With Season Three, Slow Horses Finally Speeds Up

IN its third season, Apple TV’s Slow Horses has confidently elbowed its way into the list of best television shows of all time. If you’ve been sleeping on this show, here’s the run-down.

Slow Horses is a spy thriller based on a series of novels by British mystery writer Mick Herron. Instead of the top dogs of MI5, it centres on the characters of Slough House, a subdivision of the British intelligence agency, which is a sandbox for agents who mess up to play out their service days. This half-way home is overseen by Jackson Lamb, played by Gary Oldman at his grimiest, grubbiest, and grossest best. He is absolutely magnificent! He treats all the misfit agents — nicknamed as “slow horses” — terribly, and it seems like he wants them to give up and quit MI5 altogether.

At Slough House, they are supposed to stay out of trouble but the slow horses find themselves in the thick of the action. They resent being thrown into it but are also thrilled to be part of anything at all. This ambivalence of feelings towards their duty makes this show relatable as compared to a similar American television show where everyone is so very serious about their job. Over its two previous six-episode seasons, it’s chosen to execute a semi-anthology structure but don’t let this stop you from diving in at any point. Just come on in, the water is perfectly warm.

Okay, back to the latest season. For the first time, Slow Horses steps outside of its clutter chic confines into an Istanbul bedroom buoyant with light, billowing curtains. We come upon a couple cuddling in post-coital contentment. Quickly, it moves; one of them is planning on leaking some highly sensitive files. A boast chase on the Bosphorus, a mystery meeting on a rooftop, and then splat, a death. And suddenly, we’re back to the dingy, dank domain of Jackson Lamb and his merry band of misfits, and again, they’ve been dragged kicking and screaming into another hornet’s nest. In this third season, the pacing of Slow Horses has been tweaked from a steady canter to a giddy gallop. So, hold on tight.

As with all great spy thrillers, the larger painting is a sum of all its tiny brushstrokes. While a view from a distance works, the devilish details always draw the viewer in for a closer look. While on the surface, Lamb farts and burps in clinic waiting rooms, eats doner kebab rolls on the move, drinks three bottles of whisky a week and smokes like a steam engine, he’s always on the quickest route to any finish line. Lamb is in-charge of Slough House because it takes a lion to herd cats. This time, the action has hit home. Catherine Standish, the sober, long-suffering unit administrator is taken hostage, and the team scrambles to solve the situation without involving headquarters. For a brief bit, Lamb even seems to care. It’s actually quite moving: the kind of humanity we’re able to assign to our gruff grandfathers. But that was just a Trojan Horse, the real shit is just about to start.

Slow Horses isn’t trying to be another edgy or experimental television show. It’s got the brasstacks down: good writing, good acting, good production design. It’s just people at the top of their game like Oldman’s Lamb; Kristin Scott Thomas who plays the steely Diana Taverner, the deputy director-general of MI5 and head of operations; and Sophie Okonedo who plays the chilling Dame Ingrid Tearney, the director-general of MI5, often referred to as “First Desk”. It’s the whole ensemble; each of the characters serves a purpose – none of them are merely a storytelling device. Instead, each character is fully fleshed out without ever weighing down the show’s pacy onward momentum.

It’s serious but also peppered with silliness. It’s perfectly British in its ability to be self-deprecating but also be superlative in its execution. It manages to be gritty and also glamorous, and none of these critical choices are hurdles to it being a damn good spy thriller too. And above all of these things, it manages to provide thoughtful commentary on the self-interests that power institutions. This analysis by Slow Horses isn’t always a sharp sword, it sometimes takes one down with punches couched in a velvet glove.

Slow Horses is streaming on Apple TV.