The fifth season of Slow Horses starts with a timely sequence: a gun attack perpetrated by a follower of a far-right politician (we even briefly glimpse a few St George’s crosses). Rightwing politics is an area that Apple TV+’s spy drama has tackled before; back in season one, a British-Pakistani student was memorably taken on a joyride by a nationalist group named Sons of Albion, who threatened to behead him on a live stream.
However, like many things in the Slow Horses universe – based on Mick Herron’s bestselling novels about a group of MI5 rejects – the opening proves something of a red herring. Season five isn’t really about white nationalists, or environmental activists, or hostile foreign actors, and yet it is also about all of those things, all at once. As a result, it is overstuffed and strangely lacking in substance.
