'Slow Horses' Season 6 Trailer Breakdown 

The popular spy thriller series on AppleTV, Slow Horses, is set to return for yet another explosive season very soon, and the trailer already sets up a very interesting premise. Things are going to get extremely personal this time around, while it is also confirmed that we’ll get to meet a number of new characters, and many more old ones. Here’s a quick breakdown of the Slow Horses season 6 trailer, and the possibilities it hints at.

Spoiler Alert

What is season 6 going to be about?

Adapted from two of Mick Herron’s novels, Joe Country and Slough House, the 6th season of Slow Horses is going to be all about the very department of disgraced MI5 agents being in trouble. As the beginning of the trailer confirms, Jackson Lamb is really worried and irritated by the fact that people who once worked at the Slough House at some point of their career are suddenly turning up dead. Lamb’s frustration is at such a peak that he has sneaked into Diana Taverner’s house to discuss the matter. Like the clever diplomat that she is, Diana tries to play down the incidents, stating that the recent deaths of the individuals that Lamb is talking about has nothing to do with the fact that they were once Slow Horses, but he is obviously not convinced.

In fact, someone is indeed on the prowl, targeting people who are current or ex members of the Slough House, with a man being burned to death inside a shipping container. Lamb argues that it is supremely difficult for anyone to get themselves ‘accidentally’ trapped inside a shipping container, and he absolutely does not believe that the death is a coincidence. Instead, he believes that Diana and her habit of crossing people might have something to do with the matter. As the trailer progresses, it becomes all the more evident that there is literally a list that the killers are keeping, striking off past and present members of the Slough House one after another, for some vengeful reason.

Based on the synopses of the novels from which the season has been adapted, the MI5 misfits are in some serious trouble, with Slough House being entirely about Slow Horses getting picked off and killed by a mysterious foe one after another. Plus, there’s also a personal angle to it, as the novel is supposedly about River Cartwright’s personal fight with the ghosts of his past. Therefore, when a scene in the trailer has the assassins discuss whom to target next, and the name of River comes up, we already know that the central character will once again have to save himself, while he will surely try to be the hero and save others, only to create more problems for his team.

Who are the antagonists this time?

Although we see the faces of the man and woman who have been tracking down members of the Slough House and killing them, their identities are obviously not revealed. Who this group is, what their exact intentions are, and whether anyone else has a hand in the murders are going to be the key questions throughout the season. But the trailer seems to already suggest that the authorities, and Diana Taverner herself, might indirectly be involved. Firstly, Lamb suspects that Diana might have messed with someone in the recent past, because of which his operatives are now getting killed. After all, Lamb is hardly ever wrong about the theories that he discusses with others, and so Diana’s past might be linked with the case.

Diana is seen meeting with Peter Judd, who had played a sinister role in the events of last season as well. Perhaps he is once again involved in the plot, and Diana will again have to sort things out with him first. Lamb will also be willing to help her, but he wants her to listen to him and follow his instructions, which will definitely be a difficult task, owing to the feelings of animosity between the two of them. Towards the end of the trailer, the head of the Dogs tactical unit, Emma Flyte, asks Diana if she is willing to burn down a city just to save face, to which the MI5 Director honestly admits that she is ready to do so depending on the city. Diana does not mind taking difficult decisions if she feels that the greater good will be served by doing so, and she might, after all, know more about the witch-hunt against the Slow Horses than she is revealing.

Who are the old and new faces we’ll get to see this season?

Slow Horses season 6 trailer confirms that most of the regular characters are going to be a part of this presentation, and that there will also be quite a few individuals who had been Slough House agents in the previous seasons. With the agents being targeted and killed one after another, Jackson Lamb gets all of them together at a safehouse. This means we’ll get to see multiple Slow Horses from present and past seasons together, which honestly sounds like a recipe for disaster, since most of them don’t like to work together. Importantly, Louisa Guy is going to make a return, despite having resigned from the Slough House, and possibly from MI5. As she herself admits in the trailer, she has not been in touch with anyone from the agency in the past several months. Therefore, she believes that she is not in any danger. However, Catherine and the others refuse to let her be, with the assassins running loose in London, and so Louisa is also brought to the safehouse, mostly against her will. There is one more familiar face who will make a return this season, as River’s devilish biological father, Frank Harkness, is going to be back, apparently to do ‘business.’ We see Frank choke a man to death, and so whether he is going to be an antagonist or he’ll actually choose to protect his son from danger will be interesting to see.

What does the shocking twist at the end mean?

At the very end of the Slow Horses season 6 trailer, Jackson Lamb talks to Catherine about how all spies must have faked their own deaths at some point in their lives. This seems to be a trick Lamb wants to use to protect his agents from the assassins, by making them fake their own deaths and lay low until the perpetrators are finally caught. He might even set a trap for the killers in this manner. But what’s shocking is the emergence of Sidonie ‘Sid’ Baker at the very end. Sid is the same Slough House agent whom River had developed feelings for way back in Slow Horses season 1, and who had supposedly been killed. But now it is confirmed that Sid had faked her own death, surely with the help of Lamb and other higher-ups. Sid is perhaps now an accomplished MI5 agent, but has to regroup with her old coworkers because of the assassins. Sid is seen greeting River, which means that we’ll possibly get to see at least flashes of their old dynamics. Whether they explore romantic possibilities is a different question, but River will at least demand answers from Sid, which will be thoroughly entertaining as well.

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