Season 3 certainly kicked off with a bang. *WARNING – CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SLOW HORSES SEASON 3 EPISODE 1*

By James Hibbs

Published: Wednesday, 29 November 2023 at 17:00 PM


*WARNING – CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SLOW HORSES SEASON 3 EPISODE 1*

Slow Horses has now returned for a third season of spy shenanigans with Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb and the rest of the Slough House team, although the first episode had a surprise opening segment, without any of our returning characters.

Instead, the first 10 minutes of the episode introduced us to the already announced new characters played by guest stars Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù’s (Gangs of London) and Katherine Waterston (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), two agents and lovers in Istanbul.

Waterston’s character Alison found Dìrísù’s character Sean rifling through her things, as he revealed that the agency believed she was about to leak a sensitive file. As it turns out, they were right.

A chase across the city ensued, but Alison got the file to her contact – or so it seemed. While we didn’t see just what happened next, Sean found her lifeless body, with Alison having either fallen or been pushed off a stadium.

Katherine Waterston
Katherine Waterston.
Lia Toby/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures

While it’s not unlike Slow Horses to kill off its supporting cast, it was still a shock to see such a big name actor bite the dust so early in their tenure, only 10 minutes into their first episode – particularly as Waterson’s casting had been so readily announced.

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The rest of the episode saw Sean kidnap Catherine Standish sometime later, with the cliffhanger seeing Jack Lowden’s River also roped into whatever is going on.

The first episode was released alongside the second on Apple TV+, with subsequent instalments set to be released weekly on Wednesdays.

This third season won’t be the last of Slow Horses. We already know that a fourth season is on the way, with new guest stars including Hugo Weaving (The Lord of the Rings), Joanna Scanlan (After Love), Ruth Bradley (Guilt), Tom Brooke (Empire of Light) and James Callis (Battlestar Galactica).

However, given this season 3 premiere, who knows how many of them will make it beyond the title sequence…