Slow Horses, Season One (2022)
Starred Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden, Kristin Scott Thomas
Produced by See-Saw Films, Flying Studio Pictures, Sony Pictures Television Studios
Originally aired on Apple TV+
I’ll start this off by admitting two things that are particularly relevant to this post, the first of which many people already know:
1. When too many people emphatically recommend the same movie/television show/novel/comic book and repeatedly tell me how great it is and how I “have” to watch/read it … I tend to be less inclined to do so. Because what if I don’t love it as much as they did? Does that call their taste into question, or mine? This results in me “sleeping on” several shows, movies, books, and comics that I wind up enjoying, if not outright loving, eventually. Yes, Slow Horses is one of those. Three seasons have aired, a fourth and fifth are on their way, and I’ve finally just watched season one.
2. I have not read Mick Herron’s Slough House series of novels (of which Slow Horses is the first), or anything else by the author. Yes, it’s partially because of how many people recommended the books to me even before the series started airing. Yes, it’s a deficiency in my spy literature reading. Yes, I intend to read them (I’ve already purchased the first two). Yes, it’s a large part of the reason that this is a Series Saturday post and not a Page-to-Screen post.
For those who don’t know: Slow Horses is about the agents at Slough House in London, a dumping ground for MI5 agents who have bungled their jobs badly enough to be given drudge jobs away from the real action but not badly enough to be outright fired. Yet, at least. Slough House is overseen by Jackson Lamb (played by Gary Oldman) and his quiet-but-competent secretary Catherine Standish (played by Saskia Reeves), in charge of a motley crew of mostly amiable screw-ups that include, at the start of season one, Sid Baker (Olivia Cooke), Louisa Guy (Rosalind Eleazar), Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung), Min Harper (Dustin Demri-Burns), Struan Loy (Paul Higgins), and Jed Moody (Steven Waddington). Enter River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), who should be MI5 “royalty” as the grandson of retired agent David Cartwright (Jonathan Pryce), except that he bungled a live practice terrorist scenario that, had it been real, would have resulted in hundreds of deaths.
The question at the start of season one is: did he really bungle it? Or was he set up? And if so, why?
While Cartwright ponders this, Slough House is tasked with monitoring a disgraced reporter with extreme right wing political organization ties, and possibly to the kidnapping of a Pakistani college student by a white power organization that has the nation’s attention, as well as the attention of MI5’s “Second Chair” Diana Tavener (Kristin Scott Thomas) and her trusty sidekicks Nick Duffy (Chris Reilly) and James “Spider” Webb (Freddie Fox), who was also one of Cartwright’s best friends prior to “the incident.” And this is all just the set-up. Things get far more complicated from there.
With just six episodes, season one of Slow Horses is tightly packed and fast paced. There really is no filler. There are also no “out of left field” reveals. Every revealed connection and uncovered secret regarding the disgraced reporter, the kidnapping, and what really happened during Cartwright’s test scenario, makes sense, and is seeded well before the reveals. There wasn’t any moment where I thought “where did that come from” although there were plenty of moments that surprised me – just because things are seeded well in previous episodes doesn’t mean every reveal is predictable (the difference between “I knew that would happen” and “I should have seen that coming”).
There’s a fine line between making a character unlikeable and making them unwatchable, and both Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas (as well as, to a lesser extent, Freddie Fox and Christopher Chung) walk that line expertly. Oldman’s Jackson Lamb is a slovenly, grouchy, insult-hurling functional alcoholic whose disdain for the screw-ups working under him is palpable (and nicely juxtaposed with how quick he is to jump to their rescue while making it seem like he doesn’t care at all). Before watching Slow Horses, I’d have said that Oldman’s portrayal of George Smiley in the 2011 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was his best spy role ever, but his Jackson Lamb is easily as, if not more, compelling. Diana Tavener is all bitchy cool efficiency and condescension as assayed by Kristin Scott Thomas. “Ice wouldn’t melt” is the phrase that comes to mind. Her every step is calculated, and from her first appearance you can tell just how manipulative and disregarding she is. Lamb cares about his people even as he talks down about them; Tavener cares only for herself. It’s a credit to both actors’ skills that they can make static scenes of sitting on a park bench having a conversation more fraught with tensions than any high-speed foot chase through an airport.
Not that Jack Lowden wasn’t excellent in the opening scene of the first episode, which ended with that high-speed chase. Just – the bench scene was so much tenser.
Lowden is the third name in the opening credits alongside Oldman and Scott Thomas, and River Cartwright really is the focal character for season one and probably for the whole series. Lowden’s Cartwright is disgruntled, rightfully so, but not so bitter that he’s given up the way Lamb has. Cartwright knows he didn’t screw up; knows he was given bad intel by Webb – but doesn’t know why and is still determined to do the best job he can to work his way back into the department’s good graces. Lowden plays all the emotions of Cartwright’s arc well, including his truly clear love and respect for his grandfather.
The rest of the Slow Horses range from plot-device level characterization (Moody and Loy) to characters with intriguing hints of backstory I expect will play out over future seasons (Standish) or hopefully futures (Guy and Harper). Scenes later in the season where the team must figure out what’s going on while on the run from MI5’s security detail (nicknamed “the Dogs”) really give Reeves, Chung, Eleazar, and Demri-Burns moments to shine both on the characterizational and competency levels. Yes, the Slow Horses are all screw-ups – but there are scenes that remind us that most of them were agents in good standing at one time.
The season finale wraps up the main storylines, corresponding (or so I’ve been told) with the conclusion of book one in the novel series. But there are plenty of unanswered questions, particularly about Lamb and Standish’s former boss and about David Cartwright’s history, that will clearly propel subplots in season two (which I should be posting a review of in a few weeks).
I am glad I finally gave in to all the recommendations. If you’re a fan of spy thrillers that are a bit more thought-provoking and nuanced rather than being a series of ever-escalating stunts and explosions, I think you’ll enjoy Slow Horses as well.
This is a blog series about … well, series. I love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies, comics. If you liked this post, I’ve previously written about dramatic TV series such as Perry Mason Season One and Terriers both of which were also shows I “slept on” for too long.