Last year, like the overwhelming
majority of critics, the public and numerous awards shows, I fell head over heels
in love with an overweight, alcoholic, chain smoking, slovenly and no f's left
to give but will he say them in inappropriate company Jackson Lamb and his
motley crew of agents at Slough Houses, the last stop at MI-5 before they
decide to kick you out. By that point Slow Horses was into its third
season but God bless the English for their short seasons and I caught up relatively
quickly.
As many viewers know by now Slow Horses is based on an
iconic set of novels by Mick Herron that tell how book after book the very reluctant
Jackson Lamb heaves a great sigh, raises himself from an alcoholic stupor and
allows himself to be talked into saving London from the terrorist threats that
seems to plague it. Apparently Gary Oldman was considering retirement when he
was offered the role in 2022 and when he was told he didn't have to change a
thing about himself to play Lamb, he signed up. And its clear every moment that
Oldman is onscreen he is having the absolute time of his life. Oldman has been
one of our greatest actors for nearly four decades, the chameleon who redefined
Commissioner Gordon, took George Smiley to the silver screen and finally won an
Oscar for playing Churchill. But I don't think I've ever seen him having so
much fun in a role. Oldman's commitment to every role has led him to be one of
the most intense actors and devotees to his craft. Here he's looser onscreen
then I've ever seen him and its small wonder he's finally been credit for it.
One of the best jokes about this
usually hysterical series is that MI-5 is essentially run by the agents who
have been promoted to their greatest level of incompetence and are better playing
politics then they care about solving international crises. This played out
particularly brilliantly last season when Diana Taverner (the exquisite Kristin
Scott Thomas) essentially egged on a series of conspirators in order to force
out her patron Ingrid Tearney and become First Desk. I've seen a lot of
horrific things on television in recent years but few things that chill me to
the bone as Tearney and Taverner calmly discuss the manipulations they've done
that have already led to so many deaths and will lead to dozens more as they
speak as if they are having tea. We've known for years that Lady Di (as Lamb
sarcastically calls her over and over) is ruthless and only sees terrorist threats
and geopolitics as a way to move up the ladder at her job but the way she seemed
fine with so many of the agents who would one day serve under her dying shows
that she is even colder then the terrorists she claims to want to save London
from. Lamb is the only one who has her number and as he said at the end of Season
3 "The buck stops with you now."
And as always the case she's
thrown in the deep end. Season 4 begins with a car bombing of a London shopping
mall (in keeping with the undercutting of it, one of the Slow Horses is walking
away from it with his headphones on and misses the whole thing) and Taverner is
out at the scene trying to figure out what happened. She's now officially First
Desk and we know things are going to spiral. She's working with her next
assistant (the always brilliant James Callis) and from the moment they try to
sweep things up at the reported bombers house MI-5 is led into another disaster
that leads to several more agents dying. How Taverner will handle authority in
front of a terrorist threat is an open question; now that there's no one to
shift blame to the question is how long she can hold her job.
The agents at Slough House are
still dealing with their own personal problems. Right now, the two longest
holdovers Louisa and River start the episode having a drink and River is
discussing what has been a problem last season. His grandfather David (Jonathan
Pryce, this season a series regular) was starting to suffer from dementia last
year and in the interim between the seasons it's gotten to the point he doesn't
recognize his grandson any more. Louisa tells River that he has to man up and
decide to put the old man in a home. In the opening David is clearly staggering
around with dementia when his grandson shows up and starts to run him a bath. David
stumbles picks up a shotgun, says "You're not my grandson' and shoots River.
The credits begin after him saying: "Oh my God."
Jackson is then called to the
scene by one of the new hires from The Park, Agent Flyte. Flyte is clearly
different from so many of the agents we've seen from the Park over the last
three seasons by which I mean she's clearly competent and capable. She's also
able to react to Lamb's blinding sarcasm and casual sexism without blinking
which is more than almost everyone else – including most of his own agents –
are able to do. Lamb identifies the body in the bathtub as River calmly and
seems unbothered by what happened as well as the fact that an agent that he has
known for three seasons is dead. We're not sure if he's shaken or he knows more
than he's telling – until he ends up at Standish's doorstep.
Last season Catherine Standish (the
always wondrous Saskia Reeves) ran out of patience with Lamb after how many
years of casually gibes and bullying and resigned. Standish was always the pillar
of warmth, the maternal figure at Slough House, the one person everyone (almost)
respected. She was one of the few people who gave a damn about the institution
when you've never been sure Lamb does – or anything. But when Jackson told her
something he'd been withholding from her for nearly thirty years – that her
previous employer was a traitor who he killed at the orders of the Park – it was
too much for her to take. She's tried to resign three times since and Lamb has refused
to file the paperwork. Because Lamb is unwilling (or incapable) of showing
anything but contempt towards humanity he refuses to acknowledge the reason
why. And when he comes to her home that day to tell her that River Cartwright
is dead, he makes it clear very quickly that he knows the truth: River isn't
dead and he brought his grandfather to keep him safe while he follows a lead.
What that lead is we don't know yet but since he's halfway to France by the
time the season premiere ends we have a good guess.
The other great joke of Slow
Horses is that it is almost inevitably the ones that are MI-5 have graded
as incompetent are the ones who will almost inevitably end up saving London
from a terrorist attack and more importantly the Park from embarrassment. Each
year there's a new group of rejects ("They don't like to be called that,"
Lamb says before calling them exactly that) to wonder about. This year it's JK
Coe, who hasn't said a word since he showed up but is very good at his job.
Marcus Longridge and Elisa are both very competent with guns and beating people
up but have absolutely no social graces. (Marcus has a gambling problem; Elisa
has a cocaine addiction.) Robby Ho (Christopher Chung) is exceptional because
he genuinely thinks he has been banished because he knows the truth about
everything when in fact he's such a horrible person no other part of the agency
will work with him. (He demonstrates his complete lack of compassion when he
tells everyone River is dead while nicking his computer, tells everyone he has
a girlfriend now and doubles down about Louisa being upset because: "She
had her chance.") River (once and future Emmy nominee Jack Lowden) is the
only agent who is still idealistic enough to believe in the greater good and
the only one who still has the ability of an action hero. That belief in doing
the right thing is, invariably, what always gets Slough House into trouble every
season and no doubt will lead to the exact same thing here.
It was a great joy to me when Will
Smith managed to break the stranglehold Shogun had on the Outstanding
Drama Emmys last year and won Best Dramatic Teleplay for Season 3. He has been
nominated yet again this season and the show itself has been nominated for five
other Emmys, including another for Oldman and Best Drama for the second
consecutive year. As we are all aware the 2023-2024 strike shook up the
schedule for so many series and after so many of the major contenders from
years past, from The White Lotus to The Last of Us to Apple TV's
own Severance many people doubted that Slow Horses – the only nominee
from last year eligible for Best Drama this season – would be able to return to
the field.
Yours truly had no doubts it
would. It wasn't just the nominations from the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards
and every other major group that reassured me, it was the fact that at the end
of the day, this is just too good a show to ignore. It fits in with the kind of
quietly brilliant dramas the Emmys every so often will recognize rather than
the far flashier ones that don't always show off with their excellence. The
Gilded Age was one such show last year (and it will be again) and this
year's The Diplomat is another. It's a serious show but it doesn't
always take itself seriously and there's human drama among the action sequences.
And no doubt because it's a British show it has a sly wit to it that reminds the
viewer yet again just how much better the English do these kinds of
things then we do. The title characters may get no respect but the Emmys have
been showing them their due now and they will in years to come. There's nothing
strange (strange) about that.
My score: 4.75 stars.
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