At some point, those who make the excellent spy thriller/black comedy that is Slow Horses will run out of ideas. But through five seasons and one episode of season six, they haven't. It likely helps that a lead character like the frumpy, anti-James Bond, yet unquestionably brilliant Jackson Lamb is played to such perfection by Sir Gary Oldman, but he is far from the only well-acted character.
For those who are thinking of watching Slow Horses and beginning with season six (which would be weird, but somehow fitting), here is a brief background. Lamb oversees Slough House, a place where those in MI5, the British domestic counter-terrorism agency, are sent when they have messed up badly, yet not so badly that the agency can risk firing them.
That means that MI5 sees Slough House as the brothers and sisters of the poor and expects no greatness or massive assistance from those who work there. Ultimately, of course. Lamb and his worker bees tend to save many a mission on the verge of failing. It's the wonderful Catch-22 of the plot.
But what actually happened in the first episode of season six? Well, quite a lot actually.
Struan Loy returns (sort of)
Longtime fans of Slow Horses will remember Loy from season 1, as he was dismissed from MI5 for betraying Slough House. Lamb made the final decision on Loy's removal because, after all, while Lamb might not be well-liked by the higher-ups, he does build a culture of loyalty, even against the will of some of his direct reports, within his own house.
At the start of the episode, we see Loy living his normal life, teaching martial arts and then meeting with a couple of interested buyers to sell something. The meeting takes place in a shipping container that Loy appears to call home. It would also be the place of his death, grimly enough.
The false buyers, Jane (MyAnna Buring) and Jim (Kyle Soller), aren't truly meeting with Loy to purchase anything. Instead, they are there to kill Loy, and they do so by starting a fire and forcing Loy to stay in the container. The move sets the tone for what is a pretty brutal episode.
Jane and Jim aren't done
Later in the episode, we see the two laid-back assassins walk onto a houseboat where a character who hasn't appeared in the series yet is going about her daily life. Not for long, however, as Jane and Jim walk onto the boat, bonked the lady on the head, and she falls over into the water. To make sure she stays there, Jane forces her to stay in the water with an oar.
What we are learning is that Jane and Jim have clearly done their job so long that they appear impartial to murder, but also that someone has ordered or paid them to kill for Slough House employees. We don't learn in the episode who or why, though.
The implication is that the order is coming from someone at the top of secret intelligence because while the former Slough House agents are being brutally taken out, the current agents who work under Lamb (and Lamb himself) learn they haven't been paid.
Tech wizard Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung) can't even find that Slough House is officially part of MI5 anymore. As Ho indicates, if he can't find Slough House in the system anymore, then it truly isn't part of MI5.
River mourns his grandfather
Loy's death is far from the last that the episode unveils. River Cartwright, Lamb's right-hand man, if there ever could be one, who has always hated his assignment to Slough House, has lost his grandfather, David Cartwriter (Jonathan Pryce), to an illness. David is a former superstar of MI5, so the whole sector knows who he is, and most will later show up at the funeral.
As David was River's true role model growing up, while his estranged father was quite the opposite kind of personality, River is rightfully emotionally affected during the episode. He is more bristly than usual and in no mood to make nice with anyone, including First Desk Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas).
The two have a fairly tense meeting, and the dislike and distrust between the two are clear. As the agents of Slough House haven't been paid, and Lamb learns of the deaths of the former agents, the agents might naturally believe that Taverner is behind Slough House being disassembled.
At the funeral, though, it becomes obvious that she is as lost as Lamb, River, and the rest about what is going on. Ultimately, the entire episode sets up the season by revealing to the viewer that bad things are afoot, but no one (not even the main characters themselves) knows who is pulling the strings. The rest of the season should be brilliant because of that.
Fans of Slow Horses got some more good news on Tuesday, besides the new season beginning. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Apple announced that the series will return for an eighth season (at least). No cast changes were mentioned, but the season will be based on Clown Town, the ninth novel in Mick Herron’s Slough House book series.
Add us as a preferred source on Google