The sixth season of Slow Horses is off to a galloping start – but not everyone is so happy with how the series is progressing.
Apple TV’s hit spy drama returned for its latest outing last month, with new episodes being released weekly until 21 October.
All eyes were on this new batch of episodes, not only because this is the first series without long-time showrunner Will Smith – but also because of its star Jack Lowden, who has emerged as the James Bond frontrunner in recent weeks.
Fans are recovering from a shocking moment in episode four, which saw the death of a fan-favourite character. And from the sounds of it, the actor who plays him is still reeling too.
*** Spoilers ahead for season six, episode four***
Episode four premiered on Wednesday (7 October), and culminated in a service station toilet knife fight that saw JK Coe stabbed to death.
The moment came as a huge shock to viewers – though not to readers of Mick Herron’s Slough House books on which the series is based.
Actor Tom Brooke was introduced as Coe in season four of Slow Horses, which aired in 2024, and quickly became a fan-favourite for his expert skills and his deadpan expression.
Speaking to Town & Country, the actor admitted to having mixed feelings over his character’s demise. “I thought I was all right about [the death] until I picked up Clown Town [the first novel in the Slough House novel series not to feature Coe] at the airport and I read two pages of it,” he recalled.
“I wouldn’t want to say I burst into tears, but I was like, ‘I can’t read this. I cannot engage with this world again because I’m not part of it.’ And then I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I’m not alright about it.’”
Brooke, 46, had made peace with his character’s death before even signing on to the show. “I read the books when I got the job, and the job was an offer of a three-season contract. So that was fine, but it was such a good death scene in the book that it was the first thing I talked about with the showrunner,” he said. “And I was like, ‘As long as we’re heading to that and we get to do that, this is great.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, we will in a couple of years.’”
The actor, who has also starred in Empire of Light (2022) and The Boat That Rocked (2009), went on to share that the death scene was rewritten after he had expressed concerns to the show’s creative team about making it too different from the book.
“It was just the mundaneness of the [death scene] in the book [that appealed to me],” he said. “He talks about mortgages with the mercenary, how to get a mortgage self-employed, all of this sort of stuff [in the book],” he said.
“And it struck me as there’s such a logic to it that is so Coe because it’s so crazy. No one else would do it, but he’s interested. And at this stage where we see him, he wants to talk – and that’s the sad thing, but he’s finally got to a place where he’s wanting to engage with people, and that’s the end of him.”
Season six is full of twists and turns, with these new episodes also seeing the return of Sid Baker, the sharp-witted MI5 agent (played by Olivia Cooke) who fans thought had seen the last of in season one.
The returning cast includes Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden, Christopher Chung, Kristen Scott Thomas, Saskia Reeves, Rosalind Eleazar, Joanna Scanlan, and Aimee-Ffion Edwards.
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