When this sixth season of Slow Horses showed up amongst much excitement, there was this automatic question in our heads: would the change in writers — series creator and lead writer Will Smith handed over the reins to Gaby Chiappe — impact the show, which nestles comfortably in my list of best spy thrillers currently streaming.
The answer is a resounding no. I have to confess I was a little sceptical when this new season began, but the way it has forged ahead, turning a show that spent a lot of time brooding in dank rooms, sending its gaggle of gabby, dank spies, on a breathless chase involving our favourite slow horses and a Russian hit-couple, I’ve barely had time to breathe.
The fourth episode (in a total of six) just dropped, and it’s gone along at a clip, scattering blood and bullets and bodies briskly. Something terrible has happened, and I’ll hold off from being spoiler-y because you may not still have caught it. But because I’ve also watched the final two episodes, I urge you, do not lose a minute. This is by far and away the best season of the lot, no notes.
Watch Slow Horses 6 trailer here:
Okay, let me take that back, for just one little grouse. There were moments in this fourth episode when you want to tell the bruised-and-battered duo, River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), Sid Baker (Olivia Cooke), to not be twits and argue loudly in an entertainment arcade, taking a tip from the third of their party, the very silent Coe (Tom Brooke). Like, you know, when ruthless killers Jane and Jim (Kyle Soller and MyAnna Buring) lurk, you keep very quiet?
We know they are ruthless because they’ve been on a killing spree, picking off the slow horses one by one, devising horrible deaths for each– how do you fancy being burnt inside a caravan, or drowned in a shallow canal? And here they are, bearing hilariously-false names, but terrifying skills to cut and chop and kill, and all you do is squabble?
Based on the combined events of two Mick Herron novels, Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) this season picks up right from where the previous ended. Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Smith) is arm-twisted into doing a downright revealing interview by Cantor (Harry Lloyd), the ambitious owner of a TV network, who is in cahoots with the enemies of the state. Which forces Taverner, who wants to hold on to being top dog at Slough House, into doing even more dangerous things, making her even more complicit.
Taverner is a wonderfully complex character, and in this season, Scott Smith ratchets her brand of canny ruthlessness to good effect. But Lamb, his appearance as lank as ever, is easily the equal of her, and this time around even manages to find a rival farter – young Reece Nesmith (Lenny Rush), also in the killers’ crosshairs, making up for his lack of inches by being all cocky — who fouls up the air even more.
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Meanwhile a bunch of female spies, led by the lovely Catherine (Saskia Reeves), as well as Roddy Ho (Christopher Cheung) are putting rubber to road, adding to the tension: will hired gun Harkness (Hugo Weaving), who has been leaving a bloody trail in previous seasons, manage to do the job this time around?
Any show which is so consistent with its mix of silliness and sharpness, making us care for the characters we’ve spent time with in the previous seasons, while taking care to spice up the things with smart new adversaries, is worthy of being inhaled in one sitting. I can’t wait for the next one.
Slow Horses 6 cast: Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden, Olivia Cooke, Tom Brooke, Kristin Scott Smith, Christopher Chung, Kyle Soller, MyAnna Buring, Harry Lloyd, Lucian Samati, Hugo Weaving, Saskia Reeves, Joanna Scanlan, Aimee Ffion-Edwards, Rosalind Eliazar, Ruth Bradley, Lenny Rush
Slow Horses 6 director: Adam Randall
Slow Horses 6 rating: 4 stars