Slow Horses: the spy drama returns for a ‘solid’ second season

Apple TV’s spy drama, Slow Horses, was a hit when it aired in April, said Barbara Ellen in The Observer, and now it’s back for a second season, which works well, for the most part.

Directed by Jeremy Lovering, the show stars Gary Oldman as the spy boss Jackson Lamb. An irascible hard drinker “who looks as though he’s found all the overflowing ashtrays of 1976 and rolled in them”, Lamb presides over Slough House, a “dumping ground” for spies who’ve made career-ending mistakes.

The plot involves Russia, radiation poisoning and red herrings, and though its twists don’t quite equal those of the first season, it’s still “a solid watch, with fleshed-out characters and moreish plot developments”.

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Slow Horses is, by my reckoning, “the best reason there is for remembering whether you have an Apple TV+ password”, said Hugo Rifkind in The Times. Yes, the plots are convoluted, “but the characters are crystal clear and the dialogue just sings”.

Oldman isn’t the only draw, either: there is also Kristin Scott Thomas as a well-groomed spy supremo. “If this bench marks my coat, I’m sending you the bill,” she tells Lamb as they meet. “You can get coats cleaned?” asks Lamb, intrigued.

The show has a “pleasingly old-school” feel, but it’s the writing that sets it apart, agreed Anita Singh in The Daily Telegraph. “In no other spy drama would someone gaze at their dishevelled boss shovelling noodles into his mouth and say: “You eat like a dying horse.”