The new Apple TV+ series “Slow Horses” is a darkly funny espionage drama that follows a team of British intelligence agents who serve in a dumping ground department of MI5 due to their career-ending mistakes. Led by their brilliant but irascible leader, the notorious Jackson Lamb (Academy Award winner Gary Oldman), they navigate the espionage world’s smoke and mirrors to defend England from sinister forces.
Le Carré lite? A thinking person’s Homeland? I kept trying to situate the tone and mood of the terrific new espionage thriller on Apple TV+, Slow Horses, which is zippy, mordant, a little silly, bracingly violent in places, and extremely British in its celebration of irascibility, rainy London streets, geopolitical decline, and governing class contemptibility. I loved these six episodes – especially the scenes with the series’s Grade-A stars, Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas, as MI5 grandees – one good one bad – and gave a little cheer at the end of the finale when the show teased its already-filmed second season. Can I have it now, please?
In fact, you can’t binge Slow Horses… (I watched ahead via critic’s screeners). Apple TV+ is doling out these episodes weekly through April (the first two appeared last Friday), a strategy that seems intended to keep Slow Horses, along with its current prestige-y Apple TV+ siblings, Pachinko and Severance, in the conversation. Probably a good thing. This brilliantly filmed show exudes quality–shot on location in London, the actual Mick Jagger singing the theme song–and streaming TV has reached flood stage volume right now. We should want something like Slow Horses to rise to the top.
Each episode is popcorn-light but beautifully done and just sophisticated enough to feel like an evening well spent. April is a crowded month for new TV… but so far Slow Horses is the setting the pace.
MacDailyNews Take: We’re already in, thanks to Gary Oldman, but this review will make us finally get around to watching the first episodes ASAP!
Here’s Apple’s trailer:
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