When Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) arrived on our screens in Season 1 of Slow Horses (2022-), he seemed anything but heroic.
He drinks in the mornings, and eats the most terrible slop; looks like he hasn’t met a shower in a while, and seems to go out of his way to offend. In short, he is no role model. There are no heroes on his team either. Slough House is a division set up to house MI5’s disgraced agents. River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) is capable, but makes the most spectacular mistakes. Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung) is a shifty tech wizard they couldn’t fire, but also couldn’t really keep on. The anti-social JK Coe (Tom Brooke; masterful) is a walking embodiment of post-traumatic stress disorder. (“The more people I kill, the more human I think I feel. Does that make me a psychopath,” he quietly asks Cartwright.)
To quote Oldman, he “single-handedly lowered the public’s expectation of personal hygiene”.
Shirley Dander (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) has a history of drug addiction and anger-management issues. Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves) is a lonely and traumatised Cold War-era operative, like Lamb. Now a recovering alcoholic; she is also the most functional of the group. Yet, somehow, this gang of rejects are the ones we cheer for, as they fight the machinations of terror groups, opportunistic politicians, and MI5 itself.
Based on a series of books by Mick Herron, Season 1 raised the bar so high, it felt unlikely that it would stay there. But Season 6, even without key writer Will Smith, is outstanding. Even in the world of the show, they are the losers. But, thanks to some brilliant writing and terrific performances, we continue to hope they will win. This time, Slough House is faced with literal erasure. All record of it has gone missing from MI5’s records. Now, its members, past and present, are being picked off one by one. The new season sees a number of past characters return, including Sid Baker (Olivia Cooke), Louisa Guy (Rosalind Eleazar) and Struan Loy (Paul Higgins). It is tense, violent, full of twists, and also wickedly funny. Kristin Scott Thomas, as the ruthless, cold and cuttingly funny Diana Taverner, now head of MI5, is majestic. Every supporting character is written with as much care and nuance as the leads. And while the cast is stellar, the show’s real star is the writing. The characters have grown and changed across seasons, but they remain complex and consistent. The conflicts feel rooted in the real world, with the occasional, gasp-inducing throwback to the horrors of Cold War-era espionage. The show has followed a familiar beat, and developed something of a formula: the omniscient Lamb is always right; Cartwright turns out to always be wrong in the end; the Slough House gang squabble, but ultimately stand shoulder-to-shoulder. Yet the show never feels formulaic; its details never feel anything but true. This is dramatic writing at its finest, particularly for a set of characters who keep finding new depths to plumb. Slow Horses doesn’t have the gloss and extravagance often associated with spy thrillers. There are no femme fatales, exotic locations or special effects. Instead, we’re given a bunch of burnt-out government employees, greasy hairdos, a lot of flatulence. Yet, if there was a contest between Lamb and the more glamorous members of his tribe — James Bond, Jason Bourne, Jonathan Pine — my money would be on Lamb every time. (Write to Deepanjana Pal @dpanjana on Instagram. The views expressed are personal)
