With the ever increasing amount of mediocre Marvel TV shows, big budget flops, and the large wave of poorly made TV shows, it can sometimes be difficult to find something worth watching. However, that’s where Slow Horses comes in. Slow Horses is an Apple TV show adapted from Mick Herron’s Slough House Series consisting of 8 novels. The show is currently in its fourth season. It has been highly acclaimed by critics and fans alike with a consistent score on Rotten Tomatoes above 95% for all four seasons. In fact, just a couple of days ago, the show won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. As of writing this article, it currently has a perfect critics score on the platform.
Slow Horses focuses on a dysfunctional team of MI5 agents who navigate through the crimes of England in a spy-like thriller. The show is a high-stakes adventure where we get to see the viewpoint of characters who are on the outside looking in within MI5 and have been labeled as rejects either because of behavioral issues or because of mistakes on past missions. Among its cast are Gary Oldman, the infamous Jackson Lamb, a notorious spy with a quick wit and Sherlock Holmes-like mind. Oldman is easily the most popular actor in this cast having been in popular films such as the Fifth Element, Air Force One, The Contender, The Harry Potter series, Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, and having played Winston Churchill in the 2017 film: The Darkest Hour. He adds a unique element to the show.
As Joel Keller of the Decider puts it, “Slow Horses continues to be entertaining because of the show’s quirky characters, not the least of which is Oldman’s character Jackson Lamb.” Jackson Lamb is a man of many contradictions which makes him feel more realistic and human. For one, he doesn’t really care for his personal hygiene. This might seem simple but it illustrates his rebellious nature. He makes jokes about it here and there but we never really know if Lamb actually does it on purpose or not. This is meant to reflect the facade he puts on of not caring about the superficial.
You may be asking, why doesn’t Lamb care about what others think? Well, the short answer is that he’s rebellious in order to figure things out before everyone else. And that’s what makes the show so interesting. In Slough House, Lamb is running the ship and ignoring his superiors at the “Park” most of the time. And most of the time, he’s right and they are wrong. His team consisting of River Cartwright, Louisa Guy, Roddy Ho, and others are motivated by the fact they are underdogs, which in turn, makes them more rebellious and independent. Although his team is labeled the rejects within MI5 and that’s even what Lamb jokingly calls them, it is the crew at Slough House most often cracking the big cases. Although they also manage to mess things up here and there throughout the show.
Throughout many episodes, Oldman’s character takes things into his own hands. This is because the “Park” is often slow to act and ineffective when it comes to figuring things out, so he does it his own way. Although the character has many behavioral issues, he is still somewhat respected and trusted by the Second Desk at MI5. And although Lamb will likely never return to “The Park” he’s also too valuable to simply get rid of. Again, this is shown by his direct superior, Diana Taverner who doesn’t like his methods, but trusts that he can do his job. So what separates him from the rest of MI5? Well, simply put, he takes a different approach to problem solving by focusing more on the details of a case rather than the superficial elements of it. And he does the same with his crew at Slough House.
Lamb is focused heavily on understanding his subordinates so that he can use their strengths and weaknesses in the right way. However, the best part of Lamb’s complex character is simply the acting by Gary Oldman. Similar to Robert Downey Jr. in a number of roles including Tony Stark and Sherlock Holmes, Oldman brings in a fun kind of odd charisma and witty style to his acting performance. This keeps the audience engaged and entertained by both his humor and intelligence, and that alone makes it worth watching.
