Slow Horses

Le Carré's old-school, purely British spy stuff. The agents may be a bunch of losers, but it's not a comedy by any means. Not that there aren't lighter, dryly sharp moments, but at its core this is a regular spy drama where Lamb and Smiley could meet and it wouldn't feel out of place at all. Mick Herron clearly holds le Carré in almost religious admiration, and it shows in the characters, the plotting, the communication style, the obfuscation, the hinting and the unspoken between the lines. But he just can't build it up properly, and so after an excellent two-thirds (at least in the first series) it idles more than anything else at the end. It’s a shame, but at the same time a great promise for the future, because it's based on characters, and the supporting ones are undeniably there, led, of course, by Gary "I enjoyed Smiley, so I'm going to enjoy his slacker, eternally sour version all the more" Oldman. | S1: 4/5 | S2: 4/5 | (14/06/2022)