Slow Horses season four review – Gary Oldman roars like a bear dipped in chip fat

The faultlessly directed spy thriller is back with an even more stellar cast – and its lead actor’s role evolving into something that is occasionally quietly beautiful

Slough House, the building the ragtag spies in Slow Horses work out of, is not a peaceful place. The fixtures are decrepit, the decor hums with mid-century must, the office banter is neither respectful nor constructive and, by the end of the new run of Apple TV+’s prestige espionage drama, the windows are smashed and the walls are pocked with bullet holes.

Slow Horses is, however, a comfortable show to slip back into. Discerning viewers, pleased by their own superb taste, revel in a series that is led by the sheer quality of Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas, and which evokes classic spy thrillers – intelligence work is a grand battle of wits, played by capable oddballs who are more concerned with winning the game than they are with real-world consequences – while updating the spies’ badinage so they sound like disaffected cynics in an Armando Iannucci comedy. The recipe has worked; Slow Horses is a word-of-mouth hit. But this is season four, which is the point where a winning formula can start to feel formulaic. Can Slow Horses keep it up?

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