There was no present I heard about extra throughout the vacation season than Slow Horses. As a TV editor, this is an anecdotal survey that made me sit up and concentrate. Seemingly everybody I talked with, at vacation events or on trip, was enraptured by the British spy drama on Apple TV Plus; some individuals gushed extra about the present than they did their very own youngsters. Not one to be disregarded of the dialog, I plunged into the third season. And it was there I discovered the greatest form of vacation reward: an amazing season of TV, and much more to watch as quickly as I’m in a position.
The great thing about Slow Horses — as anybody at any of those get-togethers would inform you — is in how tightly the present is constructed. Primarily based on the Slough Home novels by Mick Herron, every season adapts one ebook in a compact six episodes, following the lives of the intelligence officers working in the “Slough House” of MI5. Having not seen the pilot the place such names and designations is likely to be defined, I can inform you solely that Slough Home is a kind of dumping floor for MI5 brokers who tousled. In lieu of getting fired, they get demoted (sentenced, damned) to dead-end work underneath the schlubby Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman).
However since every ebook and season is roughly self-contained, it’s fairly straightforward to drop in on season 3 and decide up every thing you want to find out about Slough Home and its horses — specifically that they’re, in reality, distinctive brokers, even when they’re a bit rougher round the edges than their brethren assigned elsewhere. At the heart you’ve River (Jack Lowden), the hapless spy who’s all the time attempting to do the Proper Factor™, and whose profession was stymied when he was framed for some screw-up. However you’ve additionally bought Louisa (Rosalind Eleazar), who’s equal components abrasive and efficient, and Roddy (Christopher Chung), a talented hacker whose most important weak point appears to be lack of motivation to do a lot past mischief if left to his druthers. None is extra deceptively adept than Jackson, who Oldman performs with the perfect steadiness of tough attraction. He’s loath to say a single sort factor, and even seem to be taking part in the recreation, however he impishly all the time is.
Whereas season 3 picks up with the dregs of some season 2 baggage, it in a short time throws Lamb and his horses straight into the fray, with one in every of their very own kidnapped. In lots of different reveals, this would possibly look like a horrible time to hop on the bandwagon, however I didn’t really feel that method about Slow Horses season 3. For all its upstarts bucking at their Slough Home designation, Slow Horses is clean as silk, masterfully constructing a spy thriller on the backs of robust characters, and letting them take the story the place it wants to go. Their relationships — to themselves, their colleagues, and the MI5 group — are self-evident, and the present correctly lets them take the reins.
And the end result is enjoyable — no small feat for a present that I had no data of however loads of expectation for. For no matter form of crapshoot a six-episode British present could be, Slow Horses nimbly manages each hearty comedy and earnest drama, thanks to some dry wit round the thriller stakes of spy residing. Earlier than I used to be executed with season 3, I used to be excited to jump again to the earlier two seasons. (And the sizzle reel of the principally completed season 4 at the finish guarantees Hugo Weaving? Suffice it to say I’ll now be the particular person at any vacation gatherings — perhaps even Flag Day if the “before December 2024” timeline is to be believed — effusively talking of Slow Horses.)
The brand new 12 months can usually really feel like a refresh: the kind of factor that makes you are feeling envirograted, prepared to seize the day, work out, get your life collectively, and perhaps really feel concurrently overwhelmed and longing for all you are able to do. The sweetness (and terror) of January is that it is a clean slate, a wide-open horizon so filled with chance it feels countless (non-derogatory, but additionally generally derogatory). On this method, Slow Horses season 3 is the perfect look ahead to proper now. It’s a present a few group of individuals attempting their greatest, without delay extra in a position and fewer smart to it than they suppose. On this yawning January when time feels liminal and the days really feel shorter than they oughta be, you possibly can fill that point with loads of issues. And I feel it’s best to most likely fill a few of it with Slow Horses. And like the greatest form of resolutions, you can begin wherever feels proper to you.
All three seasons of Slow Horses are actually streaming in full on Apple TV Plus. Season 4 is due this 12 months — hopefully earlier than we count on it.
