Slow Horses Season 5’s Best Characters Officially Confirm Why It’s the Smartest Spy Show on TV

Apple TV’s Slow Horses was always primed for success, with Gary Oldman playing the central role of Jackson Lamb. Oldman’s performance earned him an array of awards and nominations, proving that the actor’s talents stretched far beyond the gaze of cinema. Over the course of 4 seasons, Slough House’s Jackson Lamb and his motley collection of failed MI5 agents have consistently demonstrated the value of kinship. Framed against the bureaucratic sterility of the actual MI5, the members of Slough House perform heroic feats that nearly always save the UK from each season’s threat.

All things considered, fans have observed a few significant character arc deviations in Slow Horses‘ Season 5. From Lamb’s heartbreaking albeit unconfirmed admission to the newly minted dynamics between River Cartwright and J.K. Coe, the critically acclaimed spy thriller has been strengthening the emotional bonds in Slough House. The smartness of Slow Horses has little to do with plot twists and spy tropes — in fact, Season 5 underscores how the show’s brilliance is derived almost exclusively from character relationships.

Lamb Has Slowly Turned Into the Slow Horses’ Father Figure

Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb looks pensive in Slow HorsesImage via Apple TV

Gary Oldman recently called his role as Jackson Lamb one of his “career highlights,” a testament to both his performance and Slow Horses itself. The spy thriller genre frequently focuses on elite protagonists, stereotypes of gentleman assassins and tech-fueled agents, but this Apple TV series goes in the opposite direction. The main character of Slow Horses is indeed Jackson Lamb, who used to be one of the best agents in MI5. The story reveals small tidbits about his accomplishments, and it’s even stated that he could have been the organization’s Director-General. However, Lamb discovered his close friend and former First Desk Charles Partner was in cahoots with Russian intelligence, forcing him to assassinate Partner. Such a monumental betrayal presumably led to the slovenly, self-neglectful man who runs Slough House today.

At first glance, Jackson Lamb seems to be the human incarnation of Slough House — the building where failed MI5 agents are sent to while out the rest of their careers. Lamb shares his filthy and dilapidated appearance with his beloved office, with both of them barely reaching the qualifications for human and building. The stench of mold, rotting wood, and nicotine-stained walls in Slough House pairs rather pungently with Lamb’s severe flatulence and general disregard for cleaning himself, his clothes, or his particularly grimy hair. Under Lamb’s stewardship, however, audiences soon recognize the ostensible deterioration as an intelligent camouflage. The betrayal of Charles Partner may have shattered Lamb’s ability to trust other people, but he remains as shrewd and intelligent as ever — albeit under layers of strange odor.

Unfortunately, Slow Horses‘ Lamb has always been crude and dismissive of his employees, mocking them as rejects and repeatedly asking them to quit or maim themselves. Over the course of five seasons, however, it’s clear that Lamb has taken the Slow Horses under his wing, such as it were, effectively playing the role of father figure. Despite the relentless barrage of insults and abuses, the agents of Slough House have also developed a form of affection for Lamb. Mick Herron’s original series of Slough House novels paints Lamb as a fierce defender of his own kind, taking great risks to protect those under him, and the series replicates that same paternal-ish version.

Jackson Lamb has gotten River Cartwright out of trouble on countless occasions, even those where River was entirely responsible for his various conundrums. He physically protects Catherine Standish, arguably a form of penance for killing her former boss, Charles Partner, demonstrating an impressive level of loyalty. Lamb ensured that the spouses of fallen agents receive their fair compensation, insisting that they deserved more than MI5’s initial offer. It doesn’t matter how many barbs he throws at his subordinates; the employees of Slough House are starting to become a family. In Season 5, Lamb takes it upon himself to protect Roddy Ho, who’s barely tolerable as it is. That said, Jackson Lamb’s faith in his crew was pushed to its utmost limits in Season 5, Episode 5, “Circus.”

River and Coe’s Amusing Dynamic Is the Best Part of Season 5

River Cartwright and J K Coe showing their credentials to someone in Slow Horses Season 5.Image via Apple TV

It’s easy to believe that River Cartwright is the main character of Slow Horses, especially given how the series focuses on him. He played critical roles in Seasons 1, 2, and 3, whereas Season 4 was entirely dedicated to his own torturous backstory. Perhaps these victories have led River to inflate his own importance, allowing for a fiery dynamic to be established between him and J.K. Coe, who was first introduced in Slow Horses Season 4. Coe was essentially wallpaper for much of the season, partly due to his reclusive behavior and enormous personal space. And yet, Coe proved himself one of the team by executing Patrice for having previously murdered Marcus.

When Season 5 rolled around, Coe slowly began to come out of his shell. He made pointed allusions to River’s masculinity, effortlessly undermining the latter’s composure and setting the stage for the epic failure that was yet to come. Coe was the first to suggest that the season’s terrorists were exploiting a defunct MI5 destabilization strategy, but River insisted on dismissing his opinions. Eventually, Coe was proven to be right, forcing River to grudgingly acknowledge his own limitations. Jackson Lamb consequently made River work directly with Coe, which caused even more friction between the two. In Season 5, Episode 4, “Missiles,” Lamb tasked them with protecting Dennis Gimball against assassins. Regardless of Lamb’s expectations, this pairing of Slow Horses turned out to be disastrous.

Audiences soon discovered that the assassins were actually targeting the incumbent Mayor of London, Zafar Jaffrey, which was foiled by Shirley and Cavendish. As the scene then shifted to Coe and River, it became increasingly apparent that something terrible was about to go down. The only difference was that viewers weren’t expecting the terrible thing to also be extremely silly. River observed a man fighting with Gimball in a back alley and rushed in to protect the mayoral candidate. Meanwhile, Coe rapidly descends from a higher floor, ostensibly to help River. Just as River feels proud to have successfully foiled the assassination, Coe’s descent sets off a series of construction-themed domino effects — ultimately resulting in a “pot of paint” falling on Gimball’s head and instantly killing him.

An accidental Rube Goldberg machine with several moving parts could have ended in any number of ways — it was almost as though fate itself was mocking the Slow Horses by giving them an unsolvable problem. In the midst of terror acts performed by unknown agents, River and Coe inadvertently created a new crisis for Slough House to deal with. They obviously cannot be blamed for Gimball’s death on a moral level, but their professional and personal statuses are nevertheless in jeopardy. River freaks out about going to prison and lies to Lamb, only for the latter to quickly see through it. And with only the Season 5 finale left to air, fans are wondering how Jackson Lamb is going to save Slough House this time.

Lamb Is Faced with One of the Weirdest Problems of His Career

Jackson speaks with River in Slow HorsesImage via Apple TV

Jackson Lamb’s backstory, while incomplete, evokes a sense of pain and sorrow. In Episode 3, it was implied that he had fallen in love with a woman during one of his postings, and that she — and their unborn child — were brutally murdered by East Germany’s Stasi. Although he denied being that agent and claimed it was only a story to escape the Dogs, Standish (and some of the fandom) believe otherwise. In any case, fans are gaining more sympathy for Jackson Lamb. Maybe Slow Horses intentionally highlighted that heartbreaking story as a juxtaposition for his current problem: the hilariously accidental death of Dennis Gimball.

Viewers were the only ones who watched Coe’s dominoes fall, one after the other, and therefore found the situation far more amusing than the characters involved. River and Coe just saw the paint can crush Gimball’s head, an admittedly harrowing experience that doesn’t absolve them from censure. As of Season 5, Episode 5, “Circus,” Lamb hasn’t revealed his knowledge of the event to anyone else, arguably so that MI5 could focus on the problem at hand instead of wasting time and resources on disciplining Coe and River. That being said, Gimball’s death is by far the biggest mistake of River’s career.

Jackson Lamb now faces two choices: protect his Joes or sacrifice them to Regent’s Park. And fans are dead certain that he’s going to make the right decision. Lamb must understand that fate sometimes flows in strange ways, and he’s sure to extract humor from Dennis Gimball’s death. All things considered, keeping the secret would create an even stronger bond between Lamb and his beloved Joes, further emphasizing the twisted found family that the Slow Horses have now become. Every secret, trauma, and nightmare — no matter how inane — remains safe behind the decrepit walls of Slough House.

Release Date

April 1, 2022

Network

Apple TV+

Showrunner

Douglas Urbanski

Directors

Adam Randall, James Hawes, Jeremy Lovering, Saul Metzstein

Writers

Mark Denton, Jonny Stockwood

• Jack Lowden

  River Cartwright