Slow Horses season 3 review: Tight, twisty, and bloody as hell
Jackson Lamb and the Slough Housers battle MI5’s Dogs in a lean and mean batch
TV Reviews Slow Horses
For a British spy series whose flawed and fallible agents are the antithesis of James Bond, the third season of Slow Horses, which premieres November 29 on Apple TV+, has a rather Bond-y cold open: exotic locale, sex, and a chase scene that ends in murder.
None of Jackson Lamb’s dead-enders take part in these escapades, of course. Katherine Waterston cameos as Alison Dunn, an agent at the British embassy in Istanbul where Sean Donovan (Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù) is head of security. Carrying on an office romance, the two are first seen in bed, chatting post-coitally about weekend travel plans. When Dunn rises to finish making hummus in the kitchen, the still-naked Donovan furtively rifles through her desk, searching for a top secret file dubbed “Footprint.” Dunn catches him snooping, and Donovan admits to spying on her. Realizing her cover is blown and the fling was a sting, Dunn escapes with the doc, evading Donovan by water taxi and then car. He tracks her to an empty stadium at night, but not before Dunn has—spoiler alert—handed off the file and come to a nasty end.
A year later in London, Slough House still gets no respect. The Aldersgate oubliette for MI5’s lamest has been tasked with itemizing hundreds of file boxes from the Park before they’re shipped to a massive storage facility (which features prominently later). Routinely dissed pretty boy/whipping boy River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) complains that the mountain of paper is “Ringo Level”—i.e., the lowest-grade priority at the Park. (“John” and “Paul” are highest, naturally.) After the previous season took place mostly outside the physical Slough House, it’s refreshing to spend time in the old dump, which had such a strong presence in the first batch. But don’t get too cozy; the first episode ends in the kidnapping of one Slough Houser, forcing another to break into the Park to steal a file to save their life. (There are lots of sensitive files this time around.)
Since each season so far has included one character getting knocked off (Min Harper and Sid Baker, previously), one might reasonably expect more sacrificial lambs (not you, Jackson). Will it be Louisa (Rosalind Eleazar), still grieving for Harper and numbing herself by shagging randos picked up in bars? (Intriguing detail: Louisa has secretly stashed a diamond from the end of season two, nabbed after Pashkin was shot by Marcus [Kadiff Kirwan] on the roof of Glasshouse.)
Maybe Roddy’s the one with a target on his back. Played to sneering perfection by Christopher Chung, the incel hacker tries to blackmail gambling-addicted Marcus so he can sleep with Louisa (don’t ask). Shirley Dander (Aimée-Ffion Edwards) quashes the vile scheme with a bitch-slap in a bar. (Shirley is hardcore.) Could it be that Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves) will get snuffed? Is River doomed? Enough speculation. Let’s just say things get pretty bleak for our Slow Horses. River gets the stuffing knocked out of him in a brutal interrogation by Dogs chief Nick Duffy (Chris Reilly). There’s more gunplay and bloodshed this season than the previous ones combined. So don’t get too attached to new supporting characters.
Based on Mick Herron’s Real Tigers, third in the Slough House series, the plotting is tight and twisty, with a hunt for the aforementioned “Footprint” file driving the double-crosses. Donovan returns to London a changed man; apparently he truly loved Dunn, and her death has rattled him to the core. Having plunged down a rabbit hole of conspiracies, Donovan vows to avenge Dunn and air the Park’s dirty laundry. Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) still hopes to claw her way to the top of British Intelligence with the help of everyone’s favorite sleazy Home Secretary, Peter Judd (Samuel West). Diana just needs to outmaneuver MI5 director Dame Ingrid Tearney (Sophie Okenedo). When a “Tiger Team” hired by Diana to test the Park’s security goes rogue, Slough House is dragged into a proxy battle royal between the spy divas.
Three seasons in, Slow Horses is still tremendous fun. Showrunner Will Smith bases the lean, well-paced seasons on road-tested Herron plots, with a uniformly appealing cast and satisfying mix of mystery, underdog comedy, and cutting dialogue. Shuffling about in a filthy mac with stringy, greasy hair, Oldman’s Lamb has become one of the most unique, vivid TV characters in years. You can nearly smell the stench of cigarettes and hangover as Oldman runs endless variations on Lamb’s amused, appalled contempt, e.g., “You’re as useless as a paper condom.” Other characters most definitely scent the vile pong of Lamb’s strategic blasts of flatulence.
When not showcasing Lamb’s put-downs or action sequences (the finale is a smashing life-or-death battle with assassins from the Park in three locations), Slow Horses explores addiction as much as espionage. Marcus can’t stop gambling; Shirley’s cocaine use is becoming more than recreational; Louisa is drowning in grief; River is hooked on adrenaline and the need to prove himself; and Standish clings to A.A. for dear life. It’s only Lamb, most dissipated of all, who’s at peace with his toxic habits. He has long stopped caring whether the smoking, drinking, and potbelly will shorten a pointless life. Going for the annual checkup, Lamb wearily parries his doctor’s advice. “Dodgy vindaloo and some steep steps should finish me off,” the seedy spymaster muses. “Can’t think of a better way to go.” And yet, something tells us this walking heart attack will outlast even the youngest screwup at Slough House.
Slow Horses season 3 premieres November 29 on Apple TV+
24 Comments
I didn’t get the love for this series. It seemed like basic spy stuff, but the characters seemed entirely charmless, and fans kept talking about how revolutionary it was because sometimes the spies were a bit shit. I was really hoping for something a bit more original.
“Spy stuff” but carried off by losers desperate for a second shot. But I can see how maybe the lot of them are an acquired taste.
They’re the “Lower Decks” of spycraft.
It’s not revolutionary by any means, but it is well done. The charmlessness of Lamb is part of its charm. He’s grumpy but surprisingly effective and leading a group of MI-6 rejects. The first two seasons were well plotted and executed. It’s not le Carre or anything, but it’s a good time.
Dammit, Thundercats, now I have to watch Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy again. Sir Alec’s finest role.
Have you seen Park Chan-wook’s miniseries adaptation of The Little Drummer Girl from a few years ago? It’s the best le Carre adaptation since Alec Guinness’ Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Park’s directorial style—every frame is a painting—complements le Carre’s sensibilities so well. Little Drummer Girl didn’t get as much fanfare as The Night Manager, which came a few years earlier, in part because Night Manager was splashy (and because Jonathan Pine is the most Bond-like of le Carre’s protagonists and Tom Hiddleston plays him well). But Little Drummer Girl is a better adaptation of le Carre’s material, and it is more tonally aligned with le Carre’s canon. Florence Pugh is outstanding in it–her star-making turn.
That show was absolutely amazing, I think its better than Tinker Taylor, and I loved that movie.
On your recommendation? I’ll deffo check it out. TTSS remains a pinnacle of TV as its own artform me: really, no other medium (well, after the book…) could have told the story as well. Full props to the Oldman movie, but TTSS is meant to be plodding, slow, methodical, and drawn out, I think, and a seven-part miniseries really let it breathe like it needed to. There’s always a pathetic air around Le Carré’s espionage, and he’d know. (He had a great story about how some anonymous senior operative from some unknown branch of British intelligence dragged him and a smuggled Browning Hi-Power into East Germany for a night based on some unknowable supposed exchange with some agent that never happened, and Le Carré posited that there never was any agent, just that the spy touched enough from years of doing to nothing to want to try to do something…anything…that felt like it had a meaning.)
To me, there are a few miniseries that stand out as exemplars of the genre: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and Chernobyl, and Generation Kill. I’m sure there are others, but these three for me epitomize how to use the medium of television to tell a spy story, a political/disaster story, and a war story. Le Carre’s work, as you point out, really is much better suited to the episodic nature of TV than to feature films. The time constraints of a film limit what you can do to establish le Carre’s signature tone and twisty plots. TV lets a le Carre adaptation breathe. I’ve been really pleased to see the le Carre renaissance in the last ten years, driven mostly by miniseries like The Night Manager (fun and shot in gorgeous locations, but the novel and adaptation never “feel” completely like le Carre) and The Little Drummer Girl (outstanding). There is talk of a second season of The Night Manager, and The Constant Gardener is in the early stages of being adapted for a miniseries (although I think the film starring Ralph Fiennes is the rare le Carre adaptation that works as a feature film). A miniseries version of A Most Wanted Man is also in the pipeline, and I look forward to that because the film starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman felt rushed. Le Carre had a great quote about the end of the Cold War where he said, “The right side lost, but the wrong side won.” He may have been a spy writer, but he was so much more than that. He understood people and political systems (and what those two things do to each other) on such a deep level. So many of the fears that he talked about in the early 90s after the end of the Cold War has come to pass. He was almost prescient in that regard.
The books are bloody hilarious and, while you could count this as a criticism of the show, will add to your appreciation of the characters.
Also, you hate fun.
I keep forgetting about this series, and I hope that when I get Apple at the end of the year to catch a few exclusive films I can remember to try it. It does look like fun.
It’s really good. I enjoyed it.
I watched the first two seasons over the last week, and it’s lots of fun.
I really enjoy it too. Plenty of fun and the cast are great.
Don’t hope. Do you use Gmail? Or have a smartphone? Put a reminder on your calendar.
Wow — that came back fast. No shows return that quickly. I wonder if they essentially filmed S2 and S3 back to back, and just allowed time for editing and quick re-release?
First and second season were actually the ones filmed together. And then when it got renewed for 3 and 4 they filmed those back to back. 4 will probably be out by summer.
Thanks! That’s great news, to know we have an S4 to look forward to in a short time as well!
I am old enough to remember when every show started a new season one year after the previous season started.
“The Aldersgate oubliette for MI5’s lamest…”Inspired.
Interested in fact based espionage and ungentlemanly officers and spies? Try reading Beyond Enkription. It is an enthralling unadulterated fact based autobiographical spy thriller and a super read as long as you don’t expect John le Carré’s delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots.
What is interesting is that this book is apparently mandatory reading in some countries’ intelligence agencies’ induction programs. Why? Maybe because the book has been heralded by those who should know as “being up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”. Maybe because Bill Fairclough (the author) deviously dissects unusual topics, for example, by using real situations relating to how much agents are kept in the dark by their spy-masters and (surprisingly) vice versa.
The action is set in 1974 about a real British accountant who worked in Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) in London, Nassau, Miami and Port au Prince. Simultaneously he unwittingly worked for MI6. In later books (when employed by Citicorp and Barclays) he knowingly worked for not only British Intelligence but also the CIA.
It’s a must read for espionage cognoscenti but do read some of the recent news articles in TheBurlingtonFiles website before plunging into Beyond Enkription. You’ll soon be immersed in a whole new world which you won’t want to exit.
This is arguably the filthiest character Oldman has played since Sid.And the Mick Jagger theme rocks. Or bangs, depending on your age.
The plots are great on this show & the characters interesting too. And the relationships as they develop season by season are really interesting. Is something happening with River and Louisa, or do they just have each others’ backs? Are River and Jackson developing mutual respect, or just tolerating each other? Is Shirley a psycho or does she genuinely care about Marcus? And so on