Spoilers for your eyes only.

There are two kinds of spy thrillers. One is the over-the-top action power fantasy, which can be very entertaining to watch. The other is the one that tries to get it closer to the real world, where there’s more grime and dirt. Now, mind you there’s still some fiction involved. We’re not here to spectate a night-long stakeout in real time. But at least we do get some grit with our thrilling plot.

(Credit: Apple TV+)

Slow Horses (2022-) is created by William Smith based on the Slough House novels written by Mick Herron. Slough House is both a location and an office for MI5 agents that have banned from service but not enough to get dismissed. The place is run by former top spy Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman). We follow recently disgraced agent River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) as he adapts to performing seemingly useless tasks. Also under Lamb’s command are office administrator Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves), Louisa Guy (Rosalind Eleazar) and obnoxious computer hacker Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung). In charge of the main MI5 is Deputy Director General and head of operations Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) aka Second Desk and Ingrid Tearney (Sophie Okonedo) as the Director General aka First Desk.

Being stuck at Slough House does initially seem like the beginning of the end for a ragtag bunch of unfit operatives, but as an apparent run-of-the-mill operation seems to tie to the kidnapping of a British-Pakistani student by a far-right extremist radical group the entire team of Slough House suddenly find themselves drawn into the case.

It works as a rather convincing mystery spy thriller with decent acting by its leads. There are special appearance of Jonathan Pryce as River’s grandfather, retired senior MI5 officer David Cartwright. The standout performances belong mostly to Gary Oldman as the jaded Jackson Lamb and Kristin Scott Thomas as the icy cold power-hungry Diana Taverner.

Recommended for fans of grittier spy thrillers. Although it does contain some level of action and even gore, it is more focused on cloak-and-dagger and double crossing scenarios than explosions. Worth a watch if you’ve been wanting some dirt and grime instead of the martini shaken but not stirred.

That will do for now.