5 Reasons to Start Watching ‘Slow Horses’
In the new fourth season of Apple TV’s Slow Horses, the latest member of the comic thriller’s titular group of disgraced British spies suggests, “We can’t help anyone. This is a D-list unit with no unifying sense of purpose. Everyone here has been checked out and written off.”
Yet these written-off disgraces of the British intelligence apparatus not only keep successfully solving the cases they somehow stumble into, they’ve become the centerpiece of one of the most beloved series of the last few years. Mention the name to anyone who’s seen Slow Horses, and their faces will inevitably light up. Despite being a relatively lighthearted genre show that’s not concerned about the issues of modern life, it was nominated for nine drama Emmys for its third season, including for best drama, and for stars Gary Oldman and Jack Lowden, plus recurring guest star Jonathan Pryce.
More from Rolling Stone
What, exactly, has endeared so many to this show? Let’s run it down:
1. It’s funny — in a reliable way
While we live in an age of extremely specific, innovative, surprising comedy, there’s something to be said about how pleasurable it can be when you know what kinds of jokes are coming, if not always when. There’s a reason so many sitcoms and sketch shows have catchphrases or running gags, after all.
Slow Horses is always balancing a lot of plates as it offers up both humor and genuine spycraft (more on that in a minute), so giving each of the main characters some clear, repeatable piece of comic business is an enormous help. No matter what else is happening in an episode, or even a particular scene, there’s comfort in the Slow Horses’ physically disgusting leader Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) defiantly cutting loose a fart, or in the team’s emotionally disgusting computer expert Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung) always saying the crudest, most off-putting thing possible in a given social situation. River Cartwright (Lowden) will inevitably prove overconfident in his abilities. And Seasons Three and Four have offered a consistently amusing dynamic between gambling addict Marcus Longridge (Kadiff Kirwan) and recovering drug addict Shirley Dander (Aimée-Ffion Edwards), each of them trying and failing to prove they’re less of a screw-up than the other.
2. It’s somehow also exciting
The show is based on a series of novels by Mick Herron, with each season adapting one of the books. Season Four is based on Spook Street, and deals with a terrorist bombing, a threat against the life of Rivers’ senile ex-spy grandfather David (Pryce), and a mercenary (Hugo Weaving) who seems particularly interested in the Cartwright clan. Both Herron and the TV series’ creator, Will Smith (no, not that Will Smith), take the threats seriously, and manage to work in ideas that would fit just as easily into a more straightforward spy drama as they do here.
Most impressively, the show does this without undercutting the humor. The trick, more often than not, is to present humorous solutions to palpable danger, like the time in Season Three when Jackson briefly made like Kevin in Home Alone in using household objects to booby trap a house against invading gunmen. River frequently injures himself running towards and away from bad guys, and the Slow Horses tend to save the day in the most ungainly fashion possible.
Because of the personal connection River has to this case, Season Four is a bit more dramatic than seasons past, but not so much so that it prevents the usual flatulence and other stupidity.
3. It makes great use of the available acting talent
While the larger Slow Horses ensemble isn’t quite at the level of the Hogwarts faculty, it remains impressive how many Serious Actors the series has managed to bring in to have a bit of fun for a season or three. Oldman’s willingness to abandon all vanity, and to play Jackson as broadly as possible at least two-thirds of the time, surely helps. But it’s still a treat to see Pryce, or Kristin Scott Thomas (as Diana Taverner, MI5’s straight-laced deputy chief, constantly exasperated by the presence of the Slow Horses in her life), or, this season, actors like Weaving or Battlestar Galactica alum James Callis (as Taverner’s latest overseer) join in on these spy games. Everyone gets the tone of the show, and it’s clear they’re signing on not for any prestige, but because they’re being given colorful, meaty characters to play. Everywhere you look in this series, the acting is excellent.
4. It never overstays its welcome
Yes, we recently argued that TV seasons have gotten too short, and that most shows would benefit from stretching out to at least 13 episodes per season, if not back to the traditional days of 22. Some shows, though, are designed for brevity, and this sure is one of those. Six episodes always feels right to adapt each of Herron’s books. Lots of espionage dramas fall into a trap where they run out of story each year and have to send characters on pointless side quests to fill the allotted time. That never happens with Slow Horses. The only reason to want additional episodes is to get extra time with these characters — because the new season is so River-centric, it feels like there’s less of Jackson than usual, particularly in the concluding hours — but the idea of leaving the audience wanting more very much applies.
5. It sticks to a schedule
Underestimate this at your peril. We’re in an era where a two-year break between seasons of a streaming drama is practically expected, and three to four years isn’t unheard of. As a result of these long breaks, viewers can’t be blamed for spending the first few episodes of a new season struggling to remember who everyone is, what the conflicts are between them, and where the story left off. And the process of having to remind yourself of all this makes it harder to emotionally reconnect with the story.
Slow Horses, god love it, doesn’t make you wait around. Because two seasons get filmed back-to-back each time the show is in production, the hiatuses are shorter than anything this side of the old broadcast networks. Season Two premiered only seven months after Season One ended. There was nearly a year between the second and third seasons, but that’s nothing in this day and age, and it’s only been eight months since the most recent episode began streaming. Each season arrives closely enough to the previous one that no homework is required, nor is it difficult to get up to speed on what’s happening. You can just dive right into the latest adventure on this enormously entertaining show — and if you haven’t yet, you should.
The first episode of Slow Horses Season Four premieres Sept. 4 on Apple TV+, with additional episodes releasing weekly. I’ve seen all six episodes.
Best of Rolling Stone
Solve the daily Crossword
