Key Takeaways
- The first three seasons of Slow Horses feature a fantastic performance from Gary Oldman as a disillusioned spy boss.
- “Slow Horses” is a thrilling spy drama based on the novel by Mick Herron.
- Slow Horses season 4 is already receiving rave reviews and may be its best season yet.
Television was once looked down upon as an inferior medium for A-list movie stars, but times have changed, with Hollywood’s biggest actors now showing off their chops in regular appearances on shows like True Detective, Big Little Lies, and Mare of Easttown. Feature-length TV Programs Not just a one-off movie .
Gary Oldman is one of them. He has great range and is able to play a diverse range of characters, such as Sirius Black. Harry Potter the psychopathic cop in “Leon,” Winston Churchill in “Dark Knight,” and James Gordon in “The Dark Knight.”
In the Apple TV original spy drama Slow Horses, Oldman once again plays a very different character, this time as Jackson Lamb, a disillusioned, unkempt and frankly disgusting MI5 agent who runs the department where all the useless agents are sent to rot.
The show is based on Mick Herron’s novel, Slough House, and it’s absolutely amazing. Season 4 of Slow Horses is set to premiere on September 4. If you don’t have time to binge-watch all the episodes before then, or can’t remember what happened before the new season, here’s a recap of all three seasons of Slow Horses so far.
The remainder of this article contains major spoilers for Slow Horses seasons 1-3, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know what happens.
Slow Horse Season 1 Recap
Introducing Slow Horse and its new members
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The job of any show’s first season is to introduce its major characters, and Slow Horses does that with aplomb. In the opening scene, MI5 agent River Cartwright (Jack Lowden, The Lord of the Rings: The Ring of Power ) failed security at the airport, causing a bomb to explode, killing hundreds.
Fortunately, the operation turns out to be a training exercise and the only thing that is killed is River Cartwright’s MI5 career. Cartwright is exiled to MI5’s Slough House, a department where disreputable agents (known as Slow Horses) are sent to do odd jobs under the supervision of Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), who seems to care as little about personal hygiene as he does about the agents under his supervision.
The story revolves around a terror plot in which a right-wing group announces they intend to behead a Muslim student they have kidnapped. Cartwright leads the investigation into the threat and Ram – a highly competent operative despite his appearance and lowly position – discovers that the plot is being orchestrated by MI5’s head of operations, Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas, The English Patient).
Cartwright is banished to a division of MI5 called Slough House, where a notorious agent (known as Slow Horse) is sent to do odd jobs under the watch of Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), a man who seems to care as little about personal hygiene as he does about the agents under his supervision.
Taverner attempts to shift the blame onto Sloughhouse, but Lamb thwarts his attempts to frame her, while Cartwright proves himself a skilled agent by tracking down the terrorists and rescuing the hostages.
Other important plot points are revealed midway through the story: Cartwright is David Cartwright (Jonathan Pryce, The Crown ) was a senior MI5 official before retiring. We also learn that Lamb’s troubled secretary, Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves, Luther), is an alcoholic who finds her former boss, former MI5 director Charles Partners, dead from a gunshot wound in his bathroom, an apparent suicide.
Lamb confesses to Standish that he feels responsible for his partner’s death, as he was the one who gave her the gun she used to kill herself, but it soon becomes clear that it was actually Lamb who killed her partner, faking the suicide on the orders of River Cartwright’s grandfather, David.
Slow Horse Season 2 Recap
Russian Undercover Agent Awakens New Conspiracy
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Season 2 begins with the death of former MI5 agent Dickie Bowe from a heart attack. However, Lamb senses something is wrong when he finds a single word, “Cicada,” on Bowe’s mobile phone. Upon investigation, Lamb realizes that “Cicada” is a code word for Russian undercover agents infiltrating the UK. Lamb becomes convinced that these undercover agents are operating to carry out terrorist acts.
Lamb meets Katinsky, a former KGB operative now living under MI5 protection in the UK. Katinsky gives Lamb the name of the spy Chernitsky, the man responsible for Bow’s murder, and Cartwright follows him to a quiet village. Cartwright infiltrates the village as a journalist and is given shelter by a local barmaid, who ends up having dinner with her parents. A family friend arrives, but Cartwright soon recognises it as Chernitsky, who he is convinced is responsible for Dickie Bow’s death.
Cartwright tracks Chernitsky to a small airfield, where it is revealed that the undercover agent is actually the barmaid’s mother. She takes off in a plane loaded with explosives, bound for London, where a large anti-capitalist demonstration is taking place and the streets are full of people, including MI5 boss Diana Taverner. Cartwright orders an evacuation.
The plan is intended to completely humiliate Lamb before Katynsky kills him, as revenge for killing his partner, who had passed information to Katynsky while working for the KGB.
Meanwhile, Slough House’s other operatives have been called in to provide security for an important meeting with the Russians. They’re working under the command of James “Spider” Webb (Freddie Fox, White House Farm), the dastardly MI5 operative who humiliated Cartwright on a training mission earlier in season one.
Cartwright discovers that the plane bound for London is a decoy and does not carry explosives. The plan was a diversion for the Russians involved in the conference to steal diamonds from another Russian while the building is evacuated and locked down. Cartwright manages to abort the evacuation before the plane is shot down.
Lamb realizes that Katynsky is in fact the mastermind behind the whole conspiracy. The plan was to completely humiliate and then kill Lamb as revenge for the death of his partner at the KGB, who had been feeding Katynsky information. Lamb knowingly gave his partner false information, which Katynsky passed on to his superiors, forcing Katynsky to leave Russia and flee to England. When Katynsky’s plan fails, he comes to kill Lamb. Lamb gives him a gun with one bullet and the choice to kill himself or Lamb. Katynsky chooses the former.
Slow Horse Season 3 Recap
A key character is taken hostage
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Slow Horses’ third season begins with an MI5 agent in Istanbul attempting to leak a file. When she hands him over the file instead of showing her gratitude, she is thrown off a roof in a murder that looks like a suicide. Her lover, another agent, Sean Donovan (Sope Dirisu, Gangs of London), is charged with trying to stop her from leaking the documents and finds her dead.
A year passes and we are once again back at Slough House, where Standish, Lamb’s secretary and perhaps his closest friend, has been taken hostage and Cartwright has been sent a photograph of her with a gun to her head, along with instructions to meet at a specific location.
Upon arrival, he is greeted by Spider Webb. He claims he too was forced to attend the meeting to save his sister from being killed. Cartwright is instructed to break into MI5 HQ and retrieve the files. Cartwright manages to reach the room where the files are kept, but once there he explains his predicament to the woman in charge of the files and she places a call to someone who says they can help. When Cartwright answers the phone, Lamb tells him to leave. Standish is not in danger. It’s all a ploy by “Tiger Team”, a private security company secretly hired by the Home Secretary to test MI5’s security.
However, despite the success of the operation, those hired to capture Standish refused to release her and also took one of the security company’s employees hostage, stating that they would kill them both unless they were given access to “The Grey Book,” an MI5 report that investigates the truth behind major conspiracy theories.
The security company’s head of operations, who is actually Spider Webb, is killed by the Rogue Team. MI5 head Ingrid Tierney (Sophie Okonedo, Murder on the Nile) orders Cartwright to escort the hostage takers to the facility where the Grey Book is kept and comply with their demands. However, she knows that the head of the Rogue Team is actually Sean Donovan, who has found a file on his girlfriend, who was killed for trying to leak information, and is trying to discover the cause of her death.
It turns out that the whole plan was engineered by Diana Taverner, who wants to expose Tierney for ordering the murder of one of her subordinates. Tierney ordered the assassination because the files contained information about MI5’s illegal use of hacking devices that led to the deaths of several people. Taverner knows that if Tierney is exposed, she will eventually get the top job at MI5.
In a final scene sure to have repercussions for Season 4, Lamb finally tells Standish the truth about her former boss, Partner: Not only was Partner selling information to the Russians, but to protect herself, she also left traces behind to make it appear that the spy was Standish, not her.
To protect his career, Tierney orders the murder of everyone who knows about the file, including Standish, Cartwright, and the other Slow Horses who are helping Cartwright obtain the file. After a lengthy battle with a team of security companies, the Slow Horses manage to escape with the incriminating file, but Donovan and most of his team are killed.
Cartwright visits his grandfather, who is in the early stages of dementia, who tells him that the files would damage MI5 if made public and throws them into the fire, saying he was doing so to protect River; however, Cartwright had kept a copy and leaks the files, resulting in Taverner replacing Tierney as Director of MI5.
In a final scene sure to have repercussions for Season 4, Lamb finally tells Standish the truth about his former boss, Partner: that Partner not only sold information to the Russians, but also left traces that made it seem like Standish was a spy. Standish doesn’t believe Lamb and announces his resignation.
Slow Horse Season 4: What to Expect
Apparently we are expecting a treat.
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Season 4 hasn’t been released yet, but judging by the critical reviews, it should be really great. Season 4 currently has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and critics who had early access to the show claim that it continues to deliver the same high-quality thrills as the first three seasons. Some critics have even gone so far as to say that Season 4 might be the best yet.
A new character, a mercenary played by Hugo Weaving, will appear (matrix The series also features new characters played by Ruth Bradley (Primeval) and James Callis (Battlestar Galactica). The Slow Horses are tasked with thwarting a bomb plot, and the trailer suggests that one member of the Slough House team will not survive season four.
Season 4 September 4thOne episode will be released each week. The sixth and final episode of Slow Horse Season 4 is October 9.
