Gary Oldman’s ‘Slow Horses’ Are Trapped in a Dangerous Game

The spies at the center of this brilliant drama are MI5’s rejects, but you know what? We love them — and so does their leader, Jackson Lamb, though he’d never admit it. “[As] the boss, I don’t think he lives in a world where you can show vulnerability,” says Gary Oldman, who has proven with his performance the past five seasons of Slow Horses that he deserves the three Emmy noms (including one this year) he’s received for playing Lamb. He’s the grouchy, at times disgusting (never go into the bathroom after him) head of the security service’s Slough House unit, but he’s also the definition of don’t-judge-a-book-by-its-cover.

That dirty raincoat he wears is his armor and disguise — “You would dismiss a character like that,” Oldman says, but “that’s part of his skill” — and the star and executive producer’s homage to Columbo, the bumbling detective played by Peter Falk. “They all miscalculate him,” he points out. “[Columbo] actually turns out to be the smartest man in the room. Jackson Lamb is the smartest man in the room.”

And so when his joes are targeted in the newest season of the Apple TV thriller, he’s not going to just sit back and let it happen. While Lamb may revel in humiliating his team (“I would be amazed if you didn’t miss something” is one of the tame ones), “he would take a bullet for them,” says Oldman. When he finds out that they’re in danger, “he really takes the reins to try and get to the bottom of why it’s happening and who’s responsible.”

The series, based on Mick Herron‘s books, includes the same dark humor and sharp writing, and together with a stellar ensemble cast — including Kristin Scott Thomas, Jack Lowden, Saskia Reeves, Christopher Chung, and Jonathan Pryce — that makes it one of the best shows on television. It’s also a prestige streaming show that viewers can count on to not have to wait that long for new seasons. Each six-episode season has been released every year since 2022 (and two that first year!), and the seventh season has already been filmed.

For the first time, a season is based on two of Herron’s novels, Joe Country and Slough House. Doing so “made complete sense,” says Gaby Chiappe, taking over as lead writer from Will Smith. Though she is hesitant to say much else at the risk of spoiling the plot of Season 6, what we do know is that the members of Slough House must go dark when First Desk at MI5, Diana Taverner (Thomas) embroils them all in a fatally high-stakes game of retaliation and revenge.

It leads to some juicy scenes, as all seasons tend to, between Lamb and Taverner. “Lovely and charming, isn’t she?” Oldman says with a laugh. He’s been enjoying working with Thomas again after the two starred in 2017’s The Darkest Hour. “If you get on with and you work well with someone, nine times out of 10, you will say, ‘Let’s do it again,’ and you never do.” Chiappe calls their characters “fantastic as foils for each other,” adding, even though they’ll never trust one another — there’s too much history there to do so — “there is also a weird, twisted camaraderie.”

She also warns, “No one is safe. When they’re in danger, the danger is very, very real, and sometimes people die.” Past seasons have proven that … for the most part. Olivia Cooke‘s Sid Baker, who’d been placed in Slough House by Taverner in Season 1 to spy on Jack Lowden’s River, seemingly died after being shot in the head on the job. She’s back in Season 6. Like many fans of the show, Chiappe loves that character. “She’s brilliant,” she raves. “Her and River, there were sparks in Season 1, and I’m hoping it’s a relationship you want to revisit.”

Also back this season is Hugo Weaving as Frank Harkness, a mercenary, former CIA operative, and River’s father who has tried to kill him in the past. It makes for dramatic television whenever the two cross paths. “Both Jack and Hugo were interested in pushing it further this season,” Chiappe previews. “It felt like it needed to go somewhere a little bit new. What does it mean to have a son you basically created to be a soldier and lost? What does it feel like to have a father who is that? Frank would probably claim that River means nothing to him, but that doesn’t ring true with what we’ve seen. There’s a kind of twisted — pride’s too strong a word — interest in him.”

Joining the series this season is comedian Lenny Rush, and while his character details are being kept under wraps, he’s bringing something new to the slow horses’ world. “He’s a teenager. It’s the first time we’ve had a character like him in the show,” the writer says. “We haven’t had anybody young, and it’s very exciting to watch him with everybody, but him and Jackson Lamb, such an odd couple. That dynamic is incredibly satisfying.”

Going into the sixth season, the marks that this job leaves on all the characters are starting to show. “Everybody’s picking up damage,” she notes. “People are getting battered. Our slow horses are being battered by life along the way. There have been losses, and there are griefs.” It’s what makes for compelling television, and Slow Horses is never lacking that. But as Lamb puts it, “I think they’re a bunch of f**king losers. But they’re my losers.” That’s why, like Oldman, we’ll be along for the ride however long it lasts.

Slow Horses, Season 6 Premiere, Wednesday, September 16, Apple TV