Slow Horses

 

              Gary Oldham is Jackson Lamb in "Slow Horses."  Apple TV+ photo via IMDb.com

Picture Britain's greatest secret agent reimagined, not as James Bond but as a flatulent, foul-mouthed, whiskey-swilling slob under a lion's mane of unwashed hair in holey socks always propped among the cigarette butts on his desk.

Meet Jackson Lamb.

After spending a couple of weeks bingeing through four and a half seasons of “Slow Horses,” I find I've become a fanboy. I may have come to the party late, but I'm hardly alone in my fondness for Apple TV's brilliantly written, white-knuckle exciting, nauseatingly violent and genius-level hilarious spy thriller that gets a bunch of nominations whenever they hand out television awards.

As magnificently portrayed by Gary Oldman, Jackson Lamb actually sleeps in his permanently wrinkled shirt and tie on a dingy sofa in his dingy office. Whether asleep or awake – sometimes it's hard to tell – he farts a lot.

Hygiene's not his thing. “F*** off!” – or something close – is how he talks, his South London accent always exasperated. Sentimentality? He has no use for the stuff. He can make eating a bowl of Asian noodle soup an act revolting to behold.

And at least half the time he opens his mouth to speak, you laugh out loud.

Lamb is the head of Slough House, a department of Britain's MI5 domestic counter-intelligence and security agency, where agents wind up if they screw up. 

Dysfunctional would be a compliment for this collection of losers, misfits and boozers, as Mick Jagger so memorably describes them in the theme song.

When one of Lamb's superiors refers to his team as rejects, he bristles.

They don't like to be called that, he informs her.

Well, what do you call them then? 

Rejects, he answers.

MI5 is headquartered in “the Park,” a pristine, contemporary complex of floor-to-ceiling surveillance screens and state-of-the-art computer banks surrounded by glass-walled offices, staffed by ultra efficient black-suited agents under the icy command of Diana Taverner (a superb Kristin Scott Thomas.)

They travel in motorcades of shiny black Land Rovers.

Slough House, in contrast is above an Italian restaurant on a seedy London street. Its decrepit offices are more an assortment of broom closets. Being assigned to Slough House is the equivalent of career purgatory, in hopes that you resign or die of boredom, whichever comes first.

Charismatic Jack Lowden gets second billing in the credits as River Cartright, a brilliant young agent whose colossal mistake in season one's opener results in his joining the ranks of the rag-tag. 

His error is “colossal” because it takes place all over an airport crowded with passengers in a series of chases that defy you to imagine how they were filmed. Such grand-scale action, chases that go on for blocks through budget-busting throngs of extras is one of “Slow Horses'” trademarks.

Other signatures include London architecture as a co-star, and the amazing music score, with or without Sir Mick.

River is the grandson of David Cartright (Jonathan Pryce), the former head of MI5 who gave Jackson Lamb his first job. Between seeking guidance from his legendary grampa and seeking approval from the prickly Lamb, River's got daddy and granddaddy issues to deal with, when he's not otherwise preoccupied getting beat up and damn near killed by assorted adversaries.

While the action swirled around River for the series' first three seasons, the writing didn't neglect his office mates. The pathetic but increasingly lovable characters portrayed by terrific co-stars Saskia Reeves, Christopher Chong, Aimee-Ffion Edwards and Rosalind Eleazar may comprise the most eccentric English menagerie since Monty Python, but for snide put-downs and witty banter they're world class. They're also ingenious at weaponizing kitchen knives, shards of broken glass, fire extinguishers, tea pots or the well-placed car door.

Their foes range from Russian spies to domestic terrorists, but their most consistent adversaries are the high-tech warriors – they're referred to as “the dogs” – from the Park. Not only is the agency riddled with treachery, backstabbing, corruption and incompetence in the upper ranks, but its minions in their Land Rovers have a way of arriving at the scene of the crime just after Lamb's team gets there.

Which isn't to say the good guys always win. Or justice always triumphs. Or society is saved.

It's more complicated than that.

Slow horses don't win races. They're more intent on just surviving.

If you're not the star of the fable, there isn't necessarily a moral of the story.