With the behemoth that is Netflix in our lives, it can be easy to forget that Apple TV+ makes some amazing television. I am one of many people who is eagerly awaiting the return of Severance, for example (although I am not sure about their reportedly huge budget… why?) and Bad Monkey was fantastic in a very Florida way, AND had a soundtrack full of great Tom Petty covers (so glad this show will be returning for a second season).
Slow Horses is another recently renewed show that I actually try to make time for in my calendar as much as I can. It’s been described as “anti-woke” as it revolves around a cranky old white guy, but to be honest, that’s a reductive view of a fantastically dark-humored British spy show. Trying to shoehorn Gary Oldman’s performance into something blandly political does the story an injustice.
Slow Horses has also finally gained momentum after starting out, well, kind of slowly with audiences. And this is in light of Apple TV+ relatively poor performance as far as the so-called streaming wars go. The streaming service that also gave us Ted Lasso is not doing well as far audience capture goes, and honestly, I think the fact that it’s so focused on quality hurts it in the rankings — although there are theories that Apple’s long-term strategy with TV is sound.
Looks matter, and Slow Horses succeeds in spite of being a profoundly unsexy show, especially for a spy show. There is a bit of Bond glamor fatigue out there as far as British spies are concerned, and I think that’s part of the appeal of watching Gary Oldman and his band of misfit, maligned spies quite literally fart around.
The show is quite expert at exploring personal misery amidst its twists and turns (which would be unfair to mention in detail here). For example, the first season did a fantastic job at exploring post-traumatic stress through character that at first appears unimportant — just a frumpy older woman who must constantly put up with everyone else’s bullshit at work. Frumpy older women, however, have passions and secrets of their own. Not to mention a hidden anger and resourcefulness that can be unleashed at the right opportunity.
A few years ago, my friend, the writer Sarah Jaffe, who also formerly worked for the very publication that you are reading right now, wrote a book called Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion To Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone.
I think about Sarah’s book often as I watch Slow Horses. Spying is a lonely craft by design, but as the show cleverly points out, it’s a backstabber’s paradise. And while terrorist plots are, here’s that word again, sexy, there is also something to be said about egotistical plots. There is a great, sticky darkness to an out-of-control human ego at the workplace, and Slow Horses drives this point home repeatedly, without much pathos.
Slow Horses also does a fantastic job exploring the banality of hate. So much of the art and entertainment that focuses on hateful plots and spiteful ambitions have a larger-than-life aura. Hateful people are meant to be scary, hence many writers have a habit of also making them grandiose, even impressive. But hate as a plot device on Slow Horses is seamy and ugly and pathetic, the last refuge of a coward. And the most effective tools against hate aren’t often flaming swords of legend, they’re just a bit of stubbornness and a small kernel of moral clarity.
All of this is mostly to say is that I hope that Apple TV+ keeps chugging along and being mindful of its budgets. No, it doesn’t have dating shows featuring lots of drama and cleavage (not saying this to knock those shows, as I’ve previously written about my addiction to Love is Blind, for God’s sake), but it has something else going for it: a sense of narrative craftsmanship.
In the world of streaming, the ethos is go big or go home. But millions of viewers do want something different, that much is clear by now. Sometimes, you have to bet on a slow horse.