‘Slow Horses’ settles into a familiar, but welcome, groove

Slow Horses was something of a slow-burning surprise when its first season launched back in April. It was yet another Apple TV hit whose marketing hadn’t done well enough to connect with audiences, relying instead on word of mouth. What viewers found, however, was a low-stakes spy drama with the sort of pulpy, throwback thrills that you rarely see in our more self-serious age. Mixed with a shot or two of black comedy, and it made for a surprisingly gripping package I felt compelled to rave about back in April.

The show’s second season, which returns to Apple TV+ on December 2nd, carries on in that vein, albeit with less of the show’s trademark humor. It focuses, once again, on the staff members of Slough House, the closest thing MI5 has to purgatory for disgraced intelligence officers. Led by the “colorful” Jackson Lamb, the Slow Horses are often left doing administrative donkeywork nobody else thinks is worth doing. Of course, you wouldn’t have a series if the misfits weren’t frequently embroiled in the grander machinations of the intelligence community.

Season Two is based on Dead Lions, the second in Herron’s series of Slough House novels, and focuses on Lamb’s investigation of …read more