Slow Horses, with its ragtag bunch of loser spies sent to Slough House to live out their days, is back and this fourth season's neat six-part espionage tale is the most closely connected to Jackson Lamb's (Gary Oldman) joes.
The finale shootout of the last season racked up a body count that even the scheming Diana Taverner (Kristen Scott Thomas) would have struggled to cover up had she so pleased. That colossal MI5 fiasco has shaken things up going into this season of the Apple TV+ show, with a new cast of characters brought in to rehab the Park's image.
But when there's a London terror attack in the season's opening scene, that programme of renewal comes up against the Service's need to survive once it becomes apparent the criminals have a connection to Slough House.
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Slow Horses has never been a show that is afraid to kill off its spies – ever since the lovely Min Harper went gently into that good night – or sunset them from the Service.
But with season four, the show has had its biggest cast switcheroo so far. Freddie Fox's fantastic greaseball Spider somehow survived Russian spies, but couldn't cut it against an SUV window.
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Gone too is resident Park psychopath and Head of the Dogs Duffy (Chris Reilly), alongside his hilariously deranged lackey Hobbs (Chris Coghill), who bit the dust in a Home Alone-style booby-trapped house.
Perhaps knowing viewers would never forgive Duffy for taking out the impossibly sweet archive dweeb Douglas (Sion Daniel Young), there's a new Head of the Dogs this season. Emma Flyte (Ruth Bradley) is an altogether different prospect to the dim but thuggish Duffy and takes some getting used to, particularly when she makes the naïve mistake of taking Lamb at his word.
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It's all change higher up in the Park too, with Ingrid Tierney (Sophie Okonedo) given the boot after the Footprint document leaked. The loss of Taverner and Tierney's brilliant frenemy dynamic could only be manageable if another came in its stead.
Enter Claude Whelan, played by James Callis (Bridget Jones's one-hit-wonder bestie) as the new First Desk. He has a lot of big talk about changing the place, but is extremely out of his depth, leaving the unflappable Taverner and her new pixie cut in the nightmare situation of being First Desk in everything but name.
Over at Slough House, Joanna Scanlan is trying to do Catherine Standish's (Saskia Reeves) job and certainly reminds you of the show's The Thick of It pedigree with showrunner Will Smith. But fear not, Standish is still in the mix from the sidelines.
This is where Slow Horses has struck the right balance between the never-ending churn of new spies and maintaining enough of the core cast so it doesn't feel like we've stepped into a different world entirely.
While change is afoot in most corners of the London espionage world, some cycles stay the same. River (Jack Lowden) still has a hero complex, runs through tube stations shoving civilians aside and is put through the wringer, after spending last season looking like someone en route to A&E. Diana is still striving from Second Desk, despite all her attempts to take the top job. Lamb still looks filthy.
Evidence that the show has perfectly calibrated its shifting character patterns is found this season in David Cartwright (Jonathan Pryce), who is painfully going senile. River can suddenly no longer rely on his espionage expertise, in another instance of the show resisting certain beats that could become repetitive.
So while we will never get over the wrong place, wrong time loss of Min – and there's even more heartbreak ahead in season four – for a show predicated on its slowness, it ushers in new characters with such paced skill, it hasn't lost us as certain favourites head out into the cold.
Slow Horses returns to Apple TV+ for season 4 on September 4.
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Previously Deputy TV Editor at Digital Spy and, before that, a TV Reporter at The Mirror, Rebecca can now be found crafting expert analysis of the TV landscape, when she's not talking on the BBC or Times Radio about everything from the latest season of Bridgerton or The White Lotus to whatever chaos is unfolding in the various Love Island villas. When she's not bingeing a boxset, in-the-wild sightings of Rebecca have included stints on the National TV Awards and BAFTAs red carpets, and post-match video explainers of the reality TV we're all watching.
