"Delightful to watch Gary Oldman return as Jackson Lamb, grouching and burping and investigating as the keenest eye of all. Love how S6 E1 made an easy return, even w/o research. Glad I'm not an estate agent." (Myself on BlueSky.)
Slow Horses S6, E1
The first episode of Season 6 is now streaming exclusively on Apple TV, alongside all 30 episodes of the first five seasons. Subsequent episodes will premiere worldwide every Wednesday. I've seen all 31 episodes so far.
Hooded as usual, J.K. Coe (Tom Brooke) enters Slough House, the headquarters for a unit of disgraced MI-5 agents, only to see a stranger descending the stairway. Acting on his instincts and training, he punches the stranger into unconsciousness.
Enter several other agents, known derisively as "Slow Horses," none of whom know the identity of the stranger. It's not until the arrival of office administrator Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves), delayed by circumstances beyond her control, that the stranger is identified as an unfortunate estate agent, who is meant to assess the property.
Why would an estate agent be needed to assess the headquarters of an MI-5 unit? The MI-5 agents discuss this among themselves, though they are more concerned with not receiving their latest salary payments. Computer ace Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung) quickly discovers that's not their only concern: Their records have been wiped completely clean from the MI-5 database.
When Jackson Lamb hears that he's not being paid, he leaves the office. He's only there because he gets paid to be there.
Of course, that's not true. Jackson Lamb can't help himself. He is always compelled to look further into anything suspicious. That's what made him a top MI-5 agent before he was banished to Slough House.
The first five seasons explained the circumstances that led him to sit behind a desk; in Season 5, we even learned why he is always picking at his feet and no longer runs with abandon from danger. His personal habits have degenerated over the years; he burps and farts and doesn't wash his hair or bathe regularly.
Season 6 begins with a high and wide shot of a river, where an animal has died, its body left floating. It's far below the camera eye, showing the insignificance that a single death of a disregarded creature has upon its environment. It also serves to set the theme for the season, in which multiple Slow Horses, considered insignificant by MI-5 and the public at large, are dispatched for mysterious reasons, and then ignored by nearly everyone else.
The opening sequence finds former Slow Horse Struan Loy (Paul Higgins), who appeared in Season 1, but is now a martial arts instructor. Living in a shipping container turned one-room apartment, he is visited by two strangers who express an interest in Struan's idea of turning shipping containers into residential units. "You can stack them, you know." Straun does not survive; he is burned alive in the container.
When his death is reported to First Desk Diane Tavernier (Kristin Scott Thomas), who finally ascended to the MI-5 oversight position at the end of last season, Tavernier takes the news with her usual cool aloofness, and then advises that Slough House should not be advised of the death of a former agent, since the death has been ruled 'accidental.'
Curious as always, Jackson Lamb enlists River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), still grieving the loss of his grandfather, David Cartwright (Jonathan Pryce), the former head of MI-5 who was known publicly as the U.K. Transport Minister. Visiting the burned-out shipping container, it takes Lamb five minutes to figure out that the death was not accidental. Lamb phones Roddy and tells him to check on all former agents.
The two strangers visit another former Slow Horse, and quickly dispatch her in another 'accidental' incident, straight into the canal where her house boat is parked. Their next target? Someone named River.
More breadcrumbs are dropped at the funeral for David Cartwright when former Home Secretary Judd tells Tavernier that the source of an investment he made that got him into trouble last season is not himself, but rather a mysterious person 'who wishes to remain anonymous.'
Lamb confronts Tavernier, demanding to know why Slough House has been deleted from the database. Claiming that it's only a "glitch," she also inadvertently (or intentionally) lets slip that Lamb killed Charles Partner. (Lamb was under orders from David Cartwright to do so.) But Catherine, who still grieves the death of her former boss, hears the exchange, learning for the first time that Lamb murdered Partner.
As if that's not enough, Frank Harkness (Hugo Weaving) appears as the funeral service concludes. Frank, a former CIA agent turned ruthless mercenary, is River Cartwright's father. Confronted by an angry River, his father chops him in the neck and attempts to drive away. River hops on the hood of his father's car, but Frank stops suddenly, leaving River flying and tumbling to the ground, watching as his father speeds away.
Adam Randall directed; he also helmed the entirety of Season 4. Original showrunner Will Smith departed, citing the show's quick-turnaround strategy, which allows it to release a new season every year. Gaby Chiappe, who has been writing for television for nearly 30 years, is the new showrunner, and based only on the first episode of Season 6, the series is in good hands.
One of the great pleasures of Slow Horses is that it introduces, develops, and concludes its primary theme in just six episodes, adapting a different book from novelist Mick Herron's spy novel series. Season 6 is adapting two of his books, so we'll see how that works out in the remaining five episodes.
I'm hoping that it will be seamless, almost as much as I look forward to spending more time with Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb.
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