If you weren’t familiar with the Slough House books, which inspired Apple TV+’s award-winning spy series Slow Horses, then there may have been a big shock for you in the latest episode.
Consider this a major spoiler warning, so if you’ve still not caught up on the latest instalment Slow Horses, give this page a bookmark and come back once you have.
As season six of Slow Horses passes its halfway point, many viewers were taken aback to see the death of JK Coe, who was played in the show by Tom Brooke.
Coe died at the hands of another undercover agent in the grimmest of scenes – a service station bathroom.
Still, despite the rather bleak setting, head writer Gaby Chiappe has admitted she’s happy with how the “beautiful” scene played out.
“That scene in the bathroom before they fight to the death, I find so moving and so beautiful, so beautifully played by both of them,” she enthused to Slash Film.
Gaby explained: “There’s no real animosity there. There’s no judgment. They both know what they have to do. They know that this is a fight to the death, and they sort of show interest in each other and a little bit of camaraderie. I find the whole thing very, very moving.”
She also hailed Coe as “such an interesting character” who is “so brilliantly played by Tom”, adding: “I hope that death will count for people. I think it will.”
Meanwhile, after the episode dropped, Tom admitted that he had mixed feelings about saying goodbye to Coe, who he’d played for the last three seasons.
Ultimately, though, he thinks the character’s death scene does him justice – with Tom even volunteering some suggestions to make sure it best represented how things were written in the books.
New episodes of Slow Horses are set to debut on Apple TV+ on the next two Wednesdays.
