They are the opposite of an elite team: the dregs of all that British espionage has failed. Slow Horsesbroadcast on Apple TV + since 1is April, is far from the glamor of James Bond, explains in particular The Times. “It’s dark, swampy, damp, filled with the corpses of coffee cups, file folders, aging papers and extraordinary dentition sticking out from paranoid men in crumpled raincoats.”
We follow the tribulations of River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) who, after having crashed in the great widths during a crucial anti-terrorist exercise, “finds himself, as punishment, in a filthy office building called Slough House”, abstract The Independent. In this marginalized service, “we do the basic intelligence work under the half-vigilant eye of sleazy Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), who acts as an intermediary between his ‘stupid’ and the ‘adult spies’ that MI5 boss Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) barks at.”
Not a parody
As reminded The Guardianseries “is adapted from the series of sardonic novels by Mick Herron, featuring spooks who have covered themselves in shame” (partially translated into French by Actes Sud). If everyday life sometimes finds it warmed up, The Daily Telegraph, on the other hand, did not hide his pleasure, extolling the merits of being interested in losers rather than aces. He warns against the idea that it would be a parody: “Oldman is fun, dry and tongue-in-cheek, but the rest of the series is to be taken literally.” Indeed, it is all the same question of conspiracies, attacks and kidnapping.
Carried by a judicious cast and a scenario judged smoothly carried out, the series signed Will Smith (a British screenwriter, not to be confused with the American actor) largely convinced The Independent :
“Contrary to what one might assume, it all comes together nicely: the show never gets so light as to push the drama into the background, and vice versa.”
English through and through
The conspiracy that the hoodlums of Slough House are gradually discovering concerns a group of white supremacists who, in the first episode, kidnap – on racist motivation – a student from the University of Leeds. And threaten to film his beheading. Interestingly, the Telegraph, conservative, talks about “trendy TV bogeymen” to designate the fictitious far-right group; when The Independent, ranked on the left, finds that “the terrorist intrigue seems dated at times”, judging that “this representation of white nationalism and terrorist blackmail” evoke the 2010s, whence the beginning of Mick Herron’s literary saga dates.
But, in both cases, the enthusiastic critics agree to qualify Slow Horses pure British product. What a pity, sighs the journalist from Telegraphthat it is broadcast on an American platform which has few subscribers on this side of the Atlantic.
The critic of the conservative newspaper takes the opportunity to attack Apple’s streaming service for its policy of putting the first few episodes, in this case two, of its series online, before resuming weekly broadcasting: “It’s a compromise that certainly doesn’t satisfy anyone.” Fans of binge watching will have to be patient to savor the litany of scathing replies launched by Oldman (“Another day that dawns on the dummies of MI-useless.”)
As for The Independentit underlines the incomparable atmosphere established by the work. “Everyone is depressed, the streets are dirty and the camera filter takes on the color of paperback books stacked in the back room of a charity shop. It feels like home.”
“Perhaps it is also the stench of defeat that gives this feeling of being in England and nowhere else.”