Slow Horses Season 6: Another Superb Season for Apple TV’s Best

The useful part

I was a little slow to join the show's bandwagon, which I now regard as one of my biggest regrets as a TV fan, because it's a phenomenally made show. All the seasons so far sit between 90% and 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and this season will inevitably do the same. The show follows Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) and his team of " Slow Horses", a group of MI5 service rejects, as they somehow continually get involved in cases that endanger Britain.

How it works

• Whilst I think he would be brilliant in that role, it would be a massive shame for the show to lose him, as he is absolutely the heart of the show alongside Oldman and the rest of the team.
• Read More of Our Reviews → The stars of the show, however, remain the fantastic team.
• It's a delightfully well-cast show, with the group of rejects bouncing off each other so well throughout.
• It's great to have a well-made season, but not all shows get the benefit of a strong finale to tie it all together.
• At times, it almost felt like the final-ever episode of the show, with so many characters looking vulnerable in the final moments.

What to take from it

We're also introduced to Damien Cantor, a media mogul and news channel owner (played by Harry Lloyd) who causes trouble for Diana Taverner (the ever-brilliant Kristin Scott Thomas). It also stars the brilliant Jack Lowden as River Cartwright, who's rumoured to be the next James Bond. This season introduces the mysterious Jim (Kyle Soller) and Jane (MyAnna Buring), two assassins tasked with tracking down the Slow Horses.

Example or evidence

• We don't often see Taverner on the back foot over the course of the series, but this season offers an entertaining glimpse of what that looks like.
• Oldman remains a tour de force as Jackson Lamb, and it's hard to imagine anyone else embodying the role so brilliantly.
• That decision made for an absolutely magnificent finale that already has me invested in the next season, even though this one wasn't out yet when I wrote this.
• It's a show that truly sets the bar for what television can be, and what it should be.

Details worth keeping

It's fascinating to see how the other members of the team's stories play out across the season too, with previously established character arcs for the likes of Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves) and Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung) continuing to impact their decision-making. It can be difficult to maintain audience investment across a whole ensemble in a show like this, but I felt that the decisions they made with some of the wider ensemble, such as the role Emma Flyte (Ruth Bradley) played within the story, really added to the season's strengths as well. With Apple TV recently sweeping the Primetime Emmys (becoming only the second network to beat Netflix and HBO Max in the last 20 years), it's potentially time to start putting more respect on their name when it comes to debating the best streaming service, especially when everyone mocked them when they first introduced it.

Related coverage

• 9to5mac: Slow Horses returns next week to Apple TV, and early reviews say season 6 is "the best one yet." Here's a sampling of the first reviews. more…
• Rogerebert: There's no 6-episode anything on television this year that hums like the sixth season of "Slow Horses," an outing that's entertaining, suspenseful, and honestly moving.