How to Watch Slow Horses on Apple TV Plus

If you're looking for a good spy series that can hold its own with other great shows, then Slow Horses may be the one for you. It's a witty and well-written British espionage show based on the books by Mick Herron.

It follows a group of British intelligence agents who serve as a dumping ground department of MI5. The show's cast includes Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden, Kristin Scott Thomas, Saskia Reeves and Rosalind Eleazar.

1. Cast

The cast of Apple TV Plus’s spy thriller Slow Horses is a diverse group of characters, and they all have one thing in common: they’ve all messed up their careers. As a result, they are sent to Slough House, the dumping ground department of MI5 where they are forced to carry out paper-pushing tasks.

The show stars Gary Oldman, who plays Jackson Lamb, the tyrannical boss of Slough House, and is based on Mick Herron’s Slough House series of novels. He is joined by Kristin Scott Thomas, Jack Lowden, Olivia Cooke and Freddie Fox, who play the disgraced spies who have been assigned to Slough House.

Each season of Slow Horses takes place over six episodes and is adapted from one of the Slough House books. It’s a refreshing departure from the buttoned-down professionalism of many other British intelligence shows, and features a keen eye for detail in its visuals.

Among the cast is Jack Lowden as River Cartwright, who was also in season 1. Other returning characters include Kristin Scott Thomas (Diana Taverner), Saskia Reeves (Catherine Standish), Rosalind Eleazar (Louisa Guy), Dustin Demri-Burns (Min Harper), Christopher Chung (Roddy Ho), Freddie Fox (James "Spider" Webb), Samuel West (MP Peter Judd) and Aimee-Ffion Edwards (Shirley Dander).

The second season of Slow Horses, which began in 2022, was well received by critics. While it wasn’t as sharp as the first, it still delivered a good mix of action and wit. The lead cast, led by Oldman, was stellar, and Slow Horses remains a must-watch for fans of the genre. A third season of the show is currently in production and should be released sometime this spring/summer 2023.

2. Plot

Slow horses is an espionage thriller that stars Academy Award winner Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas. It is adapted from the book Dead Lions by Mick Herron and is set in a dumping ground department of MI5.

The characters work in Slough House, a dingy building that houses spooks who have misstepped their way into getting themselves shipped out from Regent's Park. It's a place where they're stuffed into dull and humiliating assignments, unable to get back out into the field again.

As Lamb (Oldman) explains in the first season, it's only screw-ups that go there. But when a cold-war-era spy dies ostensibly from a heart attack, Lamb's team gets involved in another complex and compelling caper.

Eventually, they find themselves in the middle of a hostage situation with more sinister roots. The team is tasked with finding and freeing a young Pakistani-British youth whose head has been kidnapped by right-wing nationalists who are threatening to cut it off in retaliation for jihadist attacks.

The plot of Slow Horses is interesting and engaging, largely due to the performances of its cast. In particular, Oldman is great as the brash Jackson Lamb, who's a belligerent day-drinking codger with poor hygiene and an endless volley of insults for his staff.

He's ably supported by his fellow spooks at Slough House, including Min (Rachel Cooke), Louisa (Jayna Garza) and Shirley (Lizzy Pratt). They're all fine actors who manage to make their characters memorable.

Apple TV+'s hit espionage drama is back for series two, and you can watch it now with a 7-day free trial. The new episodes will be released weekly on Fridays.

3. Characters

Those unfortunate agents who can't be fired, but can't be trusted with important work are sent to Slough House, a dingy London office that acts as an overflow for MI5. They're known as slow horses.

They're often sent to Slough House for a reason: they haven't been able to do the job, they don't want to, or their egos have just taken too much of a beating. Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) is the head of Slough House, but he's not your typical senior agent. He's a bit of a day-drinking codger, but he also has a Spidey sense and an observational ability that trumps his appearance.

As a leader, Lamb is brilliant but irascible. He wants to see the best results for the service. He's not a man to be pushed around, and he's not afraid to kill off his creations.

He does, however, have a few enemies in the service. One of these is the icy second in command, Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas), who wants to pin the kidnapping of Hassan on him.

The other is a snoopy, cynical, conservative MP who doesn't like the bumbling Jackson Lamb. She's even less than willing to let him rescue Hassan, a man whose Pakistani heritage makes him an enemy of both Islam and the British government.

Adapted from Mick Herron's acclaimed series of novels, slow horses is a darkly humorous espionage drama that follows a team of dysfunctional MI5 agents serving in a dumping ground department called Slough House. With a likable cast and deft balance of comedy and suspense, this is a surprisingly gripping thriller that should appeal to anyone who enjoys a good spy story.

4. Actors

Whether you’re into espionage thrillers or you just enjoy a good mystery, Slow Horses is worth checking out. Apple TV Plus is streaming the acclaimed spy drama now, and you can watch it for free on a seven-day trial.

The show’s cast is loaded with recognizable names, including Oscar-winner Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas, who last appeared together as Winston Churchill and Clemmie in Joe Wright’s The Darkest Hour. The series is based on Mick Herron’s Slough House novels, and it features a John Le Carre-esque fascination with the political treachery and practical tradecraft of the secret intelligence world.

It also has a great mix of sardonic humor and robust thriller plots. Its tone may be a little similar to Armando Ianucci’s The Thick of It, but it has its own unique voice that’s been a big hit with critics so far.

One of the things that makes Slow Horses stand out is that it doesn’t try to make everyone a two-dimensional cutout. While the plot of each episode tries to wrangle a complex and compelling conspiracy, it never overreaches in the pursuit of that goal.

As a result, Slow Horses is often a bit like watching an older version of Killing Eve, where the stakes are high but the characters are more than just one-dimensional caricatures. It’s a smart way to play with the genre, but it’s not without its weaknesses.

In the second season of the Apple TV Plus drama, the lead character, Jackson Lamb (Oldman), gets involved in another complicated caper, but this time he’s caught in a more serious conflict of interest. He catches a glimpse of an ultra-right-wing journalist who is being targeted by a hostile foreign power. When he and his team at Slough House investigate the report, they discover something far more sinister than they’d thought possible.

5. Director

Director James Hawes has a long history of watching slow horses. He grew up in Cornwall, where he watched his parents ride and ride and ride. He has directed a number of shows and films, including the film adaptation of "Slow Horses" for Apple TV+.

He also helmed the BBC's "Battleground." His directorial debut, the acclaimed series "Dirty White Boys," has been praised by critics as an example of the genre's best work. He has a variety of original projects in development and has directed and written for other shows.

His new project is the espionage drama “Slow Horses,” based on Mick Herron’s books and distributed by Apple TV+. It stars Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb, the irascible head of Slough House, the run-down MI5 dumping ground for sidelined agents who have screwed up their careers and are sent into professional purgatory.

The first episode of season one, which aired on April 1 and is currently streaming on Apple TV+, begins with an eight-minute sequence that sets up the show's twisty nature and delivers on the promise of spy story action. It's a classic spy-story flourish, the equivalent of a stage performer dazzle you with one hand while secretly picking a lock behind their back with the other.

That's what makes Slow Horses such a fun, darkly funny, entertaining espionage drama. It's a series that's sure to delight fans of John le Carre and Bill Fairclough's The Burlington Files, as well as aficionados of raw, noir espionage of the type often found in "anti-Bond" novels like Len Deighton's 'Tequila Sunrise.'

Slow Horses is a terrific sendup of the John le Carre novels and a thrilling, character-driven thriller that is as cinematic as it is darkly humorous. It's a perfect fit for Apple's original series, and we are looking forward to seeing what it has in store for Season 2.