Slow Horses (2022- )
Drama/Thriller/TV
Sometimes it is great to come late to the party, and I mean that metaphorically about a lauded television show, rather than an actual party where obviously all the cool kids turn up first and when you turn up it’s a week later, nobody is there and you’re naked and your Nan answers the door and your long dead dog chases you down the street dressed as Ronald McDonald. Or maybe that was a dream.
I had half tried Slow Horses but just failed to get into it. Stuck for things to watch recently, with way too much time on my hands, I forced myself to finish the first episode. Then the second. Then the third. Then, a few days later, the fourth series. Yep, I was well and truly hooked on Apple TV’s drama about the remedial class of spies, led by Gary Oldman’s hilarious, flatulent Jackson Lamb.
The great thing about spies is nobody except other spies really knows what they do and how it all works. Apart from spying, what does a Spy do? There’s been so many on film and TV that something must be close, and Slow Horses’ mix of banal, bizarre and electrifying seems to work. Nothing could be weirder than the real life spy in a suitcase, anyway. The team have all been relegated from top-dog spying to pen pushing in purgatory, with varying degrees of giving a shit.
Slow Horses is based on the Slough House series of novels by Mick Herron, and the characters have the depth you’d associate with a long form, written piece of work. Some of them (Spider, Ho) are almost hard to watch they’re so awful or annoying, but in a fun way and credit to the performances there. All of the performances, in fact. The show has laugh out loud moments mixed with the Machiavellian tension.
Varying schemes and dastardly plots unravel grippingly- each being the main focus of one season, and the team get caught up in them. That’s about the most perfunctory synopsis ever. “Things happen and the characters are involved”. Can you imagine if all the stuff happened just off screen enough and indirectly that the characters were really just passers by or witnesses? That would be a feat of storytelling.
“What have you heard on the wire, Johnny?”
“Nothing, but isn’t that plane flying a bit low over there?”
“Where? Oh wow yes that’s headed directly into the city!”
*huge explosion in distance*
“Bloody hell! Quick, back on that wire. Fancy ordering some food?”
Next week on Slow Horses, Jackson Lamb ruptures a haemorrhoid while listening to rolling news coverage of the death of a major royal.
Exciting action and events do happen in Slow Horses, but here's Jackson Lamb mistaking an ice cream for a phone
Slow Horses is brilliant and Jackson Lamb such an entertaining character Gary Oldman could probably make an hour of him wiping a bum bleed and swearing must see TV. Slow Horses is must see TV.
I came late to Slow Horses and late is great, in this instance, because there's loads of it to watch. Season Series 5 is out now on Apple TV, which obviously I haven’t seen yet but will be mainlining into my eyeballs. You should start from the first series of Slow Horses, and write the rest of your spare time off for a bit. Enthralling entertainment. 9/10
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