“Old Scores” separates the season’s elaborate deception into its real purposes: a financial raid and a private reckoning with the Cold War. River has to correct an alarm that could kill the wrong person, Louisa wants an answer about Min, and Lamb faces the man who designed his humiliation. The ending offers survival and remembrance, with very little suggestion that the Service has learned to value either properly.
- Released
- 30 December 2022
- Runtime
- 45 minutes
- Source novel
- Dead Lions
- Director
- Jeremy Lovering
- Writer
- Will Smith
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Watch and read
Open the official programme page or explore the source novel.
Detailed plot
Reveal episode spoilers
Lamb calls Slough House and finds Katinsky waiting for him. The Russian threatens the office, but Lamb persuades him to move their confrontation to Katinsky’s premises. The location changes; the purpose does not. Katinsky has arranged to bring an old enemy into a final encounter. His interest in Lamb will soon explain why the discarded officers were drawn into a scheme that at first seemed to have nothing to do with their boss.
At Upshott, River discovers that the explosives never went onto Alex’s plane. He has raised an alarm about an aircraft carrying no bomb. He tells Duncan and Kelly, then calls Taverner to correct the report before the interception becomes fatal. The possibility of a damaging mistake makes responsibility politically awkward, but Alex eventually contacts the authorities and agrees to land. River then learns where Chernitsky is heading and recognises the danger to his grandfather. Kelly flies him towards David’s home so that he can try to get there in time.
Roddy has followed Chernitsky onto a train and is quickly outmatched when the assassin notices him. Shirley joins the pursuit and gets involved in the struggle, but both officers end up locked in a lavatory. Chernitsky shoots through the door and leaves them behind. They survive by keeping low. Their intervention has not stopped the killer, and River’s warning becomes more important than his own speed in reaching David.
In the Glasshouse, Louisa questions the wounded Kyril while Marcus works on their escape. The supposed terrorist emergency was meant to empty the building and allow access to Nevsky’s computers. His severed thumb and a password supplied under duress enabled the financial operation. Once free, the agents discover that Pashkin has killed Piotr and taken diamonds for himself. Louisa obtains his escape plan from Kyril and heads to the roof. She confronts Pashkin, who says Min died because he saw what he should not have seen. When Pashkin draws his gun against her, Marcus shoots him.
Lamb and Katinsky discuss Charles Partner, the British intelligence chief who worked for the Russians. Katinsky wants revenge for his death and has sent Chernitsky after David as well. Lamb explains how Partner’s betrayal was uncovered and exploited before he was killed. The promised second killing fails: David has been warned and shoots Chernitsky before River and the armed police arrive. Katinsky’s operation has lost its intended conclusion. Lamb leaves him with his gun, and Katinsky takes his own life. Afterwards, Taverner declines official commemoration for Min. Lamb arranges a plaque himself, gathering the team to remember their colleague and leaving a paper tribute for Dickie too.
Turning points
Reveal turning points
River’s correction of the alarm is as important as raising it. He has to admit the mistake while there is still time to save Alex, rather than defend his original certainty. The episode makes that reversal uncomfortable, but it is a better act of judgement than pretending the new evidence does not exist.
Louisa gets the answer she wanted without getting a satisfying reason. Min was killed because he happened to see something, not because his killers considered his life significant. Marcus’s arrival prevents that bleak revelation from making her their next victim. Lamb’s final act of commemoration answers the same indifference at an institutional level. A refusal from Taverner cannot restore Min’s life, but it also cannot dictate whether the people who worked with him remember him.
The finale also refuses the usual tidy relationship between knowledge and reward. The agents can explain the trick and survive it without earning a cleaner future. Taverner and Judd turn the institutional mistake into another calculation about blame, while the slow horses are left to make their own gesture of respect. The small ceremony matters because it is voluntary. They have spent the season being used by other people; for a moment, they choose whose life deserves to be marked.
Book vs show
Reveal book and television spoilers
Novel Kelly flies a plane carrying political leaflets. Television gives Alex an empty aircraft, preserving the decoy while changing both the pilot and her cargo.
The novel’s heist targets a diamond dealer. Television attacks Nevsky’s accounts, then adds Pashkin’s private theft of the dead oligarch’s diamonds to the operation.
River confronts Katinsky, disguised as Tommy Moult, in Dead Lions. The adaptation gives Lamb the reckoning while River heads towards his grandfather’s threatened home.
Novel Katinsky’s grievance concerns his hometown’s destruction, ending in a suicide explosion after the sleepers refuse him. Television centres Charles Partner’s death and ends with a gunshot.
Mick Herron, Dead Lions (2013).
Characters and actors
Linked locations
The action moves between the Glasshouse boardroom and roof, public transport, the flying club and David Cartwright’s home. Slough House becomes the place Katinsky initially chooses for his confrontation, before Lamb arranges to meet him elsewhere. The final gathering to remember Min moves the team out of their workplace and gives the surviving officers a shared moment after their separate ordeals.
Slough House – Aldersgate Street
Trivia
The finale closes with a handmade addition to the intelligence memorial after Lamb has been refused official recognition for Min. The paper note for Dickie falls away after the group leave, giving the final remembrance a bleakly comic finish rather than a triumphal flourish.
Questions and answers
Was there a bomb on Alex’s plane?
No. River finds the explosives still at the airfield. The apparent attack was a device to trigger evacuation, creating cover for the operation inside the Glasshouse.
Why does Katinsky target Lamb and David?
He wants revenge for the death of Charles Partner, the British intelligence chief who worked for him. Lamb killed Partner, and David was responsible for ordering his death.
Who kills Chernitsky?
David Cartwright shoots him after being warned. River and the armed police reach the house afterwards, so the grandfather survives through preparation rather than a last-second rescue.