Slow Horses season one spoilers follow.
Slow Horses season two has already been confirmed by Apple TV+ – and it's even been filmed as well.
The first season has finally cantered over the finish line: Hassan lived, Slough House was exonerated, Di Taverner got away with it (kind of) and everyone lived to fight another day. Except Sid Baker, who got shot in the head and was then "disappeared" by MI5.
If it left you hoping for another series of this excellent, blackly comic spy thriller, you're in luck. Mick Herron's book series is a publishing phenomenon, and a cast this strong needs to be locked in and exploited to the full. So what can we expect from Slow Horses season two?
Slow Horses season 2 release date: When will Slow Horses season 2 air?
Hooray! Season two will land on AppleTV+ on 2 December.
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With audiences responding so positively to the first season, we're hopeful that Apple will want to press on ASAP with production on the third. (More later on the likelihood of that happening...)
Slow Horses boss James Hawes told Deadline of the "relief" of experiencing such great feedback to the series, revealing that it has "landed incredibly strongly".
"What's astonishing is the positivity of the response, the amount that people have enjoyed and engaged with the series and also the global reach of the show. There are reviews from all over the world, and people seem to be getting the tone," he said.
Hawes has also spoken about the desire to continue telling the story across multiple seasons, also telling Deadline of the "hope and intention" that there will be "another couple of seasons in the immediate future".
"I wasn't the director on the second six [episodes]," Hawes also told The Wrap of what will become the second season. "That really would have been a stretch. Those six are in post now. There is talk of more to come, because it seems it's being very well received."
We'll be watching this space...
Slow Horses season 2 cast: Who's coming back for Slow Horses season 2?
Olivia Cooke won't be in season two, for the reasons detailed above, unless the adaptation of Mick Herron's book Dead Lions is a lot looser than Slow Horses was. But your other Slough House and Regents Park favourites are all present and incorrect:
• Jack Lowden as River Cartwright
• Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb
• Saskia Reeves as Catherine Standish
• Christopher Chung as Roddy Ho
• Dustin Demri-Burns as Min Harper
• Rosalind Eleazar as Louisa Guy
• Kristin Scott-Thomas as Diana Taverner
• Jonathan Pryce as David Cartwright
• Freddie Fox as "Spider" Webb
• Samuel West as Peter Judd
Unless the writers are playing very fast and loose, you've seen the last of Antonio Aakeel's Hassan and his captors – their story is done.
New cast members joining this season include Rade Šerbedžija as – we assume – former Russian agent Nikolai Katinsky.
We're also expecting an announcement soon regarding Marcus Longridge and Shirley Dander, two new Slough House recruits in the second book.
Peaky Blinders' Aimee-Ffion Edwards and This is Going to Hurt's Kadiff Kirwan have been cast in the show, according to Variety, and those two roles would be the very obvious place for them.
Slow Horses season 2 plot: What will happen in Slow Horses season 2?
Minor spoilers follow, assuming season two will follow the plot of Dead Lions.
Season two "finds long-buried Cold War secrets emerge which threaten to bring carnage to the streets of London," according to the official synopsis.
"When a liaison with Russian villains takes a fatal turn, our hapless heroes must overcome their individual failings and raise their spy game in a race to prevent a catastrophic incident."
In the book, Dickie Bow, a one-time low-level informant of Jackson Lamb's, follows a mysterious character who he recognises from the old days on a train and then a bus. Bow ends up dead, apparently of natural causes, but Lamb knows something is up and uses his hopeless team to poke around in Cold War history.
Being long-buried espionage secrets, they naturally don't stay long-buried much longer, and soon there's a very real threat facing the present-day UK.
But whether that will translate to the screen is another question.
Author Mick Herron told Radio Times, "Slow Horses was very faithful to the plot of the original book. That's probably less true in the next one for a variety of reasons. All the big changes to plots have been made with either my happy agreement or, sometimes, at my suggestion."
That's it for the plot. In terms of the show's style, that might actually change significantly. Season one has an extremely unique look, it's gritty, grimy, and grotty – which is about as far from James Bond's glamour as it gets. And that's a very deliberate choice.
"The series plays with expectations," series cinematographer Danny Cohen said (via Below The Line). "For a spy show, it's actually quite grungy. I enjoyed bouncing between the high-end hub of the real MI5 and this low-rent Slough House. The way Mick Herron wrote the books, they're very detailed. He describes the actual Slough House building, which is in Aldersgate opposite the Barbican. So we couldn’t go wrong."
Combining interiors created on a sound-stage, with exteriors shot at Slough House itself, helped create the series' impactful environments. As did allowing the same director and director of photography to work together throughout the whole thing – which is unusual for a show like this. In TV, each episode usually has different writers, directors and cinematographers – Slow Horses' creative consistency is part of what makes it feel so cinematic, bringing it much closer to the way movies are put together.
"Part of the attraction for me was to be able to tell the whole story," Cohen said. "The ability to go through and pay attention to detail from beginning to end was great. It gave us a lot of control."
But don’t expect that specific look to carry over into season two… though it should return for series three.
"I did the entire first season," Cohen said. "Dead Lions, the second book, has a different director/DP combo. I'm going to do the third book, Real Tigers. We're starting prep on that in the beginning of May."
Keep your eye on Digital Spy for all the latest updates on both Dead Lions and Real Tigers.
Slow Horses season 2 trailer: Is there a Slow Horses season 2 trailer?
The very first teaser for Slow Horses season two has been officially shared by Apple – and it's got fans eagerly wanting more.
Revealing the sneak peek across social media, the streaming platform teased: "What will happen when Jackson Lamb and his crew actually have something to do?"
Hopefully we won't be waiting too long to find out.
Slow Horses is available to watch on Apple TV+.
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