{"id":628663,"date":"2026-10-12T21:10:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T21:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/628663\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T21:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T21:10:13","slug":"slow-horses-olivia-cooke-returns-as-sid-baker-in-season-6-of-the-apple-tv-mi5-spy-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/628663\/","title":{"rendered":"Slow Horses: Olivia Cooke returns as Sid Baker in season 6 of the Apple TV MI5 spy drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The last time we saw the character of Sid Baker in Slow Horses <\/a>she was most decidedly dead. To paraphrase another British TV hit, Monty Python\u2019s famous dead parrot sketch, Sid had ceased to be. She was an ex-spy. A bullet in the head will do that to you.<\/p>\n

The bullet hit her early in season one, broadcast in 2022, when she was on a case with her Slough House partner River Cartwright (Jack Lowden<\/a>). Was that some sexual tension we sensed between them? Why yes, it most definitely was, which made it all the more tragic when Sid got got. And so off Olivia Cooke went to make House of the Dragon<\/a>, achieve global fame and look back on Slow Horses as the streaming TV mega-hit that got away.<\/p>\n

Editor’s pick\"Hudson<\/a><\/p>\n

Yet viewers of the second episode of season six of Apple\u2019s British spy show were not mistaken: that very much was Sid Baker cropping up at the end, luring River to a safe house like the past four years had never happened. Readers of Mick Herron\u2019s source novels knew this was coming, but Olivia Cooke did not, at least not at first: when she was cast in early 2021, Cooke assumed that Slow Horses would be a one and done.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was devastated because I really got invested with River and Sid, but I knew that I was always going to get shot in the head and disappear. Which is a funny thing to know,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cDisappear\u201d is the key word there. Sid, it emerged, wasn\u2019t dead, she had just been put in an induced coma. Towards the end of series one it was revealed that MI5 had no record of anyone called \u201cSidonie Baker\u201d ever existing. In backstory, in Cooke\u2019s mind at least, \u201cthere was an intense rehabilitation process where she had to learn to talk and walk again. She made a miraculous recovery!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"OliviaOlivia Cooke and Jack Lowden in Slow Horses.Apple TV<\/p>\n

Further episodes of Slow Horses revealed that Sid had been a plant from MI5 boss Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) to keep an eye on River.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe years in the interim have been incredibly lonely for Sid, with a lack of autonomy as well,\u201d says Cooke, \u201cbecause she\u2019s been in this holding pattern with Taverner, not really knowing when she\u2019s going to be used, if she\u2019s going to be used again, or why she\u2019s being held in this certain location. Until she feels like someone is after her. And then the only person she can think of who she felt relatively safe with is River. That\u2019s why she goes hunting him down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SloughSlough House\u2019s Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung), Shirley Dander (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) and Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman). <\/p>\n

Between Sid 1.0 and 2.0 Slow Horses has galloped from strength to strength, even without one of its best characters. (In fairness, it seems to kill off a fan favourite almost every season). In the last three years the spy thriller has racked up 23 Emmy nominations, including three wins, and is regularly cited as one of the best shows on TV. Cooke, meanwhile, has had to watch and wait.<\/p>\n

Editor’s pick\"Australian<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere were various availability checks over the years and then I was also badgering my agent because I remained such a massive fan of the show,\u201d she says. \u201cThe call came at the end of 2024 \u2014 \u2018They want to shoot with you and here\u2019s the story breakdown.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Sid reappears just as the slow horses \u2013 a group of washed-up MI5 agents sent to a backwater office to see out supposedly mothballed careers \u2014 find themselves being gunned down, one by one, by a pair of ruthless Russians (MyAnna Buring and Kyle Soller). Sid finds River before the Russians do, and together they head out on the run together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did it within five weeks,\u201d Cooke says. \u201cAll night shoots. It was just a delight. Adam [Randall, the show\u2019s Emmy award-winning director] would have to tell me on many occasions, \u2018Olivia! You\u2019re being chased \u2026 stop looking like you\u2019re enjoying it!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooke\u2019s return was complicated by three things. First, writer Mick Herron<\/a> had to resurrect Sid in his stories (which he duly did in the 2021 book Slough House). Second, the TV series had to catch up with Herron\u2019s books \u2013 this sixth season is based on his sixth and seventh books, Joe Country and Slough House). And finally, Cooke had to find time to film it \u2013 a lead role in HBO\u2019s swords and sorcery behemoth House of the Dragon as Queen Alicent Hightower meant she was already a little busy.<\/p>\n

\"JackJack Lowden as River Cartwright and Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb in Slow Horses, <\/p>\n

\u201cI remember seeing Jack [Lowden] or Saskia [Reeves, who plays Catherine Standish] over the years, and they\u2019d be like, \u2018When are you coming back? You know, you are coming back, right \u2026 you\u2019re in the books! We\u2019re waiting for you \u2013 don\u2019t let dragons get in the way! Don\u2019t get too big for us!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Editor’s pick\"This<\/a><\/p>\n

That was never going to happen. Cooke is about as down to earth a screen star as you could wish to meet (she even asks for permission to take her shoes off and put her feet on her own sofa during our Zoom call).<\/p>\n

\u201cI just said, \u2018Are you joking me? I\u2019m absolutely desperate to come back.\u2019 I\u2019ve been what the kids would call \u2018bread crumbed\u2019 for the past four years [giving someone sporadic, low-effort attention to keep them interested without ever intending to commit] \u2013 while also watching as a fan and being green with envy that everyone\u2019s having such a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sid Baker is a fan favourite not least because she was, and now is again, a small shaft of light in Slough House\u2019s roster of embittered doom-mongers. Cooke likes the role for the same reason.<\/p>\n

\"OliviaOlivia Cooke enjoys the \u201cmild bullying\u201d that goes on between her character Sid Baker and that of Jack Lowden\u2019s River Cartwright.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tend to play very morally complicated and depressed characters. Whereas there is an effervescence with Sid that I really love,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s such a nice quality to sort of shine through the prism of myself \u2013 not to be all Daniel Day-Lewis, but you are affected by what you play. It does get to you after a while and so playing Sid and having this really fun, sparkly relationship with River is just a joy. Let\u2019s just say that the veil is very thin \u2013 I don\u2019t think she\u2019s too far away from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As that suggests, Sid works best as one half of a double-act. Some of season six\u2019s best moments are in Sid\/River two-handers, both of them ripping it out of the other one, no matter how close peril is to hand.<\/p>\n

Editor’s pick\"Richard<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cJack [Lowden] and I have always had that vibe where we do just take the piss out of each other,\u201d Cooke says, laughing. \u201cThat has been set from day one. Initially, the scripts enhanced that dynamic. Now it has evolved into \u2026 mild bullying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who does most of the bullying? \u201cMaybe I bully him a bit more, but it\u2019s also that British humour that I think the rest of the world loves so much. Everything mean and nasty is said with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge and we sort of get away with it. We can\u2019t say what we mean, and we don\u2019t really give eye contact, but being rude about each other is our way of showing love.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s cracked the code \u2013 it is that world-weary, black-as-pitch comedy that lifts Slow Horses above most espionage dramas, and most other drama on TV. And with the resurrection of Sidonie Baker, the character who Gary Oldman\u2019s Jackson Lamb said was the only one of the team who isn\u2019t \u201ccomplete shit\u201d, the show is right back on form.<\/p>\n

Slow Horses (season six) is now streaming on Apple TV.<\/p>\n

Want more TV? We\u2019ve got you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-628663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}