Catherine Standish from Slow Horses
There are plenty of great female characters featured in Slow Horses, so why am I going with Catherine Standish? I love watching long-suffering Louisa, ice-cold Diana Taverner, and scrappy, furious Shirley, but Catherine Standish is a great example of a character trope I love: Hidden Depths. Or to put it another way: more than meets the eye.
Think Mrs. Gummidge in David Copperfield, who ceases her complaining and rallies the family in the wake of Emily’s disappearance, or Hopper in Stranger things, who comes out of his depressed, drunken stupor to demonstrate he’s a lot more competent than he looks, or Mary Hamilton in Batwoman, a vapid influencer who is secretly running a free medical clinic.
There’s something about concealed duality in characters, whether they’re deliberately putting up a front or are simply better people than they realize, that always inspires.
Catherine Standish fits the bill, initially tottering about Slough House in dangerously high heels, on her daily routine of distributing menial paperwork to the team. She always looks on the brink of taking a fall, which is a clever character note for a recovering alcoholic, with a meek and quiet tone. She has a passable appearance – not unkempt, but hardly well-groomed either – and emanates the air of a cleaning lady or old fuddy-duddy.
And in many ways, she remains that way throughout the series. It’s not like she ever morphs into a glamourous secret agent at any point.
Exiled to Slough House due to her alcohol abuse, she is nevertheless a lot sharper and more efficient than anyone gives her credit for, and is surprisingly good at handling people in her quiet, determined, measured tones. Every season will give her a sequence that demonstrates her capabilities, whether it’s pulling a concealed gun on Head of Security, endangering her sobriety while partaking in a chess game to gather intelligence, silently conveying information about her kidnappers to the team via the hostage video, or gently helping an ex-colleague suffering from dementia.
Heck, putting up with Jackson Lamb is a superhero ability in itself, and she’s the epitome of a woman who can get away with a lot because she’s so underestimated.
Four seasons in, and the show has yet to really explore her relationship with Charles Partner, her former boss who was killed by Lamb on the orders of David Cartwright (protagonist River’s grandfather). I can honestly say I don’t know how she’ll react when the truth comes out, but there’s a chance her former colleagues could be in serious danger. As they say, Beware the Nice Ones.
