Slow Horses Series 2: Dead Lions

A death at the edge of the intelligence world opens Series 2, and Jackson Lamb refuses to accept that an old colleague can be disposed of with a tidy explanation. The investigation brings Cold War memory into present-day London, linking the men who once fought secret battles to younger officers who know the stories largely through other people’s accounts. What looks like a historical curiosity quickly becomes an immediate risk.

The series splits its attention between River Cartwright’s undercover work and a private security assignment accepted by Min Harper and Louisa Guy. That separation creates productive tension. Different members of the same office are chasing different versions of significance, with no guarantee that the apparent opportunity is the real operation. Lamb’s task is partly to find the threat and partly to persuade his own people to recognise that their assignments may be connected.

There is more room here for the team as an ensemble. Shirley Dander and Marcus Longridge become part of the office, Catherine Standish’s ability to read a situation grows more important, and Roddy Ho’s technical confidence encounters information designed to mislead him. The humour remains sharp, but the stakes feel closer to home. Being excluded from the Service’s preferred account of itself does not make anybody immune to the damage its old business can still inflict.

The books and the adaptation

Series 2 adapts Dead Lions, the second Slough House novel. Its defining ingredients are the death that draws Lamb into an investigation, the possibility of Russian sleeper agents and a present-day operation shaped by earlier betrayals. The title invites a question about what has really stayed dead: an old network, an old grudge or the institution’s preferred explanation.

Television distributes these elements across six episodes and uses the contrast between London and Upshott to keep the investigations visually distinct. River’s country assignment feels deceptively open and sociable, while the London work involves private meetings, security arrangements and a controlled approach to a wealthy dissident. Both strands reward careful attention to how people explain their presence rather than merely whether they appear dangerous.

The adaptation is particularly interesting when a character believes an impressive story. River is vulnerable to an assignment that finally treats him as useful; Webb is susceptible to the status attached to a high-level meeting. Lamb distrusts those attractions because he knows how often importance is manufactured. Readers can compare the novel’s treatment of the operation with the screen version’s choices about pacing, action and the balance between its two investigations. The episode guides discuss particular changes at the point where they become relevant, preserving the surprises for anybody arriving at the book fresh.

Main and guest cast

Oldman’s Lamb has a personal investment in the opening death, giving his habitual refusal to cooperate a different weight. Lowden’s River gets the undercover role he has wanted, with Jonathan Pryce’s David Cartwright contributing the history behind his suspicions. Rosalind Eleazar’s Louisa and Dustin Demri-Burns’s Min pursue work that seems to offer a way out of routine, while Saskia Reeves’s Catherine proves useful in rooms where force would achieve very little.

Aimee-Ffion Edwards plays Shirley Dander and Kadiff Kirwan plays Marcus Longridge, additions whose energy and practical skills change the team’s rhythm. Christopher Chung returns as Roddy, and Freddie Fox’s James Webb again mixes genuine access with spectacular self-regard. The guest story introduces Rade Šerbedžija as Nikolai Katinsky, connecting the new investigation with questions that reach far beyond a recruit’s office rivalry. The Upshott household brings Kelly, Duncan and Alex Tropper into River’s investigation, while Arkady Pashkin’s entourage supplies the London security assignment with its own warning signs.

Episodes and release dates

Series 2 premiered with two episodes on 2 December 2022 and concluded on 30 December. The six titles trace a story moving from an unexplained death towards an operation with several competing objectives. Early episodes encourage viewers to separate the country and city assignments before later events make that division harder to maintain.

The one-line summaries below are intended as a spoiler-free route through the series. For the mechanics of each discovery, use the linked episode page and open its plot recap when ready. This is a season in which a small discrepancy can matter as much as a chase: a moved possession, an implausible explanation or a missing piece of surveillance changes the meaning of an apparently simple encounter.

Last Stop · 2022-12-02. An old intelligence connection brings a new case to Lamb.

From Upshott With Love · 2022-12-02. River follows a trail to a village while colleagues take on an outside assignment.

Drinking Games · 2022-12-09. Suspicion deepens as apparently separate investigations begin to overlap.

Cicada · 2022-12-16. The team pursues evidence while the threat gathers momentum.

Boardroom Politics · 2022-12-23. A tightening deadline forces the agents to act on what they have learned.

Old Scores · 2022-12-30. Slough House confronts the operation and its lasting consequences.

Filming locations

Upshott gives River’s assignment a country-village setting, and Castle Combe supplies the recognised filming location in the Cotswolds. Its role in the story depends on the contrast between a welcoming exterior and a household that River has been sent to examine. The village is central to the Series 2 location trail rather than a general countryside substitute attached to every episode.

Back in London, the Aldersgate Street office frontage remains the team’s base, while the Glasshouse assignment shifts attention to height, access controls and the management of a supposedly prestigious meeting. The show uses that vertical setting differently from Slough House’s cramped working spaces. A filming-location visit works best when those distinctions are kept in mind: the real village streets offer one kind of walk, while the London guide connects street-level sites that can be combined more readily on foot.

Reception and awards

The Guardian described Series 2 as a cut above, praising its espionage and comedy. The short judgement fits a season whose complications work through behaviour as well as information. People want to be taken seriously, want to avenge a loss or want an apparently dull investigation to justify the years they spent inside the Service.

What distinguishes this season is its interest in the survival of old loyalties. The Cold War is not treated as an orderly historical compartment that the present can close. Lamb’s response to Dickie Bow and the team’s response to Min both make professional procedure collide with obligations that cannot be reduced to an instruction. The humour makes those collisions uncomfortable without emptying them of feeling.

How the series ends

Read the book first?

Choose Dead Lions before watching if the appeal is a densely connected operation and the gradual reinterpretation of old intelligence stories. Reading makes it easier to pause over a name or a claim that might otherwise pass quickly in conversation. Herron’s attention to professional vanity also provides a different route into characters who can be amusing on screen while making disastrous decisions.

Choose television first if you want the geography of the two assignments to remain immediately clear. The country household and the city meeting give the season a useful visual structure. Returning to the novel afterwards lets you compare not only what changes, but what each medium chooses to make conspicuous. Either way, Series 1 is the better starting point for the relationships between Min and Louisa, Lamb and Catherine, and River and his grandfather.