J.K. Coe, the socially withdrawn Slough House agent played by Tom Brooke, is dead. He was killed in episode 4 of Slow Horses Season 6, titled “Lost and Found,” now streaming on Apple TV.
The episode picks up with assassins Jim (Kyle Soller) and Jane (MyAnna Buring) closing in on the Slow Horses at a bowling alley called Nova Bowl, where River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) and Sid Baker (Olivia Cooke) are trying to reach a payphone to call Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas). Jane shoots River in the hand during the chaos, but the three operatives escape in Coe’s car.
The assassins track them down again at a rest stop. While River and Sid go off to deal with his wound and buy supplies, Coe is alone in the arcade when he spots Jim and Jane. Jim follows him into the men’s room, where Coe is waiting.
“Are you FSB?” Coe asks. “GRU,” Jim replies. After Jim mocks Coe’s “good pension,” Coe tells him, “I think you’ve got the wrong list,” and draws a push knife. In a callback to a Season 5 exchange between Coe and River, Jim asks, “That a push knife?” Coe answers, “Yep.” Jim pulls a larger knife of his own, and the two men fight.
The show cuts between the bathroom brawl, Sid fighting off Jane in the car park, and River — unaware anything is wrong — eating a sandwich and sports drink. The fight wrecks the bathroom, with both men slammed into hand dryers, mirrors and walls. Jim ultimately stabs Coe in the stomach.
When River finally checks the men’s room, he finds Coe slumped against the wall, hood up, headphones still in, rap music still playing.
Coe’s death follows the source material: the character is killed in Mick Herron’s sixth novel, Joe Country. The episode also closes with Jim and Jane driving off with Sid captive at gunpoint.
Brooke played Coe as a largely silent, introspective presence since joining the series, and told Decider he would be open to a prequel exploring the character’s backstory from the books The List and Nobody Walks. “I think he is so odd when we get to him. And he’s like that because what he’s gone through is so extreme and awful,” Brooke said. “So yeah, I would love people to know. It would be an absolute blast. It would be so cool, because you get to show pre-torture Coe.”
New episodes of Slow Horses Season 6 premiere Wednesdays on Apple TV.
