Binge-r #282: Slow Horses + Moon Knight
National Insecurity: Gary Oldman (Jackson) and Jack Lowden (River) in Slow Horses
SLOW HORSES S1
Streaming Service: Apple TV+
Availability: All six episodes now streaming
Severance remains my best show to date of 2022 [full review here], but this latest Apple TV+ drama comes awfully close. Led by a gloriously dyspeptic Gary Oldman performance that slowly reveals contradictory layers of dedication and self-loathing, Slow Horses puts an imperfect human face on the espionage genre. Set in the decrepit London office where MI5 sends its misfits and mistake-laden, the show is a thriller about human foibles – the more the plot gathers pace, with a story centred on right-wing extremists kidnapping a man and announcing they’ll broadcast his execution, the more acute the depiction of the individuals become. Oldman’s Jackson Lamb rouses himself to care, while his driven underling, River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), is desperate to be involved, even if he endangers others.
Is the desire to contribute a sign of selflessness or selfishness? In adapting the first of Mick Herron’s Slough House spy novels, creator Will Smith (not that one) mixes spycraft and surveillance technology with the driest of wit and a satirical bent – he wrote for Veep – that grounds the plot in everyday exchanges. Are these flawed people really who’s protecting the national interest? Kristin Scott Thomas is an excellent antagonist as a scheming MI5 head holding the reins of power, but the entire ensemble cast is shot through with bittersweet detail; one exiled spy remains fixated on snogging his colleague. As the stakes rise, with bloody twists and grim revelations, Slow Horses also becomes wildly entertaining. It never forgets the missteps and minor flaws that make us who we are, folding them into the vivid story. Make this your Friday night treat for the next six weeks.
Mirror Image: Oscar Isaac (Steven and Marc) in Moon Knight
Moon Knight (Disney+, all six episodes now streaming): How should an established Hollywood star play it in a Marvel television series? Go big or lay low? The contrasting takes are apparent in Disney+’s latest superhero show, where Oscar Isaac gives a fiddly, tense performance as Steven Grant, a milquetoast London museum staffer who discovers that his multiple identities include a mercenary with a connection to another celestial realm, while Ethan Hawke is a portrait of restrained certainty as a cult leader who opposes him. Created by Jeremy Slater (The Umbrella Academy), this is an uneven, but not altogether uninteresting, take on cape fear that shifts according to which identity Isaac is playing, as he debates himself and tries to put a human perspective on the rifts of the gods. I remain perplexed about Isaac’s English accent for Steven, and the action sequences are hardly innovative. Most of all, does this show understand what it has with Oscar Isaac? The American actor can menacingly pulse when viewed at a distance, roiling energy threatening to spill over. But the plot here almost never slows down for that to happen.
>> Old Show/New Streaming Service: Zoe Kravitz gave one of the best performances in The Batman, and she’s also a standout as the lead in the 2020 streaming remake of High Fidelity, which is now on Disney+ and features her soulful, idiosyncratic turn as a Brooklyn record store owner [season one review here].
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