Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Chris Revelle | TV | October 22, 2026
I would liken watching this season of AppleTV’s Slow Horses to riding a wrecking ball: the swings have been big and destructive, leaving lots of mess, physical and emotional, to clean up next season. Or maybe the mess stays! The brutal cliffhanger at the end of the finale leaves viewers dangling and signals that the series is operating at new levels of cruelty and ruthlessness. The world of Slow Horses has changed, teeing up the seventh season to be even meaner than the last.
First, the seemingly impossible happened: Diana Taverner humbled herself. It turns out that giving a sloppy interview to Cantor and using his money to pay for the murder of a Russian agent on Russian soil was a bad idea! Especially when the agents sent to dispose of Sid in retribution start hunting the remaining Horses, past and present, to be extra thorough. Taverner realized the cruel irony of becoming the kind of threat to national security she’s meant to prevent, and offered to resign. Lady Di decided to walk away from the power; I truly never thought I would see the day. Jackson Lamb wasted no time in reading Taverner for filth, asking her to “get off that fucking cross.”
Lamb urged Taverner to stay and do the kind of chicanery she does best: maneuver someone else into taking the blame. And who could be more deserving than Cantor himself? He’s offered up as a sacrifice to the Russians in Sid’s place, and Taverner feeds Peter Judd to the Home Secretary for good measure. Her relationship with Russian spymaster Vassily is salvaged, for now (or is it?!). It’s a characteristically elegant way to tie up loose ends and to keep Taverner in place. I usually chafe against reset buttons getting deployed like this, but Lady Di is too wonderful an antagonist and foil to lose. A reset button is worth it if it means we keep Kristin Scott Thomas on our screens.
Over at the makeshift safehouse that was Taverner’s vacation home, the various Horses fight to hold off Jack Harkness and his motley crew of mercs. Sorry, Diana, but your pied-à-terre is trashed. It was a hot disaster from beginning to end: Louisa got nailed by a shot to the gut; poor young Reese harpooned a mercenary in the chest; and Emma Flyte, the only Dog to show some real backbone and brains, was slain. It would’ve been interesting to keep Flyte in the mix as a character who chooses the Horse life out of disillusionment with Taverner’s games, but alas. Harkness gets word about Cantor being given to the Russians and calls off the assault, shooting the assassin, “Jane,” before she can end River’s life.
After a typically cold exchange with his father, River heads back to Grandpa David’s house to finally have a nice evening with Sid. Except, remember back when River left a crowbar there earlier in the season? Well, he touched it, and it turns out to have been laced with neurotoxin, which sends him falling to the floor. It’s a weird place to end the season, flooring a main character with an out-of-nowhere twist that doesn’t feel too satisfying. Slow Horses has swerved before, but this feels more outlandish than usual. The questions it raises are great, though. Who poisoned River? Vassily? Sid? This was a wild ride of a season, and it set up plenty of thorny plot threads to contend with in season 7.
