The treatment of the retired senior MI5 officer shows the fracture between intelligence officers and the people they ultimately serve. The final scenes will tug at the heart of anyone who has a relative with dementia.
There are also new faces in Slough House, including JK Coe. Coe rarely says anything but when he jumps into action he seems to have the sharpest instincts. Coe is in Slough House because of his PTSD. He is the bridge to our modern world with his very occasionally revealed emotional intelligence. As an expert in intelligence, Coe is one of the only characters I could actually see in MI5 – once he recovers, of course. Also new is Emma Flyte (Ruth Bradley) who has left the Metropolitan Police because no one could tell her the truth. MI5 turns out to be more of the same.
Bubbling across the series is a story of female exploitation and misplaced male heroism which has huge negative consequences.
The female officers at Slough House consistently show themselves to be the more effective of the troupe, but they are the ones that most often face the barbs and “banter”. Lamb, we are led to believe, has a heart of gold and despite his frequent abuse, cares for them all deeply. However, it requires a lot of generosity to believe this.
The top of MI5 also seems to struggle with gender as we are introduced to newly promoted Claude Whelan who has grabbed first desk (director general of MI5) from Diana Taverner. Whelan sets out to shine the light of transparency on intelligence (“my brief is to activate accountability and accessibility: that’s the triple-A promise”) but is ultimately a weak and flawed man. Diana Taverner is, however, a capable second desk (operational lead). She gets things done, makes brutal decisions, of which there are many in a series packed with drama.
Herron and Will Smith (who has written the TV adaptation) have gone overboard this series with drawing in news stories viewers will recognise. There is a bombing of a large shopping centre (a common plot), and there is a version of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashogi. There are unspecified untouchable foreign princes operating in London, cults and female exploitation. There is also the use of ghost identities (real identities of dead babies kept alive for intelligence purposes), which is a live issue at the ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry.
Split over six, 45 minute episodes, the pace of the story telling is relentless and the episodes just fly by. The show thrives in its balance between the humorous interplay between the reject inhabitants of Slough House (think the wry comedy of The Office) and the jaw-dropping plot twists. Balancing complex drama and clever comedy is difficult but perfectly executed here.
Slow Horses remains, in my opinion, the best that television drama has to offer at the moment.
This article by Professor Robert Dover was originally published on The Conversation. The views or opinions expressed by individuals do not necessarily reflect those of the University.
Images: Apple TV.