\n\t\u201cSlow Horses\u201d is the unlikely seed of a franchise. Now in its fifth season, the Apple TV drama follows a gang of screw-up spies who are nobody\u2019s idea of the Avengers, led by Gary Oldman\u2019s irascible, flatulent Jackson Lamb. But \u201cSlow Horses\u201d has grown over time into an Emmy-winning hit, joining a select roster of Apple shows \u2014 like \u201cSeverance\u201d and \u201cThe Studio\u201d \u2014 to break out of the streamer\u2019s walled garden and enter the broader culture. With ample source material in British crime author Mick Herron\u2019s Slough House series, now at nine full-length books and counting, \u201cSlow Horses\u201d can continue for years if the principals like. But Herron is prolific, and Apple isn\u2019t content to stop there.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cDown Cemetery Road<\/a>\u201d is an adaptation of Herron\u2019s debut novel, itself the start of a four-book series that could serve as a road map for future seasons if all goes well. Developed by \u201cSlow Horses\u201d writer (and \u201cPeppa Pig\u201d voice actor!) Morwenna Banks, \u201cDown Cemetery Road\u201d shares some recognizable DNA with its sibling show, despite swapping central London for sleepy Oxford. In a rare TV role, Emma Thompson<\/a> plays private investigator Zo\u00eb Boehm, a misanthrope who combines Lamb\u2019s abrasive bedside manner with the androgynous style of Diana Taverner, the \u201cSlow Horses\u201d intelligence chief played with chilly hauteur by Kristin Scott Thomas. When art conservator Sarah (Ruth Wilson) comes to Zo\u00eb and her husband Joe (Adam Godley) \u2014 her partner in business and in life \u2014 with a missing child to find, both women get caught up in a mys- tery that\u2019s far more than they bargained for.<\/p>\n \n\tThe child in question is not Sarah\u2019s own, or even one she knows. In fact, \u201cDown Cemetery Road\u201d takes an entire episode to set up its story and connect its main characters, precisely because said protagonists aren\u2019t policemen, MI5 agents or other emissaries of the state. These figures exist in \u201cDown Cemetery Road\u201d as the other side of the cover-up Zo\u00eb and Sarah stumble on, and in true Herron fashion, the pair of bureaucrats (Adeel Akhtar and Darren Boyd) come off just as amateurish as their pursuers. When an explosion goes off mid-dinner party near the posh Oxford home Sarah shares with her banker husband Mark (Tom Riley), killing two people and landing a young girl in the hospital, these sniveling functionaries scramble to contain the damage while Sarah sticks her nose where it doesn\u2019t belong.<\/p>\n \n\tThe question of why Sarah seems so eager to blow up what Zo\u00eb derisively calls her \u201cFarrow & Ball life\u201d for the sake of a stranger is what animates Wilson\u2019s frantic, increasingly on-tilt performance. As the plot gets more focused, pitting Sarah and Zo\u00eb against a fearsome assassin named Amos (Fehinti Balogun) and his feckless handlers, Sarah gets less and less centered \u2014 until she\u2019s close to fully unraveling. Zo\u00eb deals with her emotions \u2014 and due to a major twist that ends the premiere and kicks off the season in earnest, she\u2019s got plenty to deal with \u2014 in the opposite way, repressing them beneath the snappy assertiveness Thompson does so well and throwing herself into the task at hand. Wilson and Thomp- son share relatively few scenes until the final stretch of episodes; \u201cDown Cemetery Road\u201d treats their combative chemistry like a treat to be doled out selectively.<\/p>\n \n\tAt eight episodes, \u201cDown Cemetery Road\u201d lacks the drum-tight concision that makes \u201cSlow Horses\u201d such an addictive watch. But the show shares enough positive qualities with its predecessor, from a mordant wit to some riveting action once things heat up, that \u201cSlow Horses\u201d fans will find plenty to tide them over between seasons. And with two stars captured on location amid gown-clad dons and grassy quads, \u201cDown Cemetery Road\u201d has a distinct terroir of its own. It\u2019s only a few dozen miles, but it turns out the \u201cSlow Horses\u201d sensibility can travel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSlow Horses\u201d is the unlikely seed of a franchise. 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