Slow Horses
Slow Horses
A dysfunctional team of MI5 agents navigate the espionage world's smoke and mirrors to defend the UK from sinister forces.
Callum reviewed5d ago
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (out of 5) Slow Horses – The other side of Her Majesty’s Secret Service: where spies go to rot, not to shine.
“Slow Horses” is the anti–James Bond — a sardonic, razor-sharp glimpse into the forgotten backrooms of espionage, where the glamour has long since been scraped off the walls. These are not tuxedoed heroes sipping martinis; they’re the bureaucratic ghosts of MI5, filing reports and cleaning up the messes so Bond can keep his tux spotless.
Led by Gary Oldman’s gloriously dishevelled Jackson Lamb, the team at Slough House represents everything the Bond franchise politely ignores — failure, fatigue, and the unvarnished drudgery of real intelligence work. It’s the council-worker version of MI5: the ones down in the sewers making sure the toilets flush before the spies at the ball make their speeches.
The writing is brilliantly bleak, laced with British wit and weary humour that turns mediocrity into art. It’s a show where loyalty is begrudging, victory is messy, and survival is the only real success.
Compared to Bond’s world of Aston Martins and high-stakes seduction, Slow Horses is all nicotine-stained windows and bad coffee — but it’s infinitely more human for it. Gritty, funny, and utterly compelling, this is espionage stripped of illusion, where even heroes smell faintly of despair and takeaway curry.