{"id":85598,"date":"2026-09-17T10:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T02:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=85598"},"modified":"2026-09-17T10:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T02:42:15","slug":"slow-horses-season-6-episode-1-review-and-recap-circle-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=85598","title":{"rendered":"Slow Horses Season 6, Episode 1 Review and Recap \u2014 &#8216;Circle of Life&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\"><em>This review contains full spoilers for <\/em><u><em>Slow Horses<\/em><\/u><em> Season 6, Episode 1, which is streaming on Apple TV now.<\/em><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">It\u2019s the return of Slow Horses (along with a <u>Season 8 confirmation<\/u>)! The questions looming over this new six-episode season were how well it would fare after losing its creator and head writer, Will Smith, while tackling two of Mick Herron\u2019s Slough House novels instead of one. So far, Slow Horses seems the same as ever, even if it\u2019s maybe trying a little too hard to prove that it knows how the show\u2019s schtick is supposed to go. Even so, it\u2019s hard to be too nitpicky with a series that cranks out new seasons like clockwork and reliably hits its marks.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">\u201cCircle of Life\u201d sets up the chessboard of this season\u2019s central mystery, which sees the Slow Horses being targeted. Someone\u2019s picking off the flunky MI5 spies from Slough House; two former agents \u2014 who both seemed to be living quiet, unglamorous lives after the service \u2014 have been killed by an unidentified twosome (played by Andor\u2019s Kyle Soller and The Witcher\u2019s MyAnna Buring). The current roster also seems to have been entirely wiped from the Park\u2019s systems, and their paychecks have stopped coming too. In protest, the greasy Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) goes on \u201cstrike,\u201d which mostly means departing to the Italian restaurant below Slough House and uncorking a bottle of red wine before noon.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas), now comfortably First Chair after outsting the bumbling Claude Whelan at the end of Season 5, seems to have had a hand in Slough House\u2019s expungement, though isn\u2019t cleanly admitting to anything. Among all of this early drama, River Cartwright (Jack Lowden, <u>maybe soon to graduate from shoddy spy to good spy<\/u>) is grappling with \u2014 rather, trying to completely smother \u2014 the grief from the off-camera death of his struggling grandpa, David (Jonathan Pryce), as he plans the funeral. <\/p>\n<p><output class=\"box-wrapper jsx-2673806401\" data-cy=\"article-slideshow\"><button type=\"button\" style=\"display:none\" class=\"jsx-2228525885\"\/><span data-cy=\"slideshow-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-preview\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 slideshow-preview\">\n<h3 class=\"title5 jsx-62124236 jsx-1085005187\" data-cy=\"slideshow-preview-title\">Slow Horses Season 6, Episode 1 &#8211; Images<\/h3>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-images-container\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 images-container\"><button type=\"button\" data-cy=\"hero-image\" aria-label=\"Open Slideshow\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 hero-image\"><img alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" decoding=\"async\" role=\"presentation\" class=\"progressive-image jsx-2896921488 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-2605834259 jsx-2338608387 hover-opacity\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"\/><span class=\"button-text jsx-729543028 button button--primary jsx-3027214138 jsx-4266531355 row-pagination-button next contained centered round large\" data-cy=\"paginate next\" title=\"Open Slideshow\"><span class=\"ign-icon right-chevron jsx-2750866048 jsx-2919720488\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"right-chevron\" style=\"mask:url(https:\/\/kraken.ignimgs.com\/_next\/static\/media\/RightChevron.272be43c.svg?cors=1) no-repeat center center \/ contain;background:currentColor\"\/><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/output><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">The disturbing opening shot of Season 6 is a statement as much as it is a metaphor for the disregard of some lives: Slow Horses, now written by the show\u2019s longtime co-executive producer Gaby Chiappe, is still <em>twisted<\/em>. Chiappe might not have the same comedy writing background as Smith (who worked on shows like The Thick of It and Veep) that gave the show a certain edge, but Slow Horses still <em>goes there<\/em>. Jackson Lamb still day-drinks and burps loudly (juxtaposed against one of the series\u2019 most sentimental scenes showing River and David\u2019s final moments together) and laughs at funerals (to his credit, it <em>was<\/em> funny watching River eulogize about his grandpa\u2019s deep care for the nation\u2019s train systems as a coverup for his espionage work). Figured as much!<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">That\u2019s not to say deploying the well-established character traits of each of Slow Horse\u2019s fantastic ensemble is sloppy lever-pulling. For instance, it will basically always be funny when Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung) acts like\u2026 well, Roddy Ho. (Also, I\u2019m 99.8% sure that was Ghost of Tsushima he was playing at work.) But I do sort of wish the series was a little more confident off the bat in trusting itself to tell the story it needs to tell with its characters responding as the ridiculous people they are without winking at the audience.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Already, Slow Horses has a lot of balls to juggle, but that\u2019s nothing new. As arguably the most consistent spy series on TV right now, it\u2019s always threaded complex storylines that opt for the less-obvious twist. It\u2019s safe to expect that pretty much everything is a clue right now \u2014 What\u2019s the connection between the seemingly irrelevant (for now) raid on the Russian finance botfarm, the spy-killers, River\u2019s father Frank Harkness (Hugo Weaving), and the secret money that the slimy politician Peter Judd (Samuel West) funneled to Diana? \u2014 but I don\u2019t expect any of them to piece together as nicely as they\u2019d seem at first glance. But with only five episodes remaining, covering two books\u2019 worth of material, Slow Horses has a lot of ground to cover \u2014 like, when are we <u>seeing you-know-who again<\/u>? \u2014 and not much time to do it. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/slow-horses-season-6-episode-1-review-circle-of-life\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This review contains full spoilers for Slow Horses Season 6, Episode 1, which is streaming on Apple TV now. It\u2019s the return of Slow Horses&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":85599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2565,5776,11953,402,16298,28,668,3298],"class_list":["post-85598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","tag-circle","tag-episode","tag-horses","tag-life","tag-recap","tag-review","tag-season","tag-slow","wpcat-32-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/85599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}