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It takes a certain swagger to make a thriller about terror attacks, online radicalisation and the rise of the far right in Britain, and then to make that thriller very funny indeed. Happily, Slow Horses is more than up to the task, returning for its fifth season with a renewed sense of nihilism and wit.
After a fun but functional fourth outing, Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) and his merry band of MI5’s weakest links are licking their wounds in the exile of their Slough House HQ. Having spent most of season four dodging assassination attempts by a man who would turn out to be (spoiler warning) his own father, River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) is feeling understandably glum, but there is also a pervasive sense of hopelessness among all of his colleagues. They are burnt out, disaffected and tired of their friends dying all the time. It makes perfect sense, then, to make one of this season’s targets an unlikely one: would hitmen really target tech expert and human irritant Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung), a man so fundamentally unthreatening that the only weapon he can find during a shootout is an LED-flashing ceremonial sword?
This constant push and pull between the affecting and the absurd is what makes Slow Horses sing. The attempt on Ho’s life may be connected to the assassination of a political pamphleteer in broad daylight, in scenes that are extra chilling given the current global political climate. Later, we see a far-right rally, with a crowd draped in flags and bearing anti-immigration placards. The series’ timeliness, whether inadvertent or by design, is potent.
Slow Horses was an under-appreciated gem at first, but with each year its popularity has grown — and deservedly so. Oldman’s performance as the flatulent Lamb, as majestic as he is grotesque, may go down as one of television’s finest, and he is supported by an excellent cast. As Diana Taverner, Kristin Scott Thomas steers MI5’s gruesome internal political manoeuvring with icy calm. It is satisfying to watch as the spooks peel away the layers of Britain’s ruling institutions, from the Mayor of London electoral race, to career-ending newspaper columns, to the long-term consequences of Britain’s geopolitical interferences.
This is its best season since the first. It narrows its scope and reduces the action to its constituent parts again: the Slow Horses use their unorthodox ways to get deep into the shadows of London, making a terrible mess along the way. It has a winning conciseness that is pitifully rare in the streaming age. There are no meandering subplots without purpose here, no hour-plus episodes, just six instalments, all 45 minutes or so long. It moves in, it moves out, and it gets the job done, with a precision that Jackson Lamb himself would surely admire.
★★★★★
On Apple TV+, with new episodes Wednesdays
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