Slow Horses (season 4)

The rejects in Slough House are back. The series continues to mix the two styles of British spy stories, Bond and le Carré, flashy and seedy. This time we have a classic trope of both genres: the long buried secret. This is nicely woven into the existing characters in a way that, in retrospect I should have seen coming but, as each twist was revealed, it felt at least surprising, sometimes shocking.

It’s hard to really talk about without spoilers. It’s an adaptation of a spy novel where there’s a necessarily intricate plot to satisfy the spooks fans, but I will say that, as mentioned above, there’s some lovely character work here too. Part of that is because we have a larger cast. Even with some of the slow horses being functionally red coats, walking fatalities waiting to happen, albeit slightly more filled out than the classic Trek version - we know something about these characters rather than them being a non-speaking extra hired for the week - we have quite a number of characters where we know enough about them that they have friends, family and the like or long histories, either of which can be used to bring up interesting plot elements.

Although this has been used in Bond, it’s rare. Normally we have “here is a sinister plot to do dastardly deeds, go and stop it!” And for a film that works just fine. We do, occasionally, have that plot rooted in Bond’s past, but because he’s really the only source of such links it’s a pool you can only dip into rarely. Spooks, which was a successful TV show in the same high tech mould as Bond, with a higher body count than Slow Horses took the CSI route to characters’ home lives. They didn’t exist outside of work, and there wasn’t space for their history to introduce drama. It worked for 10 seasons - there are always potential terrorist or state level threats if you’re a high speed unit - and the viewer numbers were still strong in the final season; the production company and the BBC jointly announced no more before the final season aired. While I enjoyed Spooks at the time, if I put it up against Slow Horses I enjoy the second more. There is definitely something appealing about all the flash and gloss of Spooks and the space where First Desk, Second Desk and The Dogs work. But there is something appealing about the losers and discards rising above it all and getting the job done.

With much farting and flashes of competence mixed with long periods of incompetence the horses rise up and save the day again. Huzzah!

Season four is not a good place to start with Slow Horses, there’s too much background that they assume you know. That’s not entirely unreasonable, many shows, even if they give you a “previously on…” section, actually have a tonne of lore you have to catch up on. Slow Horses only has 6 episodes per season, so by the end of season four you’ve only committed to watching a little more than one whole season of a US Network TV show. And you’ll have excellent adaptations of four books.

However, assuming you’re either willing to join the dots or put the effort it, it’s another brilliant bit of very British TV.

Bechdel Test: Pass. We have a lot of named female characters and they talk to each other. Quite often they’re talking about men - people in the investigation. But they talk about other things from making tea to why one hired another and more.

Ko Test: Pass. Louisa is doing pretty much all the heavy lifting here. But she’s around a lot in every episode, and is arguably the most sensible of the horses.

Russo Test: Fail. There are a lot of characters whose sexuality is left unknown but there is no one who is openly LGBTQIA+. Everyone that we know of appears to be straight.