Season three of spy drama Slow Horses starts on Apple TV Plus November 29. Gary Oldman portrays Jackson Lamb, leader of a branch of the U.K. intelligence service MI5 where agents are dumped after making grave mistakes.
The building is called Slough House.
Mick Herron has written eight books in the Slow Horses franchise. Showrunner/exec producer Will Smith told B+C he was hooked from page one. The “grim, grimy environment” in a spy novel was new to him, and he loved that the characters were real characters with depth. Characters often take a back seat to elaborate plots in spy fiction, but he felt Slow Horses was different.
“That mix of great spy storylines, action, humor and brilliant characters,” he said. “This is something different and fresh and original. You could just tell it would make an amazing series.”
Before he made it as an author, Herron worked in publishing. He would ride the bus past a nondescript building in London on his commute. Over time, in his mind, that became Slough House. Smith referred to Herron as “wondering who was in there.”
In the cast with Oldman are Kristin Scott Thomas, Jack Lowden, Saskia Reeves, Rosalind Eleazar and Christopher Chung. As with the first two seasons, there are six episodes. Season three is based on the novel Real Tigers.
Oldman joining the cast, and Mick Jagger doing the title sequence song, represent two times where Smith said he was “exposed for the idiot that I am.” In both cases, he thought, that guy’s a superstar, he’s not gonna work on our show. In both cases, he was wrong.
Of Oldman, Smith said: “It’s absolutely incredible how he inhabits Jackson. He’s a joy to work with, he’s a joy to watch. It’s still a pinch-me moment when you say Gary Oldman’s in it.”
Jagger’s song, “Strange Game,” serves two purposes, Smith believes. One, if Jagger does the theme song, the viewer assumes the show must be good. “They don’t think Mick Jagger would bother if the material wasn’t up to it,” he said.
Two, Jagger explains the show’s concept in his lyrics. The track begins, “Surrounded by losers, misfits and boozers. Hanging by your fingernails. You made one mistake, you got burned at the stake. You're finished, you're foolish, you failed.”
“He pitches the show for us,” Smith said. “He tells the audience what the show is and what Slough House is.”
Season three visits Istanbul. A romantic liaison threatens to expose a buried MI5 secret in London. When the Slough House misfits are dragged into the fight, they find themselves caught in a conspiracy that threatens the future of Slough House — and of MI5.
Reviews are glowing. The Guardian said, ”It’s wild how good Gary Oldman’s spy thriller is.”
The AV Club called the new season “tight, twisty and bloody as hell.”
Smith counts The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood and The Shield as influences. “That golden age of TV,” he said. “It really woke me up and changed how I thought about things, in terms of what you could do and how characters could carry you through.”
He said he doesn’t meet many passive fans of Slow Horses. “It’s a show that hooks people in,” Smith said. “I haven’t met a casual viewer of the show. They tend to consume the whole thing, which is tremendous.”
