Review | What to stream this weekend: Gary Oldman excels in Slow Horses season 3 as greasy, flatulent British spy Jackson Lamb on Apple TV+
- Oldman reprises the character of unsavoury UK spy Jackson Lamb, who is dealing with treachery at home in the third season of Slow Horses on Apple TV+
- Meanwhile, At the Moment on Netflix is an anthology of adventures set in Taiwan amid the Covid-19 pandemic that show how lockdowns affect relationships
Forget the romantic, Bond-esque notion of the suave spy with fast wheels and even faster women on tap. Closer to “spook” reality may be the greasy, flatulent slob in a flasher mac.
A grubby, clandestine trade based on betrayal and secrecy deserves Jackson Lamb more than James Bond; and Gary Oldman continues to sport Lamb’s grotty, kebab-infused raincoat with distinction in the six-part third series of Slow Horses (Apple TV+).
Reluctant sometime ally Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas), deputy director general of MI5, has been demoted as the British secret service faces a shake-up. And despite some dirty opening deeds done on Europe’s eastern edge, this season’s tale of treachery brings the Slow Horses’ enemies closer to home than previously, proving no one at HQ can be trusted, especially at the top.
Disparagingly named because they are a team of professional failures, Lamb’s ragtag agents, still part of MI5 but comprising a flock of espionage-family black sheep, must shelve their own bitchy differences to take on a far more powerful force, one set on obliterating them.
Not that melding into a team the likes of condescending, glory-hunting hacker Roddy (Christopher Chung) and part-time junkie Shirley (Aimée-Ffion Edwards) comes with instructions.
The upshot is what you might call a Gunfight at the OK Document Depository (actually a Cold War bunker) and beyond that requires all the guile and spy’s fieldwork expertise the seasoned Lamb can summon to keep his charges alive.
