TL;DR: Slow Horses season five leans harder on Roddy Ho than ever, but thanks to killer writing and a superb cast, it remains one of the best shows on Apple TV+. Sharp, funny, tragic, and endlessly watchable.

There are times when you sit down to watch a new season of a beloved series and realize, within minutes, that the showrunners know exactly what they’re doing. Slow Horses season five is one of those rare gifts. Instead of coasting on its past glories or fumbling around for a new identity, it doubles down on what has always made it special: characters who are as repellent as they are magnetic, plots that feel ripped from today’s headlines, and dialogue so sharp you could shave with it. Apple TV+ has quietly built one of the most consistent spy series in years, and season five might just be the most fun yet.

From the jump, we’re hurled into chaos. The opener stages a massacre in a London square—an incel loner unleashing gunfire after marinating in resentment and right-wing bile. It’s brutal, it’s timely, and it immediately plants Slow Horses back in its wheelhouse: tackling the ugliness of modern Britain with a mix of grit and gallows humor. And because this is Slough House, where the cast-offs of MI5 go to rot, the fallout somehow ends up hinging not on London’s political elite or the shadowy Russians, but on Roddy Ho’s love life. Yes, you read that right. Roddy Ho.

Christopher Chung has always played Ho as the show’s resident irritant—a man-child hacker who struts like God’s gift to women while draped in trackies that could blind a lesser mortal. In earlier seasons, he’s been comic relief, the butt of every joke. Here? He’s the reluctant star. Someone wants him dead, and shockingly, someone else might want to date him. Both revelations send Slough House into a tailspin, and Chung leans into it with gusto. Watching him bop along to Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible” in the premiere is like seeing the world’s worst gamer accidentally log into a boss battle. And yet, somehow, it works. Ho’s arrogance is insufferable, but his survival instincts are weirdly compelling.

The gamble of pushing Ho into the spotlight is that it inevitably sidelines River Cartwright, Jack Lowden’s semi-heroic everyman. River has been the emotional core of Slow Horses since day one—a capable agent weighed down by family baggage and the impossible task of doing real spy work among this island of misfits. This season, though, he feels like a supporting act. Lowden still delivers, but his screen time shrinks while Ho devours scenes whole. The trade-off works in bursts (Ho is legitimately hilarious), but it does tilt the show’s credibility toward farce. After all, do we really believe the fate of British intelligence hinges on this buffoon? And yet, maybe that’s the point. In the real world, how many fragile systems hang on people just as ludicrous?

The supporting cast continues to shine. Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb remains television’s most gloriously disgusting antihero—every “f*** off” lands with the weary authority of a man who has spent decades chain-smoking his empathy away. Shirley (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) and Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves) both get moments that remind us why they matter, while Tom Brooke’s unsettling Coe still skulks around like he wandered in from a different, creepier show. Even Victoria Hamilton turns up for a pitch-perfect cameo as a blustering tabloid columnist. And then there’s Jonathan Pryce, devastating as River’s grandfather David, whose descent into dementia grounds the whole season in tragedy. Amid the quips and pratfalls, Slow Horses never forgets that its characters are broken people—funny, yes, but also unbearably human.

Tonally, the show continues to walk that impossible tightrope between spy thriller and dark comedy. One moment you’re wincing at a bullet tearing through a crowded square, the next you’re laughing at Ho boasting that he doesn’t pay for sex because “sex pays for me.” Somehow, under outgoing showrunner Will Smith’s guidance, it all clicks. The scripts crackle with cynicism and wit, the pacing never drags, and the ensemble hums like a dysfunctional orchestra. It’s everything I want from this series.

The looming question, of course, is whether incoming showrunner Gaby Chiappe can keep the streak alive. Smith is leaving behind a machine that runs on character chemistry more than convoluted espionage twists. If Chiappe leans into that—if she trusts Oldman’s slouching genius, Chung’s absurd bravado, Lowden’s weary charisma, and the rest of this grotesque, lovable gang—then Slow Horses can remain one of the sharpest shows on television.

For now, though, season five is a triumph. Yes, it occasionally creaks under the weight of Ho’s absurdity. Yes, I wish River had more to do. But when a show can balance far-right terrorism, incel culture, tabloid sleaze, and a hacker with a man-bun—without collapsing into parody—that’s a show firing on all cylinders.

Final Verdict:

Slow Horses season five proves once again that Slough House is the most entertaining pit of losers in British television. With stellar performances, razor-edged writing, and enough absurdity to keep things unpredictable, it’s both timely and timeless. Roddy Ho may test the limits of believability, but he also gives the series a fresh spark. The best gang of failures on TV is still the one worth rooting for.