These holidays Slow Horses said goodbye to our screens. It’s something temporary. As happened in previous years, the viewer found a trailer for the next season when watching the last episode. It is comforting to finish a story with the guarantee of having a continuation, not only because it is renewed but because it has even already been filmed. And, for those who don’t know what it’s like, maybe it’s time to remedy it: Slow Horses is short, funny, somewhat dirty and one of the best thrillers that television has offered us since it premiered in 2022.
When we say it’s a bit filthy it’s because Gary Oldman has one of the dirtiest, raggedest, stinkiest, flatulent and most pig-like characters ever seen: Jackson Lamb, a disgraced MI5 security service agent. Screenwriter Will Smith, who adapts Mick Herron’s novels, admitted to La Vanguardia that he still couldn’t believe that Apple TV let him hire the Oscar winner to present him to the public with a fart, which woke him up from the nap he was taking. at his office.
His Jackson Lamb is quirky and unpleasant. He drinks like a Cossack during work hours, makes the very conscious decision not to wash, and treats the employees under his charge poorly. He leads Slough House, a filthy department of the security service where agents who have made unforgivable mistakes, who are simply inept or antisocial, or with addiction problems (but who, as they are, are officials with sensitive information about the State, they are not fired).
However, although he would never admit it, Lamb has a certain sense of loyalty towards his agents, although he systematically disrespects them and in theory does not trust them to carry out any task professionally. Above all, he defends them from Diana Taverner, MI5’s ambitious number two played by Kristin Scott Thomas who, if she gets the chance, tries to pin the agency’s mistakes on this dishonorable department.
In the three seasons broadcast, the cases have been very different. In the first, River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), who was going to be a star agent, suddenly finds himself in Slough House after falling into a trap and, in the midst of his drowsiness, he uncovers a possible ultra-nationalist conspiracy. In the second, Lamb investigates the death of a colleague that serves to unearth Cold War tensions on British soil. And, in the latest broadcast, an agent from Lamb’s department is kidnapped for reasons that could harm MI5.
The seasons of Slow Horses are concise: they have six 45-minute episodes and generally cover a very limited time span, just a few days. There is a single plot, which is constantly driven forward without losing its nerve and the story does not even dare to waste time with an excess of information about the characters: Smith has the ability to create work environments with endearing agents without overexpository dialogue.
The scriptwriter calmly navigates the thriller, this genre that the British master so well, with a variable that allows Slow Horses to be distinguished: a constant sense of humor that does not play against tension. Watching the last season, you can see how Smith even sets himself new challenges: the way in which he raises the tension and action (impeccable) without abandoning the comedy is frankly commendable.
How grateful it is to see a work so safe, planned, fun and well performed. You can not ask for more.
