Every Season of Slow Horses, Ranked from Worst to Best

Slow Horses has been one of the surprise hits to come out of the Apple TV+ streaming service. The Gary Oldman-led ensemble has made each season more unique than the last. With that in mind, here is every season of Slow Horses, ranked from worst to best.

Every Season of Slow Horses, Ranked from Worst to Best

3) Season 1 – Slow Horses

This ranking should be prefaced with the opinion that no season of Slow Horses is by any means bad. However, some entries are better than others. The first season is definitely not a terrible watch, but it has a much slower pace than the other two entries on this list. Given that this first season has a lot of heavy lifting to do in terms of setting up the world and characters, it makes sense that the pacing of this initial entry takes more of a hit.

There’s also the central premise of Slow Horses season 1, an elaborate hostage situation that MI6 Second Desk Diana Taverner orchestrated. This premise takes a few episodes to develop so that viewers can make sense of the convoluted political intrigue and put the Slow Horses into play. However, when the season starts ramping up the tension and action by the halfway mark, it’s easy to become invested in the group of reject spies and their race against the clock to save a hostage who suddenly is put in genuine danger.

The first season has a satisfying conclusion, and the somewhat low-stakes adventure, combined with the offbeat humor and unexpected chemistry between the Slow Horses, is a solid introduction to the world created by Mick Herron. Thankfully, it only got better with subsequent seasons.

2) Season 3 – Real Tigers

The third season of Slow Horses, dubbed Real Tigers, is perhaps the show’s most intense and action-packed entry thus far, which is why it’s ranked number two. When one of the Slow Horses, secretary Catherine Standish, is kidnapped, the rest of the team races to save her. What should be a simple file transfer in exchange for Catherine’s life soon turns into something much deadlier, as it turns out the file that the hostage-takers want incriminates the person at the very tip of MI6 – First Desk Ingrid Tearney.

Related: How To Read the Slough House (Slow Horses) Books in Order

With the Slow Horses that were sent in the exchange, River and Louisa, now on a hit list, what follows is a nearly season-long firefight that takes place in a former bomb bunker that’s been transformed into archival storage. Slow Horses Season 3 is so much more self-contained than the other two seasons, bringing a change of pace from the first two seasons. However, the action-packed Season 3 comes at the cost of character development, with most of the Slow Horses remaining static and unchanged following the seismic events of the previous season.

River and Louisa get most of the spotlight in this second season, being trapped with their backs against the wall, leading to tremendous high-stakes moments. However, it’s Oldman’s turn as Jackson Lamb that elevates this third season above the first one. Specifically, it’s Lamb’s Home Alone-esque defense against two agents trying to kill him that helps to make this season the most entertaining of all three released thus far.

1) Season 2 – Dead Lions

At the top of this list is the second season of Slow Horses, titled after the second book in the series, Dead Lions. Season 2 is an improvement from the first season in every way. The elaborate plot is much more tightly paced this time around, and every Slow Horse in the ensemble is given something to do, making the series’ scope feel much more ambitious and impressive. Season 2 centers around long-buried Cold War secrets and sleeper agents that come back into play in the present day and the death of a Slow Horse sets the tone for an intense and dark political thriller of a season.

One Slow Horse is out for revenge, another is undercover out in the country investigating the alias of a potential sleeper cell, and others are with Lamb in an attempt to stop chaos from hitting the London streets. Dead Lions is the perfect Slow Horses package, showing everything great about our flawed cast of characters and really using the spy-centric premise and double-agent tropes to their fullest effect. The final episodes of the season are also cleverly structured to make the viewer’s investment worth the ending, especially in the consequences, both large and small, for the Slow Horses and Lamb’s own personal grudges from the past.

And that is every season of Slow Horses, ranked from worst to best.

Slow Horses is streaming now on Apple TV+.