Slow Horses Season Three Review

Slow Horses, the British spy series that has, calmly and quietly, becomes the best thing on AppleTV+ by a mile, is back for another round of intrigue and head-shaking screw-ups as the team of Slough House try to outsmart their latest adversaries and try not to take down all of MI5 with them. If you’ve seen the previous two seasons, you know the game: A threat is presented that only Slough House can take on and the team of misfits – all of whom possess a fatal flaw that impedes their ability to perform at the level of a true MI5 agent – puts things together in such a way to neutralize the threat, but only after there has been just enough collateral damage to necessitate their continued place at Slough House.

This season, based on Mick Herron’s “Real Tigers” book in the Slough House series, doesn’t deviate from the norm, presenting the team with a crisis that only they can solve (for reasons that are revealed in spectacular fashion and had me laughing at just what it reveals about several of the Slow Horses, Jack Lowden’s River Cartwright in particular) while putting the team in various degrees of danger that is only heightened by their individual failings. It’s a tricky thing, to have a team of MI5 agents who are, ultimately, good at their jobs, but to still make it abundantly clear just why each one would be an utter disaster if left up to their own devices within the true MI5 structure. However, here, among their fellow outcasts, their Achilles heels somehow manage to balance out with each other – River’s inability to see a trap when it is laid out due to his trustworthy nature meshes nicely with Louisa’s (Rosalind Eleazar, doing great work with a meatier role this season) constant need to not trust those around her, for example – making for a team that can get the job done, albeit occasionally a bit messier than Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas, continuing to make the most of what is essentially the thankless role of the only adult in the room – although she gets to be a bit more devious this time around) would like it to be.

This time around, there’s a kidnapping of a Slow Horse, held for access to government secrets that will – hopefully – shine a light on a mission that ended in the death of an agent. But just who is working for whom and where the orders are truly coming from makes the story twist and turn in impressive fashion. And, if the ending doesn’t quite seem fully plausible in light of the secrets exposed and the casualty list, well, I suppose we can just chalk that up to being yet another element of what happens when you mess with the Slow Horses (seriously, I am still confused with just what happened, politically, at the end of the season, so let me know if you can shine some light on it once you get there in your viewing). But the cast remains in fine form – Gary Oldman is absolutely on fire this time around as Jackson Lamb, whose taciturn nature and need to tell it like it is might finally have gone a step too far – and the writing is sharp and bitingly funny, while still staying true to the characters at the heart of the story. And each of the supporting cast gets a chance to shine this time around, which is also lovely to see.

And, perhaps best of all, the series is a fun watch. It zips through story, easily interchanging characters in the forefront, and offering enough in the way of twists and turns to keep you guessing just where things are headed. It’s a series that knows precisely what it is and doesn’t try to phone it in or try to do more than it can. Shows like that are a rarity, and it’s great to have one this slickly produced, acted, and written. This outing for the Slow Horses might not be its finest hour, but it’s a heck of a ride.

Slow Horses premieres on November 29 on AppleTV+. All six episodes of the season were provided for review.