When you walk into a show like Slow Horses, the last thing you expect is a canon romance that effectively brings two deeply layered characters together. You especially don’t expect it when one of the two characters is presumed dead at the beginning of the debut season. I’d read that Olivia Cooke’s Sid Baker and Jack Lowden’s River Cartwright were canon in the books, but given the circumstances and how Hollywood typically operates, I didn’t think we’d actually see it in the show. It felt like a narrative that would’ve been erased because of scheduling conflicts and various other reasons we might not be aware of off-screen.
Yet Slow Horses Season 6 outright giving us the Sid and River romance makes the season twice as compelling because it adds emotional stakes to an already enthralling arc.
Between their first kiss in last week’s “Sayonara” and the proof of concept we see in the finale, everything about their arc showcases a partnership that’s both thoughtfully penned and gorgeously brought to life by the actors. It was revealed just last week in an interview with TV Insider that Cooke and Lowden were the ones who improvised the kiss, and though we don’t physically see Sid in this episode, her presence is still significant. As she promised River, she leaves the light on for him, showing both him and us that she’s made it.
Related Content: Scene Breakdown: Sid and River’s First Kiss in Slow Horses
I wrote an ending explained for JustWatch, but what I really want to focus on here is this idea of how much hope lies in the final few moments before River collapses. He knows it’s Sid upstairs, showering in the place that finally feels like home again. She left the light on for him, so he naturally wants to do something for her by setting up drinks in the kitchen. It’s a sweet parallel to when she made him tea in “Resurrection,” and it’s even lovelier when we see how flustered he is. How desperate he is to get it all right because they’re an adorable seesaw of cringy moments tethering them together.
These characters don’t get ordinary moments amid the chaos that’s all around them. There’s also a stark difference in the tension covering River in the safe house versus the ease in how he moves in his grandfather’s house. His house now. Theirs, perhaps. This small beat shows us so much care that it’s instrumental in highlighting just how fit River and Sid are to be together. All the small ways they can take care of each other and how they can make a relationship work because it’s fortified through similarities that mesh gorgeously together.
It’s unclear how much of Season 7 they’ll sit out while River’s likely in the nine-day coma in Clown Town, but we know they’ll be back in Season 8 at least. When she finds him in the kitchen, it’ll also be an interesting—albeit haunting parallel—to him holding her bloody head in Season 1. Both outcomes, while awful, still underscore a tenderness that Slow Horses has been desperately missing. And that’s just it—the show’s chock-full of action and excellent banter, but the tenderness and warmth that we get between Sid and River this season has been a comforting balm I want to keep revisiting. It’s been a joy to see, and so perfectly executed that I still can’t wrap my head around the fact. As a romance author—this feels like a romance novel. It evokes the same warmth and emotions, making the season an absolute triumph in how expertly it balances every key human emotion.
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