Slow Horses Episodes 1 – 2 are the first two instalments of a spy thriller television series based on the novel of the same name by Mick Herron. The 6-episode season is streaming on Apple TV+. The series follows a team of British intelligence agents who serve in a dumping ground department of MI5 due to their career-ending mistakes.
S P O I L E R S
Slow Horses Episodes 1 – 2 set up the brilliant premise for us as our protagonist British MI5 agent River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) is exiled to Slough House after a botched and publicly embarrassing training mission. Slough House is effectively an administrative purgatory for service rejects, known as slow horses, as Cartwright and his fellow employees must endure dull, paper pushing tasks and their miserable boss, Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldham), who expects them to quit out of boredom and frustration.
READ OUR REVIEW OF THE RESPONDER.
Of course, the slow horses are thrown – inadvertently it must be said – into a crisis as Cartwright seeks to redeem himself by solving a high profile hostage situation as a British Muslim is kidnapped and threatened with beheading by a white nationalist faction. Cartwright is aided in his unauthorised endeavour by fellow slow horse Sid Baker (Olivia Cooke) sent to Slough House to keep an eye on Cartwright by Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas), the MI5 superior that condemned Cartwright to Slough House to begin with! What a tangled web we weave!!
Certainly, by the end of episode 2, we the audience is totally hooked on what happens next in this well-written spy thriller. The scenarios are enthralling and the premise so intriguing that it cannot help but engage. How not to root for these underdog spy failures to save the day?! Highly recommended!
Now streaming on AppleTV+.
…. still there’s more …