The first three minutes of Slow Horses season five are some of the most harrowingly relevant television you will see this year. I won’t spoil it, but let’s just say it involves a white, radicalised, far-right lunatic, a campaigner for a fictional London Mayor — both of whom are men of colour — and bloodshed. The way it is filmed is brutal and unforgiving. It might even make you feel physically sick.
However, this is about as serious as the new season of Slow Horses gets. It feels odd to follow up that paragraph with this sentence, but this is the silliest, funniest and most flippant season of Slow Horses in the show’s existence. And it's this unbridled absurdity that may lead to its demise.
The cult Apple TV+ spy series has been following its rag-tag gang of MI5 rejects (and reluctant employees of Slough House) since 2022. This is the final season to be helmed by creator, writer and executive producer Will Smith, who won an Emmy for the show last year. The series is by no means coming to an end, having already been renewed up to season seven with many of the key cast expected to stay on.
In season five, the crimes of the first episode and the resulting political fallout are handled by the best Slough House has to offer. There’s tarnished golden boy River, played by Jack Lowden, who brings a newfound humour and personality to the previously generic main character, and volatile former addict Shirley (Aimee-Ffion Edwards), who is acting out following the death of her partner-in-crime, Marcus (Kadiff Kirwan).
Plus their backup: Monosyllabic five-yard-starer Coe (Tom Brooke) and narcissist hacker Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung), who both get a chance to shine in bigger roles this season. Sadly, Rosalind Eleazar’s Louisa Guy and Saskia Reeves’s Catherine Standish have smaller parts this time around, but will be returning for season six.
Of course, we also have flatulent former MI5 legend, Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) and steely MI5 second-in-command Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas), who are as good as ever. The season’s alternative antagonist comes in the form of floundering First Desk Claude Whelan (James Callis), who stole the role from Taverner last season. Whelan’s return is a welcome one, although his humour, compounded with everyone else’s, does tip the Slow Horses scale slightly towards the ridiculous.
That is to say: everyone’s having a lot of fun in Slow Horses season five. Perhaps a little too much fun.
The show’s take on Britain’s divided political landscape initially feels like it’s razor sharp. The political violence of the first episode appears to be instigated by the vicious battle between left and right, ramped up ahead of the London Mayoral election.
The Londoners of the Slow Horses universe are tasked with choosing between Sadiq Khan stand-in, Zafar Jaffrey (Nick Mohammed), and Nigel Farage proxy, Dennis Gimball. But the destruction is quickly revealed to be more orchestrated than it seems. The concept becomes fantastical, the enemies unclear, and at one point, people literally bomb penguins at the London Zoo.
The hard-hitting reality of season five’s first three minutes is diminished episode by episode. It is undeniably watchable. But this season points a lot of fingers without actually making any clear decisions. Instead, the story of Slow Horses season five feels oddly toothless and underdeveloped. Not every piece of entertainment needs to tell a lesson or pick a side. But when you start something off this undeniably political, you need to stick the emotional landing. Sadly, it does not.
Godspeed to the creators of seasons six and seven, but Slow Horses’ stellar run may have fallen at the fifth hurdle.
