Slow Horses
Failure's Contagious
TV Flash files “Failure's Contagious” as the hour the catalog opens — Slow Horses (2022–present) on Apple TV+, season 1, episode 1, aired 2022-04-01, 53 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E01: listed hour 1 of 36 in the Slow Horses guide, first listed hour of season 1. It aired 2022-04-01 (53 min). No earlier hour is listed in this guide. Next is “Work Drinks” (S01E02).
April 2022 Apple start. Two-episode door, then weekly. The pilot sells exile, not a gadget demo.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
River Cartwright is ousted from MI5 and finds himself in a place worse than purgatory: Slough House, dumping ground for failed spies.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Failure's Contagious sit in the Slow Horses guide?
S01E01 is listed hour 1 of 36 — first listed hour of season 1, season 1 episode 1.
When did Slow Horses S01E01 air?
Failure's Contagious aired 2022-04-01 and is listed at 53 minutes.
Where should I start Slow Horses?
Season 1, episode 1 — “Failure’s Contagious.” Each season is a new file, but the office politics and Lamb’s gravity only make sense if you start at Slough House’s front door.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch it as Apple’s anti-launch: six-episode spy files, Oldman as a budget-line with teeth, and weekly tradecraft that never needed a Top 10 chyron. The rain is the prestige. The homepage still pretends otherwise, loudly.
Quiet Friday is how most spy shows die. Slow Horses did the opposite trick: it arrived on Apple TV+ in April 2022 like a mid-budget apology, then became the platform’s stealth prestige engine by refusing to dress like one. No superhero cape. No simultaneous-global fireworks. Just Slough House, a dumping ground for MI5 washouts, and Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb — flatulent, cheap-suited, tactically lethal — as the anti-key-art. Rex will call this “real television” because it looks like rain. The confidential version…
Filed against
- Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb
Gary Oldman slums gloriously as Jackson Lamb on Slow Horses — disheveled spy boss, lethal mind, better dialogue than the glamorous services. Late-career Apple prestige that critics treat like a secret club. TV Flash calls it the stealth…
- Jack Lowden as River Cartwright
Jack Lowden’s River Cartwright is Slow Horses as the spy the glamorous services would still try to save — bruised competence inside Apple’s stealth prestige winner. Gary Oldman’s late-career heat is the poster; River is the error that…
- Kristin Scott Thomas as Diana Taverner
Kristin Scott Thomas’s Diana Taverner is Slow Horses’ shiny MI5 floor — the service the washouts were exiled from, Apple stealth prestige, rain as the look. Gary Oldman as anti-key-art; she is the building that still has a budget line. On…
- Saskia Reeves as Catherine Standish
Saskia Reeves’s Catherine Standish is Slow Horses’ office weather — Apple’s spy rejects, tradecraft that refuses to look like a launch, and the rare streaming title that got better by staying weekly and damp. On TV Flash she is the…
- Rosalind Eleazar as Louisa Guy
Rosalind Eleazar’s Louisa Guy is Slow Horses’ field competence in the rain — MI5 washouts, book-to-season tradecraft, Apple’s stealth prestige engine that refused to dress like a launch. Gary Oldman is the anti-key-art. TV Flash watches…
- Christopher Chung as Roddy Ho
Christopher Chung’s Roddy Ho is Slow Horses’ tech narcissist — Slough House’s self-declared genius with zero glamour and all the banter. Apple’s spy-reject ensemble thrives on his ego. TV Flash marks him as stealth prestige’s most…