The fifth and finale episode of “Slow Horses,” titled “Old Scores,” does not disappoint.

The show, based on Mick Herron’s “Dead Lions,” gives us in this last hour, “Code September” and the “Cicadas,” (long sleeping and forgotten Russian spies) for an operation that will bring to mind 9/11. I will tell you no more except it left me with the jitters and bad dreams.

Even writing a review of the last two shows leading up to “Code” is risky, because so much was dumped in, so many important characters new and old wiped out, so many people being deleted, that to name who will give away the hight points for those of you who have, due to the holidays, have missed.

River Cartwright, our favorite good guy who has happened upon the bad cicadas, finds himself tasered, tied up like a Texan steer and unable to stop what he thinks is a 9/11-like attack in London.

We faithful addicts all remember the “mama” spy taking off in the bomb-laden Cessna that is now floating over the verdant fields of England, taking its time getting to the target in London, that being of course, the “Glass House,” that enormous sky-scraping London glass building.

With River unable to warn the world about what is expected to be the biggest cataclysmic event in British history, they’ve got our attention.

Here in the finale, we are treated to one nail-biting scene after another. The prime “cicadas,” the big, bald killer Andre Chernitsky and old “cicada” Nikolai Katinsky, are in the private airport finalizing the works on a super bomb, before loading it on to “mama’s” Cessna.

The action continues to give us upset stomachs by jumping back and forth to London’s Glass House and the crowded streets below, where the poorly clad Jackson Lamb is milling about with a headful of secrets he isn’t sharing with us.

The delightful aging beauty Catherine Standish, who may be smarter than all of the group, is following her own leads that take her to a cafe chess game with a character we don’t trust. We don’t even trust Lamb.

I will tell you that our wonderful underplayed spy, Shirley Dander (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) is on her way to trouble aboard a motorbike, and that the snotty-tech genius Roddy Ho (Christopher  Chung) is trapped aboard a train and about to confront the “cicada” from hell.

For those of you devoted fans who spent Christmas with our misfits and their dragons, none of this is news.

I’m just trying to herd the rest of you new kids into the best suspense television thriller of the decade.

So, take a break from that silly “Emily In Paris,” and get on board.

“Slow Horses” streams on AppleTV+.

J.P. Devine of Waterville is a former stage and screen actor.

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