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Watched the first two episodes when they dropped on Apple+.  It’s about an MI5 office in London where they send the fuck ups and assign them boring meaningless tasks hoping they’ll quit.  Gary Oldman plays the old time washed up alcoholic running the office.  It appears that the office is beginning to get involved in some real intrigue though.  I liked it a lot.

Edited by NeverMarryAStripper
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15 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

Watched the first two episodes when they dropped on Apple+.  It’s about an MI5 office in London where they send the fuck ups and assign them boring meaningless tasks hoping they’ll quit.  Gary Oldman plays the old time washed up alcoholic running the office.  It appears that the office is beginning to get involved in some real intrigue though.  I liked it a lot.

What are their Surly handles?

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I heard about this show awhile back and read the book it's based on.  Really good, I'm probably going to finish out the series.  I think there are 8 total.  Anyway, I'll be checking out the show too.

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Watched the first two last night on this recommendation.  Really enjoyed it.  Didn't realize they'd jump into the conspiracy plot so quickly.  I could have just watched half-drunk Oldman hurl insults in the vein of "In the Loop/Veep" at everyone for another 45 minutes.  The production color palate does make you want to vomit though.  

I loved the blending of old school HUMINT/tradecraft mixed in with modern day cyber/SIGINT.  

Such a great cast with interesting entanglements past and future being exposed.  Kristi Scott Thomas' comment to her oversight board was a little too on the nose, "We already spent what you gave us for monitoring Jihadi groups.  We need more to track the enemies within.  We focused on one, when we should have been looking at both."  

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Wow.  Episode 3 dropped this morning.  The conspiracy/political angle really ramps up and takes a wicked turn.  

Oldman is absolutely brilliant in this episode.  Shows he's still got it physically and in being one step ahead of Second Desk.  And his condescending mentoring to Cartwright i just absolutely hilarious.  And then there's the end scene.  Wow.  Gets real dark, real fast.  

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2 hours ago, Lobo said:

Wow.  Episode 3 dropped this morning.  The conspiracy/political angle really ramps up and takes a wicked turn.  

Oldman is absolutely brilliant in this episode.  Shows he's still got it physically and in being one step ahead of Second Desk.  And his condescending mentoring to Cartwright i just absolutely hilarious.  And then there's the end scene.  Wow.  Gets real dark, real fast.  

I guess we aren't supposed to know exactly what happened in that last scene, but........

 

Spoiler

I presume the inside guy killed the white nationalists and the prisoner is free.  And I presume he was told to do so by Taverner or maybe the right wing politician before the Slow Horses got there?  I don't buy that he just had enough and lost his mind.

 

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So to address A-Tex's spoiler comment...skip over if you haven't seen Ep. 3 yet:

Spoiler

I couldn't tell by the way they edit/spliced the scenes.....but it seems like Oldman and the Horses (great band name btw) got there first with the Dogs arriving shortly thereafter.  The inside guy knew time was running out and hadn't heard from Diana about any possible updates.  Oldman's face was to be the update, but inside guy doesn't know he's coming directly.  We can likely assume while he was upstairs for the others indicated was a very long time, he probably used the hidden phone (curious though that Diana specifically mentions her inside man has no communication of any kind and that's the one thing Oldman doesn't challenge her on despite hitting every other nail on the head---something to the effect of, "Oh come on Diana, you would have sent him in with some kinda backup device he could keep hidden around the house, I've just taken one of your hidden phones off a man myself this evening).  I'm also curious about what the plan was for why Oldman knocks on the door.  Even if inside guy answers, the others are gonna be incredibly amped up about why somebody's knocking on their door at 2am out of the blue.  There were no pubs around that he could play off he was stumbling out of at that hour.  The whole plan seemed dubious at best, and Oldman just goes along with it...granted she agreed to give him a lot in return.  Maybe too much and that should have tipped off Oldman?

Diana's plan to rope in Pakistani intelligence makes sense.  The kid was just a tool to get that and bump her up the food chain with a big PR win for Service.  And they get to prove White Nationalism is a problem in the UK and get the funding she cleverly asked for in first episode.  

The hard-right MP is the other big question.  All of Britain is on pins 'n needles that night wondering what's gonna happen to that innocent young man who is a citizen after all.  Maybe not all of Britain, most are probably indifferent.  But who throws a dinner party that same night?  Biggest story in the land and a known nationalist politician thinks it's a good idea to have a dinner party?  Bizarre.  

And then to your final point, yeah I don't think he snapped and just went on an Archer-esque rampage.  I think he was either waiting by that phone upstairs and heard nothing from Diana (she was busy with all the other muck and the mire).  So he realizes time is running out and had to get himself into rampage mode.  Or he did hear from someone that help was on the way, and he just had to start the killing and secure the prisoner so nobody could kill the kid during the raid.  Big question here is was Oldman just a pawn for her after all?  The inside guy also had a service weapon hidden up there with the phone and did the axe to the blonde guy and then drew down on the other two.  It's tough to kill three people with an axe in 10 seconds without one of them getting the beat on you.  I assume he left with the prisoner right before they got there?  The blood trails indicate somebody tried to make it to the front door.  All we really know is blonde asshole guy did not make it out alive.  And if he did, he'll stick out in London as the only person walking about with no head.  

Big gamble by Diana...she can tell folks she knew where the house was because she planted an inside person in this extremist group.  That's good agency leadership.  But she'll get inquiries about whether or not she wound these guys up to commit this kidnapping/almost murder in the first place, they'll wonder how this kid was selected to begin with when there were a hundreds of thousands if not more of non-British citizens from Asia/Africa they could have targeted.  Oldman is on the case.  /rant

 

 

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On 4/8/2022 at 11:37 AM, A-Tex Devil said:

I guess we aren't supposed to know exactly what happened in that last scene, but........

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I presume the inside guy killed the white nationalists and the prisoner is free.  And I presume he was told to do so by Taverner or maybe the right wing politician before the Slow Horses got there?  I don't buy that he just had enough and lost his mind.

 

Care to reevaluate this spoiler?

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Just caught up.  I had high expectations but so far they've been met.  

Echo what everyone says about Oldman.  Just another fantastic performance.  Kristin Scott Thomas is her usual wonderful self.  The main nazi is outstanding.  

Great job Apple

I'm adding Mick Herron's books to my Goodreads list. 

If you're interested there's about a 25minute interview with Mick Herron on the latest The Watch podcast. 

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favorite show so far of 2022 and there have been some fantastic offerings.

s2 is already shot and looks like it'll drop sometime in the fall, so that's awesome.  there are 7-8 books in the series i think, and a new one coming soon.  either way, lots of good source material out there.  season 2 looks to be based on book 2 - dead lions.  the showrunner makes it sound like they want to do several seasons. 

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1 hour ago, Post Oak said:

Pretty good finale.  I'm glad they already have s2 wrapped. You've gotta think that it'll be hard getting the band back together for multiple seasons.

it's basically like shooting a 6 hour movie.  movies shoot quicker these days, so it'll be like a long movie shoot from the 1990's.  they can find the time.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/24/2022 at 12:54 AM, henrygandorf said:

anyone catch the how i met your mother nod?

since nobody responded, i'll point it out.

they were in the car where the coldplay song was playing on repeat.  that made me think of the roadtrip flashback scene in how i met your mother, where the "i would walk five hundred miles" cassingle was stuck in marshall's fiero and they had to listen to it over and over again, driving them insane.  i paused the show to explain that part to the wife, as it was the only time i remember seeing that type of gag.

2 scenes later, oldman is sitting in the car refusing to get out, and "i would walk 500 miles" was blaring on his car radio.

that cannot be a coincidence.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Had no idea Apple TV had adapted the books.  Binged S1 Thu/Fri, now ready for s2.  Oldman is so good being the anti-Smiley in this (and being smiley in tinker).  Kind of a mash-up of MI5 and MI6 responsibilities whether domestic/foreign/joes/spies, but who cares.   Entertainment candy.

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On 5/18/2022 at 9:28 AM, Fud said:

Loved the show. If you also loved it, be sure to check out Little Drummer Girl, The Honourable Woman, and The Night Manager 

Would also strongly recommend Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Bureau, Fauda and Smiley's People. I found all 6 eps of Smiley's People free on YT but on zero paid streaming services...not sure wtf that's about.

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Smileys people and tinker tailor starting obi wan kenobi are badass. 6 episode miniseries on early 80s bbc. If you can get past the 70s tv quality then there are some brilliant performances by the actors. And the acidity of the dialogue just burns through to the core. 

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  • 5 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...
56 minutes ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

New season is kicking some bootay. 

Oldman is just tremendous.

Kind of sad what happened to Min.

I didn’t think it was that sad.  It was a reminder that they aren’t playing around.  The plot twist with the cicada was the only lame reveal.

 

 Oldman is fantastic, and the rest of the cast outside of River is great too.  That actor doesn’t quite pull his part off.

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I binged the series this week. I thought season 2 was already done and then I find out that the finale hasn't been released yet. Fucking twats!

I was excited to see Olivia Cooke in the first couple of episodes. She makes me feel funny feelings in my pants.

But this show is fantastic. Great tension and action with some fantastic humor to boot.

 

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13 hours ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

I binged the series this week. I thought season 2 was already done and then I find out that the finale hasn't been released yet. Fucking twats!

I was excited to see Olivia Cooke in the first couple of episodes. She makes me feel funny feelings in my pants.

But this show is fantastic. Great tension and action with some fantastic humor to boot.

 

 

It's pretty clear that David Cartwright, River’s grandfather, is the traitor. That would explain why Katinsky spared River when he had the chance to kill him.

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Great finale. Even better news is it looks like next season is already in the can.

Quote

 

It was announced back in June 2022 that the series would be returning for at least a third and a fourth season, which would be shot back-to-back just as seasons 1 and 2 were.

The new seasons will be based on the novels Real Tigers and Spook Street, meaning the drama will have got through half of Mick Herron's eight-part book series (although there is a ninth on the way).

It's hard to say exactly when season 3 of Slow Horses will be released. While seasons 1 and 2 were released in quick succession, both in 2022, this was because they were shot back-to-back. Seasons 3 and 4 have subsequently been shot back-to-back, but this does mean we might expect a longer break between seasons 2 and 3.

However, with the seasons announced in Summer 2022 and started shooting soon after, we'd hope that we could see new episodes start airing on Apple TV+ by late 2023. 

 

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/slow-horses-season-3-release/

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