James Oconner 
Anil Krishna 
Jonathan Millar 
‘Slow Horses’ Season 6, Episode 3: Sid Baker’s Return and Diana Taverner’s Downfall Explained
© Apple TV+
Slow Horses Season 6, Episode 3, titled “Resurrection,” finally answers one of the show’s longest-running questions while also putting Diana Taverner in a very uncomfortable position. And honestly, the episode wastes very little time doing either. Sid Baker is alive, despite everyone believing she died years ago, while Taverner manages to turn a television interview into a political disaster almost entirely by herself. The two stories don’t seem connected at first, but both end up changing the situation inside MI5 in a pretty big way.
Why Sid Baker’s Death Was Faked for Three Years
Sidonie “Sid” Baker has been one of those Slow Horses mysteries that never really went away. Back in Season 1, she was shot in the head and later disappeared from her hospital bed, leaving everyone to assume that she was dead. The show never gave viewers a proper answer, though, which naturally made Sid’s supposed death feel a little suspicious. Now, three years later, Episode 3 finally confirms what fans have been wondering all this time: Sid is alive.
The bigger surprise is that her death wasn’t some elaborate mistake or lucky escape. MI5 higher-ups, with Jackson Lamb involved, deliberately kept Sid’s survival hidden. By officially making her “dead,” they were able to keep her outside the usual intelligence bureaucracy and use her as an off-the-books operative who couldn’t easily be traced. It also explains why Lamb has been so cagey about what really happened to her. But bringing Sid back creates a whole new problem, especially for River Cartwright. If Lamb knew she was alive, what else has he been keeping from River? And what exactly was Sid doing during those missing three years? Those questions suddenly matter a lot more than the original mystery.
How Diana Taverner’s Television Interview Went Wrong
Over at Regent’s Park, Diana Taverner has problems of her own. She goes into a television interview hoping to look like the person who has control of the situation, which is pretty much what you’d expect from Taverner. Instead, she accidentally makes things much worse.
While discussing the ongoing attacks in Britain, Taverner uses the word “retaliation.” It sounds like one small mistake, but in the world of Slow Horses, a single word can become a very expensive problem. Her wording appears to suggest that the attacks are connected to unauthorized covert actions carried out by MI5, which directly clashes with the agency’s public position that it has simply been responding defensively. Suddenly, Taverner has handed her political enemies exactly the opening they needed. Oliver Nash and others can now question what MI5 has actually been doing, and more importantly, whether Taverner can still be trusted to run the operation.
It is also a rare moment where Taverner’s usually controlled image starts to fall apart in public. She’s normally the person making everyone else nervous, not the person desperately trying to explain herself.
Taverner Turns on Emma Flyte
Once the interview starts causing problems, Taverner does what senior intelligence officials in Slow Horses tend to do when things go badly: she starts looking for someone else to blame. Her attention turns toward Head Dog Emma Flyte, particularly because Taverner suspects that Flyte has been passing confidential information to Jackson Lamb.
That suspicion doesn’t end well for Flyte. Taverner demotes her and sends her down to Slough House, effectively pushing her out of the inner circle at Regent’s Park. It’s a pretty brutal move, especially because Flyte isn’t simply being punished for a clear failure; she’s caught in the middle of Taverner’s increasingly desperate attempt to regain control.
And that’s probably the most interesting part of Taverner’s storyline in this episode. Her biggest problem isn’t just the television interview. It’s that the mistake exposes how fragile her position has become. Between Sid’s return, Lamb’s secrets and the growing pressure from outside MI5, the usual power structure is starting to look a lot less secure. For someone like Taverner, who has spent years making sure she is the one holding the strings, that’s a particularly dangerous place to be.
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