Slow Horses

Season 3 of Slow Horses presents a main story that escalates and derails in the best way possible. Not only does it engagingly involve all characters in the story, but we can also understand and appreciate the personal stakes for everyone, which makes it extremely compelling from beginning to end.

Forget Bond, forget Bourne — the heroes we need aren’t dapper spies in dinner suits, but dishevelled misfits in curry-stained coats. Slow Horses is the best thriller no-one’s watching, and it’s only getting better.

The drama makes great use of its London setting, filmed in and around the Barbican, and there are funny little touches that only a British show would include, such as the bungling head of security at MI5’s Regent’s Park headquarters dunking a KitKat Chunky into his cup of tea. As ever, the writing is top quality, particularly the insults.

The cast and direction are great but “Slow Horses” works largely because the writing is consistently stellar.

Its best to date. Part Killing Eve, part John le Carré lite, Slow Horses continues to stand head and shoulders above its streaming peers when it comes to sharp and truly bingeable TV.

Slow Horses is sharply written at every twist and turn. Forceful, funny, and conspiratorial, it’s constantly finding new ways into spy thriller dynamics while showcasing the terrific work of its cast and letting Gary Oldman just completely go off as the jaded, aged spy at its center.

Somehow, the Slow Horses continue to be plausible as both bumblers and authentic heroes, and this third TV season maintains the balance even more gracefully than the hugely charming previous installments. It’s Dad TV done at a high level, now arguably even higher than before.

Delightfully grim third season. .... The horses of Slough House may be slow, but the show is a thoroughbred. .... Just watch.

"Slow Horses" has thus far found its success doling out memorable characters and tightly coiled plotlines in equal proportions. It is much the same in season 3, save for an overture that rivals a James Bond movie in its length and convolutions, and an ending that, well, rivals a James Bond movie in its amount of firepower and death by gunplay.

Slow Horses is an underdog story of the highest caliber. At this point, if you’re not on board, one has to wonder who the true f–kups are.

You’ll gobble down all six episodes and crave even more.

Three seasons in, Slow Horses is still tremendous fun.

At times it feels as if sage, acid Lamb doesn’t show up enough, but Slow Horses still works because, unlike glossier spy fare, it doesn’t fancy itself.

“Slow Horses” is back for season 3 on Apple TV+, and it’s a joy. The story line is fine — it’s less twisty and cerebral than those of the previous two seasons, perhaps, which is fine. .... But the characters, and particularly Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb, are more entertaining than ever.

Although the third season develops some long-simmering storylines beautifully, treating a couple of slow, important arcs with the care they deserve, six episodes aren’t sufficient to bridge the massive consequences of this particular plot. .... It’s still a fun, drab, smelly, unexpected watch.

It is funny and crude, but tense and gripping, and as such, it is a roundly entertaining, solid spy thriller.

Where spy dramas so often feel far-fetched, Slow Horses treads an admirable line in believability – if someone’s finger is on a trigger, there is dirt under the nails. But it’s the character dynamics that really sell it.

AppleTV+’s darkly comedic spy thriller Slow Horses continues to shine in its third season thanks to a strong mystery and dialogue sharply delivered by Gary Oldman and the rest of the show’s ensemble.

No matter this installment’s closing stumbles, Oldman’s intensely prickly performance is more than enough to keep the series galloping along at a steady clip.