TV: Slow Horses Season 1

I may not have been paying attention the whole time, but that doesn't mean I didn't really like it

6 Episodes, 2022 - AppleTV+

The Plot 100

Slough House is the home of MI5’s least-wanted agents who still may be of some use. Under the watchful, belligerent eye of Jackson Lamb, they are usually tasked with menial paperwork and the lowest of shit jobs, but a surveillance job unintentionally puts them right in the midst of a kidnapping plot/false flag operation that goes right up the chain. As low as things have gotten for them in their careers, this threatens to sink them all right to the bottom.

3-2-1

3 Great: (1) Jackson Lamb/Gary Oldman. I mean, Oldman is one of the greatest actors of the past 30 years, and in such a non-showy way. It’s wild that Oldman has sunk his teeth into a television show. But Lamb is such an Oldman type character, particularly in that he can disappear into him. Lamb is a puffy, flatulent sot who outwardly seems to hold contempt for everyone, and yet, is a literal lamb beneath the skin. He cares about the job and the people that work for him very deeply, though he will never outwardly show any signs of that affection. He’s ability to read people and situations is razor sharp, and it’s clear he was, and still is, an amazing operative, and I wouldn’t hesitate to assume that his dishevelled, crass exterior is a front to keep people off guard and have people underestimate him. Oldman certainly plays him as a man with a rich inner world, and the writers/production team do a pretty great job of letting the audience in on that without letting the other character know as much.
(2) Internal rivalries. The classic ‘70’s BBC espionage series The Sandbaggers primarily took place in offices, where we followed the support staff as the special agents were on their missions. It’s a peek behind the curtain which at times contains just as much (if not more drama) than the in-the-field action. I like when series pick up on this, and show you all the internal politicking and negotiations that need to happen, because despite them all working for the same service, they’re not all one team, and they don’t all get along. Here, the rivalries, the manipulation, the dirty backstabbing and interference all make for engrossing viewing, culminating in a late stage reminder from Lamb, to everyone, to focus on the real job at hand is.
(3) Intensity. There’s some fantastic edge-of-your-seat viewing here, especially around our poor kidnap victim Hassan (Antonio Aakeel) who is doubly a pawn in a sprawling game. Even as we’re alerted early to the false flag operation it still provides no comfort as to his safety, and when the operation goes out of control, his survival is paramount, and, frankly, right until the end, there’s no guarantee what the outcome will be, which I found thrilling. Likewise in Episode 5, in which the Horses are being set up to take the fall, the team (Lamb particularly) have to make some pretty intense plays to get clear, and the show had already proven that nobody’s really safe

2 Good: (1) The real terrorists. It’s important to remind people that extreme nationalism is one of (if not the) biggest threats any country can face to its own stability or growth, and that more terrorism tends to come from within one’s own borders than from without. This series doesn’t sympathize with the cause, nor does it in any way validate any of their bullshit, but it does remind us that these people, despite their beliefs, are still people. We often don’t want to humanize the deplorables, but I think it’s important to remember that many of them are people that have just lost their way, become angry and been given a target for that anger, or are lonely and angry and have found community in spaces that manipulate and radicalize them. Some are for sure lost causes, but some don’t have to be. In supplying the show with a false flag plot, it does provide a little (miniscule) amount of sympathy for the hapless idiots who have been
(2) Rosalind Eleazar as Louisa Guy. Next to Oldman’s Lamb, Louisa’s probably my favourite character on the show. She’s the most level-headed of the entire crew, at all times. She seems like a woman who has been through so much shit that nothing phases her, and perhaps it’s the meta context of being a Black woman that speaks to that. Louisa, perhaps becoming too accepting of her situation in life (Slow Horses, it’s said, never return to the big show), seems to be settling for her doofy coworker Min Harper (Dustin Demri-Burns) as they potentially start a romantic affair, but it’s Louise’s exasperation with Min, already, throughout the events in the show that really elevated Eleazar’s performance, as frustrated as she gets, there’s still affection within it, and you can tell it’s in spite of herself. Good acting!

1 Bad: Anticlimax. I found the finale to be underwhelming. It seems a British thing to subvert the American standard of a big shootout or action-filled finale. There’s nothing ostensibly wrong with how the story closes out here, but it’s one of the least exciting things to happen in the show. It does lead to a good dressing down of the gang from Lamb though, so perhaps worth it?

META

Ostensibly the main character of the show is Jack Lowden as River Cartwright. I liked Lowden quite a bit in Fighting With My Family, though clearly Florence Pugh was the big takeaway from that film. Lowden is a solid, charming lead, but once again he’s not really the spotlight, which is mostly on Oldman with Kristin Scott Thomas being the second featured player. They are the meat, while Lowden is the potatoes. But it’s River Cartwright’s story, by the end, that seems to be the bigger thread that’s *just* hinted at this first season. River’s grandfather, played by Jonathan Pryce, is also an ex-company man, who still seems to have his fingers in the pie somehow, and he’s connected to Lamb (which shouldn’t have come as a surprise but it did, and, oh, *spoiler warning*). Clearly each season of 6 episodes will have a central plot to work through, but it’s also clear that whatever happened in the pasts of these old men is going to float to the top at some point.

In the Cards

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