, played by Aimee-Ffion Edwards, was then heard vocally singling out Tom Brooke’s character, declaring: “For Coe.”
Variety highlighted this scene during a recent interview with Adam, in light of fan speculation that Sir Gary’s character taking “a longer drink” could have been “a subliminal reference to Flyte”, Ruth Bradley’s character, who also died in season six.
“Originally in the script they did a drink for every fallen Horse, and it went on for ages,” Adam revealed. “In fact, we didn’t even film it. We got there, and it was like, ‘What, Lamb’s going to have like eight shots?’. It just felt sort of ridiculous.
“And then we said, it’s not about naming any of them. It’s just about: This is a drink.”
He then shared that “it was actually in post-production where it felt like Shirley should say, ‘For Coe’”, because of the “relationship” they’d “built up” over the course of the series.
“But they’re not specifying ‘this one’s for Coe’,” he insisted. “They’re doing it for everyone that’s fallen. I mean, that’s what they say.
“And then Lamb’s obviously experienced more of that than the rest of them. He’s had a lot of death – and liked the whiskey a lot.”
The seventh season of Slow Horses has already been shot, with the eighth currently in production in London.
Beyond that, the future of the show remains unclear, with one new addition to the cast indicating that its eighth outing could well be the last.
The first six seasons of Slow Horses are now streaming on Apple TV+.
