Slow Horses on Apple TV+: British Espionage and Darkly Comic Dysfunction
Hey, everyone! How’s it going? Today I’m here to review the drama Slow Horses, which delivers the most authentically gritty and brilliantly dysfunctional take on British espionage you’ll ever see, proving that the best spies are often the most damaged ones.
Slow Horses premiered on Apple TV+ on April 1, 2022, currently with four completed seasons featuring 6 episodes each with approximately 45-50 minute runtime. The series has been renewed through season seven, with season five premiering on September 24, 2025. This darkly comic spy thriller follows a team of disgraced MI5 agents working at Slough House, a dumping ground for intelligence operatives who’ve fallen from grace.
Slow Horses isn’t your typical glossy spy series. It’s a masterclass in character-driven storytelling that strips away the glamour of espionage to reveal the messy, human reality beneath. The series combines sharp British wit with genuine tension, creating a unique blend that feels both familiar and refreshingly original.
Slough House: Where Careers Go to Die
Slow Horses centers on Slough House, a bureaucratic purgatory where MI5 sends agents who’ve screwed up but can’t be fired. Led by the deliberately repulsive Jackson Lamb, these “slow horses” are meant to be bored into resignation, but fate keeps dragging them into genuine espionage crises. The series explores themes of redemption, second chances, and the price of failure in the intelligence world.
Each season adapts one of Mick Herron’s acclaimed novels, creating tight, focused storylines that build to explosive conclusions. The show excels at balancing procedural elements with deep character development, showing how past mistakes continue to haunt these broken agents. What makes Slow Horses special is its refusal to glamorize spy work, instead presenting it as a grimy, morally ambiguous profession filled with bureaucratic frustration.
Jackson Lamb: Gary Oldman’s Magnificent Bastard
Gary Oldman delivers a career-defining performance as Jackson Lamb, the slovenly, chain-smoking head of Slough House who seems designed to repel everyone around him. Lamb is deliberately crude, constantly flatulent, and appears to take sadistic pleasure in tormenting his subordinates. Yet beneath this disgusting exterior lies one of the sharpest minds in British intelligence, a man whose apparent incompetence masks strategic brilliance.
Oldman transforms completely for this role, adopting a disheveled appearance and working-class accent that makes him nearly unrecognizable. His performance reveals layers of complexity as the series progresses, showing glimpses of the legendary operative Lamb once was. The character serves as both comic relief and the series’ moral center, a living reminder that effective leadership doesn’t always come in pretty packages.
River Cartwright: The Reluctant Hero’s Journey
Jack Lowden portrays River Cartwright, a young agent whose career was derailed by a training exercise gone wrong. River represents the traditional spy protagonist thrust into an unconventional world, struggling to prove himself worthy of redemption. His relationship with his grandfather, veteran spy David Cartwright, adds emotional depth and connects the series to MI5’s storied past.
River’s character arc explores themes of legacy, guilt, and the crushing weight of expectations. Lowden brings vulnerability and determination to the role, making River’s quest for redemption genuinely compelling. His interactions with Lamb create some of the series’ best moments, as the older man’s crude wisdom slowly transforms the younger agent’s understanding of what it means to serve.
When the Past Refuses to Stay Buried
Season four delivers the series’ most personal and devastating storyline yet. The season explores the consequences of long-buried secrets coming to light, as past operations return to haunt the present. Without spoiling specifics, the climactic episodes showcase the series at its most emotionally raw, combining intense action with genuine character revelations that redefine everything viewers thought they knew about these characters.
The season demonstrates Slow Horses at its finest, balancing dark humor with genuine pathos. Every character faces their demons, and not everyone emerges unscathed. The finale sets up what promises to be an even more intense fifth season, as the personal becomes political and old alliances crumble under pressure.
The Ensemble: A Gallery of Beautiful Losers
Slow Horses features an outstanding supporting cast including Kristin Scott Thomas as the ruthlessly efficient Diana Taverner, Saskia Reeves as the mysterious Catherine Standish, and Christopher Chung as the tech-savvy Roddy Ho. Each character brings distinct personality and backstory to the ensemble, avoiding stereotypes while embracing their roles as intelligence misfits.
The series excels at showing how different people respond to professional failure and personal trauma. Some characters find redemption through their work at Slough House, while others remain trapped by their past mistakes. This nuanced approach to character development makes every member of the team feel essential and authentic.
Success on Apple TV+
Slow Horses has become Apple TV+’s most critically acclaimed drama series, earning Emmy nominations and BAFTA recognition for its outstanding writing and performances. The show’s success demonstrates that audiences hunger for intelligent, character-driven content that doesn’t insult their intelligence. Slow Horses has helped establish Apple TV+ as a serious destination for premium television, proving that quality storytelling can find an audience even on newer streaming platforms.
Why This Espionage Masterpiece Deserves Your Time
If you love intelligent spy thrillers that prioritize character over spectacle, Slow Horses is the perfect series to binge on Apple TV+. This isn’t just another spy show; it’s a meditation on failure, redemption, and the unglamorous reality of intelligence work that will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about the genre.
Why This Show Redefines Espionage Television
Slow Horses succeeds because it understands that the most interesting spies are the broken ones. By focusing on failure rather than success, the series creates space for genuine human drama within the espionage framework. It’s smart, funny, and surprisingly moving, proving that the best spy stories are ultimately about people trying to find meaning in a morally complex world.
Series Details
Number of Episodes: 24 episodes across 4 seasons (6 episodes each)
Platform: Apple TV+
Release Year: 2022-2024 (Season 5 premiering September 2025)
Current IMDb Rating: 8.2/10
Genre: Spy Thriller/Dark Comedy
Status: Currently concluded Season 4, renewed through Season 7
Protagonists: Gary Oldman (Jackson Lamb), Jack Lowden (River Cartwright)
Antagonist: Various (changes each season)