In the spy series “Slow Horses” on Apple TV+, Slough House is the dumpy, narrow building somewhere in London that serves as headquarters for MI5′s castoffs. Rather than the U.K.’s best and brightest, these are the slow horses of the title — stuck on an island of misfit toys, but for intelligence officers — and this is where young River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) finds himself after colossally botching a training exercise.
Pensive, headstrong and ansty, the last thing he wants is to spend his days digging through the trash of a hack journalist they’re surveilling. But that’s exactly what his boss — the slovenly and cranky Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) — has him doing. Every so often Lamb will bang on the floor to his underlings working below, looking for an update. “You thumped?” Cartwright replies sarcastically. Turns out, that journalist they’re watching has ties to a right-wing group and they’ve kidnapped a Muslim university student in Leeds. Suddenly the slow horses are pulled into the fast lane. A real operation at last. That’s mostly due to circumstance, but it’s also a convenient turn of events for MI5′s icy second-in-command Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas), who knows she may need a scapegoat or five if anything goes awry.
Adapted from Mick Herron’s spy novels, “Slow Horses” takes its cue from John le Carre (someone references George Smiley just to underscore it all) and it’s a welcome change of pace from the bombastic international intrigue of the Bond franchise. Here, the focus is on small individual moments and uncertain loyalties. Setups, compromised motives and sharp repartee abound. The show has a dark and wonderfully tangy sense of humor, much of it thanks to Lamb, who arrives at work to announce: “Another day dawns at MI-(bleeping)-useless.” He’s not wrong. There’s an old spy motto from the Cold War era they keep repeating to one another — Moscow rules: Watch your back; London rules: Cover your rear. The show takes place in London, which tells you all you need to know about how the higher-ups approach the job and what that potentially means for all those expendable Slough Housers.
