Olivia Cooke’s return to “Slow Horses” after a four-season absence ends with her hoping for a lot more drama, just not with River Cartwright. The actor spoke with Variety about coming back as MI5 agent Sidonie “Sid” Baker, the grueling night shoots that brought her back into the fold and the face-off she wants after the Season 6 finale’s unresolved ending.
Sid appeared to die from a gunshot wound to the head after a brief spark with River (Jack Lowden) in Season 1. She resurfaced early in Season 6, turning up at River’s late grandfather’s house at the end of Episode 2. Fans of Mick Herron’s books saw it coming, since Sid survives in the novels, and Apple didn’t exactly hide her in the season’s trailer.
Cooke on returning to the “Slow Horses” set
Cooke told Variety that stepping back into the show felt familiar because so much of the crew had stayed the same. She compared the experience to “the best high-school reunion possible,” saying she already knew everyone well. Cooke also pointed out that some crew members split time between “Slow Horses” and “House of the Dragon,” where she plays Alicent Hightower, depending on each show’s production schedule.
Her Season 6 arc required more than a month of night shoots that ran up to the show’s December break, in the middle of winter.
Co-star Kyle Soller, who plays the assassin Jim, has described a similar intensity from the other side of the hunt. He told The Boston Globe that stalking the Slow Horses gives the season a “horror film” tone, and he singled out the final few episodes as especially dark and action-heavy.
The run and the finale setup
Season 6 puts Sid and River on the run from Russian assassins Jim and Jane (MyAnna Buring), who are picking off current and former Slow Horses. River helps Sid escape, and the finale seems headed for a happy reunion at his grandfather’s house. Then it pulls the rug out. River drops to the kitchen floor, apparently poisoned, while Sid is upstairs in the shower.
The culprit traces back to Episode 3, when Jim quietly passed through the house. SlashFilm, which spoke with head writer Gaby Chiappe about the ending, reported that River touches a crowbar Jim had poisoned while he’s swapping a cup of tea for a bottle of wine.
Earlier in the finale, the Slow Horses face a shootout with Jane and a mercenary squad led by Frank Harkness (Hugo Weaving), River’s father. Emma Flyte (Ruth Bradley) is killed and Louisa Guy (Rosalind Eleazar) is shot, TV Insider reported.
What Cooke wants next
Asked where things could go from the cliffhanger, Cooke did not hold back. “I want a showdown,” she told Variety. But River isn’t the one she has in mind. Cooke wants that face-off with Kristin Scott Thomas, who plays MI5 First Desk Diana Taverner, praising Scott Thomas as an actor she could watch endlessly and calling the clash a cathartic moment that has to happen.
She stopped short of promising anything, though. Cooke said she couldn’t share specifics about the show’s future, and she wasn’t named in Apple’s Season 7 cast announcement.
The good news is that the wait for answers has an end date. Season 7 is already confirmed and filmed, Season 8 has been greenlit, and Apple teased the next season at the end of the finale with a 2027 run in view. Fans waiting on River’s fate, and on whether Cooke gets her showdown, will have to sit tight until Apple sets a premiere date.
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