At this point, fans of Slow Horses know what they’re going to get from the show. It’s very personality driven, starting with a gleefully flatulent and crusty performance by Gary Oldman as Jaclkson Lamb, who leads the misfit MI5 agents at Slough House. But at this point, the show’s become more of a “workplace dark comedy” than a crime drama, but the cases the agents are looking into in Season 5 might be the most interesting ones they’ve dealt with in awhile.
Opening Shot: We pan down on an apartment block/shopping plaza in London. Someone is in the middle of the shopping courtyard handing out flyers for the reelection campaign of Mayor Zafar Jaffrey (Nick Mohammed).
The Gist: A young man exits his flat in that apartment block, grabs a duffel bag from a white van, and sits in the courtyard. He then takes out an assault rifle and starts shooting, aiming for the Jaffrey campaign staffer first. After the shooter sprays hundreds of bullets around and killing 11 people, we see sniper in a walkway over the courtyard; he gets the shooter in the head with one shot, leaves the spent cartridge behind, gets in the same white van and drives away.
As Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung), an MI5 agent, dances to some Robert Palmer in his headphones as he goes to his job at Slough House, his colleague Shirley Dander (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) tackles him as the same white van comes barreling towards him.
While he’s pissed that his headphones were ruined and his jacket torn, Shirley is convinced that Roddy was targeted. She even interrupts her boss, Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) — with the help of admin Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves) — goes to Lamb’s breakfast spot to tell him her theory. He tells her to fuck off. He also chides Louisa Guy (Rosalind Eleazar), who wants to do background work on the shooting ahead of being asked to do it by Deputy Director Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) despite the fact that this is her last day before a six-month leave.
Speaking of Louisa, she tells River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), her most “normal” colleague at Slough House, that she’s not just taking a leave of absence, but leaving MI5 altogether, which shocks him. She advises him to “feel something,” and he responds by kissing her.
Agent Emma Flyte (Ruth Bradley) investigates the scene and realizes that the shooter didn’t kill himself, and finds the spent casing where the sniper was stationed, realizing that it was left as a message. She also finds evidence that the shooter was a follower of Jaffrey’s opponent in the mayoral election, right-wing activist Dennis Gimball (Christopher Villiers); MI5 director General Claude Whelan (James Callis) goes to a debate rehearsal to warn both candidates to increase their security. Gimball scoffs at the notion that his views had any influence on the shooter.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? We’ll keep citing Misfits and Leverage as good comparisons to Slow Horses. The series is based on Mick Herron’s Slough House novels, with London Rules being the basis for Season 5. If you’re looking for a slightly less flatulent group of spies working together in an office, check out The Agency on Paramount+.
Our Take: At this stage in the run of Slow Horses, creator Will Smith knows what he has, which is a fun ensemble of misfits who are actually good at their jobs. The cases they investigate seem to be secondary, as we’re always more keen on watching the “workplace dark comedy” aspects of the show over whatever cases dominate a particular season.
It’s why we’re happy to see a scene where Catherine pleads with Lamb to stop smoking, saying “they’re killing you,” and Lamb crustily responds, “that’s why I smoke them” as he coughs up a lung. Lamb, while still being an effective leader of the Slough House agents, seems to be intent on doing everything he can to make his body break down, and his slovenly habits feel increasingly cartoonish as the seasons go on. But damn if Oldman doesn’t pull that cartoonishness off each and every time he’s on screen.
The cases being investigated in Season 5, which are likely connected, are definitely more interesting than in Season 4. It seems that, while everyone thinks that Shirley’s instinct about Roddy is a PTSD reaction to the death of Marcus (Kadiff Kirwan), it turns out that someone is gunning for either Roddy specifically or Slough House in general, and the way in is Roddy’s beautiful new squeeze Tara (Hiba Bennani).
The mass shooting story couldn’t be any more timely, given what’s been in the news of late, but it’s also enhanced by the fact that it would have been extraordinarily difficult for the shooter to get his military-grade assault rifle in the UK, which means that there are connections that run deeper than him just being a lone wolf. How Taverner and Whelan bring Lamb and his crew into this piece of the investigation will be interesting, as will seeing this group use their varied, unorthodox methods to get to the bottom of just who or what was behind the shooting.
Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Tara gets into a cab after her date with Roddy at a club, and texts someone that he’s heading towards his flat, alone.
Sleeper Star: We’re curious to see where the show and Nick Mohammed go with Mayor Jaffrey. He seems to love talking in soundbites, and Gimball’s main campaign promise is to crack down on crime much harder than Jaffrey has. That certainly could have implications in the investigation.
Most Pilot-y Line: River throws such a sad going-away party for Louisa, that we actually felt bad for him.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Slow Horses continues to be fun to watch because of Oldman’s crusty performance and the agents at Slough House working together so well despite not exactly being friends. It’s a chemistry that works for this show, and can sustain it for a number of seasons beyond this one.
All five seasons of Slow Horses are currently available to stream on Apple TV+.
Apple TV+ comes with a seven-day free trial for new subscribers and has just one ad-free streaming plan available for $13.99/month.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.