Varada Sethu Joins ‘Slow Horses’ Season 7
The 'Slow Horses' Season 6 finale is still a couple of days away, but Apple TV won’t let that stop it from rolling out the Season 7 cast.
The Slow Horses Season 6 finale is still a couple of days away, but Apple TV won’t let that stop it from rolling out the Season 7 cast. Given how far ahead the studio is working to ensure new seasons arrive like clockwork, the production has shown restraint by not revealing the new cast members until now. That’s especially true now that the main guest stars for next season have been revealed, and the most high-profile names are women.
While Apple TV has done an admirable job of keeping Slow Horses fairly even-handed in terms of cast diversity, it’s probably no surprise that, between the incessant fart jokes and father-figure issues, the series is designed to appeal more to men than women. Moreover, while the show certainly has its share of women guest stars, every season, the biggest names have always been men, from Season 2’s Kadiff Kirwan to Season 6’s Lenny Rush.
However, Season 7 will feature Varada Sethu, whose stint as a Doctor Who companion, along with major roles in Andor and The Other Bennet Sister, has made her the biggest name by default. She’ll be joined by another woman PBS fans know well: Tuppence Middleton, who starred in all three Downton Abbey films. Ethan Moorhouse (MobLand), Merab Ninidze (Conclave), and Joshua McGuire (The Gentlemen) round out the new additions.
Season 7 was originally announced nearly 18 months ago, in June 2025, adapting the eighth book in Mick Herron’s series, 2022’s Bad Actors. (The Slough House Series currently runs nine novels and five short stories. Seasons 1 through 6 covered the first seven books, Slow Horses, Dead Lions, Real Tigers, Spook Street, London Rules, Joe Country, and Slough House.) Season 8 has already been officially confirmed and will be based on Herron’s most recent novel, 2025’s Clown Town.
Here is the synopsis for Season 7:
Slow Horses is a darkly humorous espionage drama that follows a dysfunctional team of British intelligence agents who serve in a dumping-ground department of MI5 known unaffectionately as Slough House, run by Jackson Lamb, the brilliant but cantankerous leader of the spies who end up in Slough House due to their career-ending mistakes and who frequently find themselves blundering around the smoke and mirrors of the espionage world.
In Season 7, Lamb and his Slow Horses are on the hunt to find and neutralize a mole at the heart of the British Government before they can bring down the state.
The Slow Horses ensemble is once again led by Gary Oldman (Oppenheimer) as Jackson Lamb, Kristin Scott Thomas (Rebecca) as Diana Taverner, and Jack Lowden (The Gold) as River Cartwright; alongside Saskia Reeves (Roadkill) as Catherine Standish, Rosalind Eleazar (The Personal History of David Copperfield) as Louisa Guy, Christopher Chung (Blitz) as Roddy Ho, and Aimee-Ffion Edwards (Wolf Hall) as Shirley Dander.
Newer additions who have stuck around since being introduced include Hugo Weaving (Patrick Melrose) as Frank Harkness, Joanna Scanlan (The Larkins) as Moira Tregorian, Ruth Bradley (Guilt) as Emma Flyte, and Tom Brooke (Bodyguard) as J.K. Coe. Also, James Callis (Bridget Jones) will return as Claude Whelan after sitting out Season 6.
Other semi-regular cast members whose Season 7 statuses are still up in the air include Samuel West (All Creatures Great & Small) as Home Secretary Peter Judd, Olivia Cooke (House of the Dragon) as Sid Baker, plus newest additions Lenny Rush (Doctor Who), Kyle Soller (Poldark), and MyAnna Buring (Unforgotten).
For Season 7, Ben Vanstone (All Creatures Great & Small) will take over as lead writer; new-to-the-series director Robert McKillop (Guilt) is set to direct all episodes. Vanstone, Herron, and Oldman are listed as executive producers for Season 7, alongside Jamie Laurenson, Hakan Kousetta, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Gail Mutrux, Douglas Urbanski, and Graham Yost.
Slow Horses Season 6’s finale debuts on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, followed by one episode per week through October.
Season 7 is expected in 2027, and Season 8 in 2028.
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