London, UK – No collection of blundering intelligence operatives on television is quite as magnificently useless as the residents of Slough House. Over five seasons, Jackson Lamb, River Cartwright, and the rest of MI5’s human refuse pile have survived bombings, kidnappings, botched extractions, terrorist plots, Russian skulduggery, rogue agents, internal coups, political cover-ups, and an array of other catastrophically bad professional judgements. Yet here we are again, six seasons into Apple TV’s glorious, grubby espionage comedy, and almost nothing has changed (complimentary). Slough House is still populated by its spectacular clown car of disgraced spies, except the bodies turning up around them this season suggest their latest disaster might actually have nothing to do with their own incompetence.
Season 6 opens with David Cartwright dead and River (Jack Lowden) preparing for his funeral. Slough House gets no time to process the funeral before the bodies start piling up. When Struan Loy, the incompetent sad sack Lamb (Gary Oldman) fired back in Season 1, is the first to turn up dead, they soon realise that his death is connected to a series of killings targeting former Slow Horses. Two assassins, played by Kyle Soller and MyAnna Buring, are working their way through the old personnel, while MI5 has quietly scrubbed the victims and the entirety of the existing Slough House from its records.
Lowden suffers almost every indignity Slow Horses can plausibly inflict on a human being, while still having to maintain the illusion that River could one day become a properly functioning intelligence officer. Oldman has now inhabited Jackson Lamb for so long that the character’s slouch and spectacular contempt for personal hygiene have become as recognisable as his snide barbs. One would think Oldman would have exhausted every conceivable permutation of being an absolutely revolting bastard by now. Yet, six seasons in, Lamb somehow keeps discovering fresh depths of depravity and even fresher ways to make them funny.
Must Read: ‘Vibe’ Review: It’s Kunal Kemmu’s World and We’re Just Giggling In It
The supporting cast that really gets its teeth into the season includes Olivia Cooke’s Sid Baker and Tom Brooke’s Coe. Cooke is an evergreen delight to watch, and it is genuinely refreshing to have her back in something that lets her be funny and physically present after so long in House of the Dragon. Gaby Chiappe, who takes over as showrunner after Will Smith’s departure, could have knocked the show’s rhythm sideways, yet Season 6 barely misses a beat. But what really makes Slow Horses such a gift that keeps giving is that Slough House may be the most convincing miniature of the British state currently on television. Six seasons in, the joke still hasn’t run out of ammunition or the reasons to keep firing it. Slow Horses Season 6 is currently airing on Apple TV with episodes dropping weekly.
