Slow Horses review: an anomaly in a media landscape that has for decades reinforced Islamophobic stereotypes
Series four of the celebrated Apple TV+ show is back, reshaping the cultural picture of what terrorism looks like
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Slow Horses, which comes back for its fourth season on 4 September, is a brilliant show on a curious platform. AppleTV+ has the starriest lineup imaginable, but many of its projects fly under the cultural radar. It is the only streamer to win a Best Picture Oscar, for Coda in 2022, but other projects seem to scream “tax write-off” — AppleTV is reportedly spending more than $20 million an episode for series two of the sci-fi drama Severance.
There is clearly a method to the madness. Between the shows that seem like half-remembered fever dreams (Billy Crudup selling fake property on the moon?), when it hits, it hits: Ted Lasso, Silo, Bad Sisters, Trying, Loot, but particularly Slow Horses. The series slowly but surely became one of the platform’s most prized properties as a sharp, witty action thriller, boldly subverting archaic spy v terrorist stereotypes.
The series follows the missions of Slough House, which is made up of MI5 rejects who either were too inept or too controversial in former roles and are now known as the Slow Horses. It’s headed up by the brilliant but boozy Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), and the best agent at his disposal, the dashing River Cartwright (Jack Lowden). The show is fast-paced and funny, with dynamic action scenes and the odd mind-blowing plot twist, but it’s also doing the work to reshape the cultural picture of what terrorism looks like.
The first series, released back in 2022, sees the Slow Horses track down a far-right group who have kidnapped a British-Pakistani student, Hassan Ahmed (Antonio Akeel), and intend to livestream his beheading. The fourth has the face of terror played by Hugo Weaving — a spy turned cultish far-right terrorist. As much as the show is phenomenally entertaining, there’s something genuinely powerful in the opening moments of the new series, in which a bomb left by a white figure in a shopping centre is immediately labelled a “terror attack” in the news. The storyline is made even more refreshing when the first man on the scene to investigate is South Asian, Agent Singh (Bally Gill).
Slow Horses is an anomaly in a media landscape that for decades has reinforced odious Islamophobic stereotypes. I was a child when the “war on terror” commenced, but even by then I was already well-versed in western fixations on villainous Arab terrorists. I’d seen James Cameron pit a spy played by Arnold Schwarzenegger against a group called “Crimson Jihad”, Harrison Ford track down a Libyan terrorist training ground in Patriot Games, and Back To the Future’s Marty McFly try to prevent a different group of Libyans from getting their hands on plutonium needed for a bomb. Then there’s the little-remembered scene in Blazing Saddles in which Arabs brandishing rifles are compared to Nazis. Things were so bad that watching a band of American soldiers on a gold heist in Three Kings felt refreshing just because there were some nice Iraqis in the mix, too.
But post 9/11, the western media had full licence to bed down in the stereotype of Middle Easterners having a unique propensity for terrorism, with films such as American Sniper, You Don’t Mess With The Zohan, and TV shows such as Homeland, Tyrant, 24 and Sleeper Cell.
It’s obvious how this seeps across all institutions: just look at how the extremists who attacked British Muslims, asylum seekers and other minorities over the past few weeks were called “far-right thugs”, not terrorists. It has insidious implications, as if the purpose of these acts was born out of chaos rather than the explicit intention to strike fear into the heart of an already marginalised community.
The Slow Horses team face far more conniving plots than the white supremacist and Islamaphobic violence that saw libraries burned down, mosques attacked and racist slogans chanted across the UK this summer. Yet all are acts of terror. It was jarring to watch the far-right attacks play out fictitiously on my screen, while reading messages from Black and Muslim friends who were too scared to leave the house.
While there’s some comfort to be had in watching Slow Horses confront a real and present danger to the society around you (and the charms of Jack Lowden know no bounds), there’s still a familiar slow, creeping realisation that appears when you switch over to the news and see that still, those like you remain “other”.
Though some elements of Slow Horses could do better — such as introducing more prominent Muslim characters as none has been a significant central figure since series one — there is a curious relief that this show brings. As someone who is part of the community that people pictured when they thought of a “terrorist”, I feel a faint hope that subverting the face of terror might be the best gift Apple TV+ could give us.
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