Also the funniest. One of Lamb’s greatest joys is to take the piss out of the so-called slow horses, the ragtag crew of MI5 misfits under his charge. In the show’s first season, when one of them accidentally kills a fellow agent while tumbling down the stairs, Lamb cracks, “If you meant to kill him, he’d still be alive.” It’s a classic Jackson Lamb retort.
Yet behind the character’s contemptuous, world-weary exterior is a man who cares. “There’s a real loyalty to the slow horses and protecting them from that bureaucratic monster, which is MI5, MI6,” Oldman says. That bureaucratic monster is headquartered in a fictionalized Regent’s Park, where Kristin Scott Thomas’s Diana Taverner—Lady Di, as Lamb calls her—will finally lead as “first desk” this season. Taverner, with her plummy accent and cashmere wardrobe, is sometimes Lamb’s foil and sometimes his friend, depending on what she wants.
The government security service Taverner heads is driven by the Machiavellian ethos that the ends justify the means. In past seasons, MI5 has actively created crises through its off-the-books operations and has been the target of foreign operatives seeking revenge for Great Britain’s past sins. In either case, the service has blood on its hands. Slow Horses sets itself apart from other espionage thrillers by refusing to shy away from the moral gray area government agencies can occupy: The show’s intelligence service is corrupt more often than not. It lies to the public, covers up its blunders, double-deals, and even sacrifices its own people—all in the name of national security. No wonder the TV Academy loves the show: Oldman’s been nominated for an Emmy three consecutive times for his role.
“Lamb could’ve been first desk. He didn’t want it,” Oldman tells me matter-of-factly, channeling Lamb’s inner monologue: “I don’t want to be in that building. I don’t want to be dealing with the corrupt prime minister.” Despite his exile to Slough House, Lamb was a legend in the field; the series implies that he once withstood torture by the Stasi as he watched a woman he loved being murdered. While it’s possible Lamb also once believed in MI5’s grand mission of protecting citizens’ freedoms, his experiences in subsequent decades as the world shifted from the Cold War to the Age of Terror have worn that ideology down to something more localized: His responsibility is to protect his crew. “He gives the impression he doesn’t care, when in reality, I think he cares more than most,” Oldman says. This season that instinct conflicts with Taverner’s cold view of the slow horses (some resurrected from the past) as collateral damage.
