'Slow Horses' Returns with “Strange Games” & “Hard Lessons” for Season 3's Premiere

In a media climate where we have to wait years between seasons of our favorite shows, props go to Apple TV+ for delivering the goods within a year of the previous finale. Clearly, Slow Horses has a leg up on entertainment titans like The Last of Us or Stranger Things; it’s a small-scale spy thriller adapting a cleanly plotted novel, with six episodes clocking in at four-ish hours of actual TV, shot in and around mundane London with a cast of working actors who don’t have to worry about massive schedule conflicts.

In under two years, we’ll have three seasons of adventures with MI5’s least appreciated and most cock-up prone agents – and the first two episodes of the third season (both now available on Apple TV+) promise the tightest, most sure-footed escapade yet. We are deftly caught up with our main characters: River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) is still slumming it at Slough House after calling in a false Code September during last season’s Russian standoff and is feeling frustrated with Regent’s Park (MI5 headquarters) wasting his time – now making him and Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves) do pointless archiving of old dusty files.

Last season’s newcomers Marcus (Kadiff Kirwan) and Shirley (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) have formed a closer bond with/against the resident irritating techboy Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung) – they’re first seen conferring about Marcus’ gambling habit, the hiding place of a missing Russian diamond from last season’s finale, and Roddy’s chauvinistic desire to hook up with Louisa (Rosalind Eleazar). Louisa is still deep in grief over losing Min in Season 2, busying herself with glasses of wine and unfeeling hookups. She is also hiding the missing diamond in a tub of Ben and Jerry’s. Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) is gross and unhealthy, farting in the waiting room of private clinics and drinking/smoking his way to ruin — the usual.