Who is after Slough House in Slow Horses season 6? Explaining the nefarious Damien Cantor

Two assassins are quite literally working their way through the Slough House database in Slow Horses season 6, and episode 2 gives us a major clue about who might be behind it with the proper introduction of media mogul Damien Cantor.

The assassins, Jim (Kyle Soller) and Jane (MyAnna Buring), bumped off former Slow Horses Struan Loy (Paul Higgins) and Kay White in the season 6 premiere, with both deaths made to look like an accident – not that Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) is buying it. 

In episode 2 of the Apple TV series, they turn their attention to another former employee, Moira Tregorian (Joanna Scanlan), meaning it’s only a matter of time before they get to the main gang. 

The pieces are all starting to fit together for the team. Standish (Saskia Reeves) discovers that Slough House files have vanished from MI5’s digital systems – hence why no one’s been paid – while Lamb finds out that someone has stolen the physical file containing the details of everyone who’s ever worked there. 

Realising they’re in danger, Lamb orders everyone to go dark and meet him at Blake’s grave. The episode ends with River going off course to find his evil father, Frank Harkness (Hugo Weaving), only to end up face-to-face with none other than Sid Baker (Olivia Cooke). 

That’s where the episode ends, meaning if you haven’t read Mick Herron’s Slough House books, you’ll have to wait to find out why Slough House is being targeted. But we may have more of an idea about who is behind it. 

Who is targeting Slough House in season 6?

Slow Horses season 6 episode 2 reveals that new character Damien Cantor (Harry Lloyd) is behind the operation to steal the Slough House file, but it stops short of confirming that he’s personally ordered Jim and Jane to murder everyone on the list. 

Right now, there are currently two strands to take into account. On one side, Jim and Jane are hunting down former Slow Horses and staging their murders to look like accidents.

On the other is Frank, who has returned to London after being released by MI5 at the end of season 4. This week’s episode reveals Frank has been working for Damien and was responsible for obtaining the Slough House file.

To do that, former Dog Andrew Nesmith (Dylan Smith) was recruited to steal the physical file from Molly Doran’s (Naomi Wirthner) archive at the Park. Andrew successfully got hold of it, but was caught somewhere he shouldn’t have been and subsequently lost his job.

When Andrew demands more money and threatens to expose the people who hired him, Frank kills him and stages his death as a suicide. The only problem is Andrew’s young son Reece witnessed what happened and escaped.

Later, Frank meets Damien and says the job is done, therefore confirming the chain: Damien hired Frank, and Andrew was used to physically steal the file.

By the end of episode 2, everything points towards Damien being behind the operation targeting Slough House, but there are some big gaps. Firstly, we haven’t seen Damien give Jim and Jane their orders, and secondly, we don’t know what his endgame is. But perhaps most significantly, we don’t know if there’s someone above him giving the orders. 

Who is Damien Cantor in Slow Horses?

Played by Harry Lloyd, Damien is a wealthy media mogul with links to former politician Peter Judd (Samuel West), and we’d actually already met him briefly in Slow Horses season 6 episode 1.

His importance becomes much clearer in episode 2 when Judd reveals to Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) that the money he previously gave MI5 wasn’t really his at all – it came from Damien.

This puts Diana in an awkward position, because Damien now wants something in return: an interview on his TV channel. And the interview makes him seem even more suspicious. 

Diana is blindsided with questions about highly sensitive intelligence matters, suggesting Damien and the people working for him have somehow gained access to information they really shouldn’t have.

It’s only after, when Damien privately meets Frank, that we discover his connection to the stolen Slough House records too.

So by the end of episode 2, we know Damien is connected to both Peter Judd and Frank Harkness, has leverage over Diana, and has secretly commissioned the theft of a file containing the identities of every current and former Slow Horse… *Gulp*

Diana Taverner could be more important to all of this than it seems

Although we still don’t yet know why the Slow Horses are being targeted, new showrunner Gaby Chiappe has given us a pretty significant clue about where the mystery is heading.

Speaking to Radio Times about season 6, she explained, “This series, the Slow Horses find themselves being hunted and caught up in a web of Diana Taverner’s making.”

So while Damien is clearly involved in what’s happening, it sounds like it goes much deeper than simply ‘evil media mogul wants the Slow Horses dead’.

And there’s another clue from season 6 director Adam Randall, who explained that this season deliberately begins with several storylines that don’t initially appear to connect.

“You set up Taverner, and that she’s obviously done something she’s concerned about, and you set up ‘Jim and Jane,’ the assassins, and then you set up Frank, and you have no idea how they connect,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.

According to Randall, over the course of the six episodes, “they all sort of become one”.

So yes, the murders, Frank’s return and the mess Diana has gotten herself into are all connected somehow. But we won’t know exactly how until further down the line. 

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Featured image credit: Apple TV