Few Americans know the fascinating meaning of the iconic ice cream brand’s name.
I usually wait until someone’s had a spoonful or two before casually asking “You know what Häagen-Dazs means, right?”
Some people will pause and give it lots of thought, as if they knew what it meant at one point and the memory is almost within grasp if the right synapse fires.
Others will fabulate an explanation, confidently asserting that Häagen-Dazs is German, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish or Icelandic. The umlaut conjures up something vaguely Nordic when removed from the context of heavy metal bands, which seem to be obsessed with sticking it on as many letters as possible.
“Did you see Ülträŝláügĥʻtër Dööm at Black MëtälFëst, dude? They rocked out!”
From their new album, “Umlauts of Eternal Rock,” now available wherever fine products are sold.
Some people will just shrug and fess up to ignorance.
Depending on how invested the person is, I might invent something absurd before revealing the truth.
“Yeah, it’s German for ‘the moment when frosted perfection settles amicably upon your tastebuds,’” because we all love how German has words for some of the most obscure situations and feelings.
But nothing beats the truth.
Häagen-Dazs means absolutely nothing. It’s nonsense.
The now-famous ice cream brand’s founder, a Polish immigrant named Reuben Mattus, made the word up when he launched the business in 1960. He slapped an umlaut on it and added a nonsensical “zs” to give it an exotic, vaguely Danish connotation.
People won’t pay a premium for just any ice cream, but toss an umlaut in the name and claim it’s Danish, and suddenly customers are paying $3 or $4 more for a tub half the size, convinced that the Danes must know something about ice cream because their country is cold.
Score one for branding ingenuity and deduct another point from the American education system!
Sincerely,
Your friends at Pàin In The Büd
What’s a completely useless fact you love sharing?
Based on the mega-popular book franchise, expectations were high for Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest.
When reviewers accuse you of ruining childhood memories and start invoking all-time pop culture lows like Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, you know you’re in trouble.
I winced when I opened Steam on Friday and saw the newly-released Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest had an abysmal “Mostly Negative” aggregate score on Steam. Since then the reviews have marginally improved, if you can call it improvement, with only 47 percent of players recommending the game for a “Mixed” rating, but most of the muted enthusiasm comes from the game’s intellectual property, not its production values, game loop or mechanics.
One reviewer called the narrative “diabolically bad,” saying the game’s story writers apparently paid little attention to the bestselling books it’s based on. Almost every review mentioned disappointment with the game’s cat-creation system, with Warrior Cats limiting users to a series of pre-determined names and strange coat colors that supposedly correspond to your character’s capabilities.
That means if players want to make their own cats in the game, they’re out of luck, and they have to choose between a cat who they favor aesthetically and one who has the attributes they want.
A screenshot showing the game’s turn-based combat system, which superficially resembles the systems used in games like Clair Obscure and old-school JRPGs.
“I would’ve hated this as a kid as much as I do now. Playing Warriors on the playground by myself was more fun than this,” one reviewer wrote. “At least I had my imagination. Here, you have a buggy game with completely unintuitive mechanics, randomly generated clan cats that don’t matter to the story or to your story, tiny field mice that attack you, a lack of swimming ability in Riverclan, repetitive fight mechanics, invisible walls abound in an open world, and a storyline that is beyond paper thin. I wrote Warriors dialogue on Proboards when I was 8 that [were] better than anything in this game.”
“[S]uch a slog to get through; awful camera controls, repetitive quests, and a nonsensical story,” another wrote. The ending for the player’s chosen clan was “so absurd and out of nowhere I was dying from laughter from how bad it was.”
It’s worth noting that most of the negative reviews were from players who spent significant time in the game, enough to provide a fair assessment of what the game has to offer. The reviews PITB sampled were from players who had mostly between seven and 14 hours in-game.
Not everyone was down on the game. Most, including those who didn’t like the story or mechanics, praised the visuals, and a sizable minority of players wrote about how much they enjoyed playing a game set in a universe that was important in their childhood. Nostalgia did a lot of the heavy lifting in positive reviews.
Reviews from game critics were also mixed, although it’s worth noting there aren’t enough reviews for a consensus on Metacritic yet.
The visuals got a lot of love from reviewers, who praised the heavily stylized art direction and the environments, which include familiar locations from the books.
Steam shows the amount of in-game time under reviews so other players can get a sense of how much the individual reviewers stuck with games. The reviews show time played as of the moment of the review and total time played, so you can also see if a positive review preceded repeated plays. In a narrative game like Warrior Cats, 10 to 15 hours’ worth of content is about expected for a playthrough, while players in some games – open world exploration, survival, strategy, multiplayer – can amass hundreds of hours or more over years, attesting to a game’s replay value and the amount of content included.
Steam review aggregates are broken down into Overwhelmingly Positive for games praised by 95 percent of players or more, Very Positive for games reviewed favorably by at least 80 percent of players, Positive for games that have the same ratio of favorable reviews but fewer total reviews, Mostly Positive for games favored by 70 to 79 percent of players, and Mixed for games that meet the approval of between 40 and 69 percent.
The worst are Negative, Very Negative and Overwhelmingly Negative, reserved for games that are total disasters without redeeming qualities. Those games are often unfinished, abandoned by their developers, or are blatant cash-grabs.
David Mitchell’s twist on the familiar haunted house story is an unsettling page-turner, perfect for a chilly October night.
Slade House isn’t your typical David Mitchell novel.
For one thing, it’s a slim volume, about 240 pages depending on the format and edition. You can mainline it in four or five hours, and it’s such a page-turner that many people have.
It’s not concerned with making any particularly grand statements about life and is engineered for one goal – to entertain the reader with a satisfyingly spooky story.
Slade House is the name of the mansion at the heart of the book, a grand aristocratic structure that once sat on a sizeable estate but is now crammed between houses and shops in a working-class neighborhood of London. It’s accessible by walking down a shabby, narrow alley fronted by a pub called The Fox and the Hounds. The gloomy lane takes a turn, and if you know precisely where to look, there’s a slim iron door leading to something unexpected in such a neighborhood – a verdant, picturesque garden surrounding a small pond. A path winds through the garden and under a series of trestles, leading to the ivy-choked home sitting on the crest of a low hill.
Most interestingly, it exists for exactly one day every nine years, when someone is lured inside and is never seen again.
This is not Slade House, but Craigdarroch Castle, a Victorian-era Scottish baronial mansion in British Columbia, is very close to the image in my mind’s eye while reading the book.
Mitchell shows us Slade House through the eyes of its many victims: an awkward, autistic pre-teen boy who is enticed inside along with his mother. A police detective and wannabe lothario dispatched to investigate the house and the fate of people who have gone missing there over the decades. Members of a local university’s extracurricular paranormal research club who think they’re in for a ghost hunt only to find a debauched Halloween bash packed with undergrads. The journalist sister of one of the college students who went missing there in the last nine-year “cycle.”
And finally, a Canadian psychologist with a clinical interest in people who buy into conspiracy theories, stories of alien visitations and other strange phenomena.
To describe what each of them finds inside would be to spoil the novel and rob the narrative of its punch. Besides, nothing I can say could possibly do justice to the yarn Mitchell spins here.
What I can say is that Slade House reinvents itself so it appears to give its victims exactly what they want, and the forces behind the spectral structure aren’t there to play nice. I found myself thinking of their malevolent tricks and shuddering long after I finished the last chapter.
Since then it’s become something of a Halloween tradition to dive back in. I don’t read Slade House every year, and knowing how few books we read in our short lives even when we make a serious effort, I’d much rather push myself to discover new novelists and worlds.
Yet Slade House is the rare book that deserves and even demands to be read again. Not only is it an exceptionally well-crafted story, it’s got the same quality as films like The Big Lebowski when every time through the narrative yields new revelations and additional connections become apparent. It could be something as simple as a callback to a seemingly unimportant piece of dialog early in the book, or recognizing a certain character is someone you’ve met in a previous Mitchell novel making a cameo in this one.
Or it could mean finally recognizing a bit of symbolism that’s been staring you in the face the entire time, like the discovery of a dead cat in Slade Alley in the book’s opening pages. The feline in question is the legendary Moon Gray Cat, an entity that appears in almost every Mitchell novel at critical points. When the Moon Gray Cat shows up dead almost immediately in Slade House, that’s Mitchell signaling to the reader that there will be no magical help for the characters in this novel. They’re on their own. (Fellow cat lovers, please note: Mitchell is on record saying the Moon Gray Cat is not really dead, and in fact cannot be killed. He appeared in the very next Mitchell book, and I’m sure we’ll spot him rubbing up against a character or napping in the background during a key scene next time around as well. Viva la Moon Gray Cat!)
The first-print hardcover edition of Slade House, which was published in 2015.
As for the book, it’s something different built on the bones of the classic haunted house story. The horrors inside Slade House persist even when the home itself vanishes.
The police, for their part, think they’re spinning their wheels at the behest of jokesters. They know the disappearances are real, but every time someone goes missing not only are detectives unable to locate Slade House, they find it cannot exist. There’s simply not enough room in the jumble of buildings housing shops and flats. Satellite photos confirm what they can surmise from the ground, though municipal records do turn up a Slade House that formerly existed there until it was destroyed during a German bombing raid on London during World War II…
The detectives rationalize the disappearances. One family may have simply fled, leaving behind outstanding debts and complications in London and finding refuge with relatives in Canada. A woman who vanished half a century ago may have ditched her husband and ran off with her lover. There are plenty of reasons people abandon their lives, and maybe the fact that they were last seen entering Slade Alley is just coincidence.
Only one group of people have begun to assemble the facts, and those are the victims. “Pass it on,” the echo of a previous victim tells a person freshly lured into the phantasmagorical property at one point. The recipient doesn’t know it’s already too late for her, but if she can add to the small packet of information, perhaps some future target can be warned off before Slade House slips the handcuffs on.
The image of a grandfather clock and the ways we interpret time play a subtle but central element in the novel. Image modified in Photoshop from an original via Pexels
For his part, when Slade House was published in 2015, Mitchell took some fire from the literary establishment for taking a detour and deciding to play in a genre sandbox for a while. Some critics argued that his talents are too great to waste on lowly genre fare when he could be writing Serious Literature™.
I was proud of him when he made it clear to one interviewer that he doesn’t care. He had fun writing the novel and he hopes readers enjoy spending time in its odd little world. Besides, he argued, the idea that genre fiction is less worthy of attention is itself a flawed premise.
I wholeheartedly agree with that assessment, as well as Mitchell’s contention that genre fiction gives us a safe place to explore fantasies, ambitions and anxieties that would normally be dismissed as childish. Science fiction, one of my favorite genres, is often criticized on the aforementioned terms as if speculating on the very nature of our existence – and whether we share our vast universe with other sapient entities – is somehow out of bounds, and we should all aspire to the kind of writing favored by MFA factories.
Insisting that there is only one valid way to create is close-minded. Opening yourself to possibilities you haven’t grappled with is the precise opposite.
Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s been a few years since I last visited Slade House, and I have a date with a reality-shifting entity that wants to consume me, at least for four or five hours.
Open comments, open links! Plus, we talk about cat-friendly hotels, the recent report on contaminants in cat food, Mike Flanagan’s latest Stephen King adaptation, and more!
We’re gonna try something new this week and dedicate “Caturday” to links, off-topic discussions and anything you’d like to post about.
It’s a good opportunity to touch on stories that we didn’t get a chance to go in-depth on, talk about and recommend entertainment, and follow up on stories in the news.
If there’s anything we’ve missed, something you’d like to point out, or you just want to write about what a dashing and meowgnificent feline Bud is, you can do that here too. (And don’t forget to talk about your own cats!)
The Clean Label report on contaminants in cat food
Mmmm, slop!
Thanks to Candi A. for keeping us in the loop and posting the link to her friend’s assessment of the concerning findings about heavy metals, pesticides and other nasty stuff found in cat food.
In case you missed it, here’s the link Candi shared.
I have only been able to read it once and have not yet read the full report, so I’m going to refrain from adding anything yet. I need to see all the details and whether the brands I usually buy are included. I expect they will be, as Clean Label chose samples from the 100 most popular cat food brands sold in the US. (For our friends outside the states, there could be useful information as well. The big brands are corporate conglomerates with international reach, so brands sold in the US are likely sold under different names or slightly different packaging elsewhere.)
Of course I’m not an expert on feline nutrition either, so we should all decide what’s best for our cats based on what we know about them and the information we gain from reports and analysis.
I hope to revisit this in an in-depth post, hopefully with some input from veterinarians and experts on feline health.
Contractor work and staying at a pet friendly hotel
I won’t be able to use my bathroom overnight while a contractor puts in new floors, sink, etc., and my friend who feeds Bud while I’m away will have me, but not him. (I wonder why? It couldn’t have anything to do with him practicing some light mauling on her at least three times, would it?)
There’s also no way I’m gonna leave him here with an unfamiliar person, work noise and the uncertainty of not having me there to show him it’s all okay.
So it looks like I’m gonna stay at a pet-friendly hotel that I have verified as specifically cat-friendly as well. I’m going to get a disposable litter box, bring his bowls and some food, and I think he’ll be okay as long as he’s with me and I don’t leave him alone in an unfamiliar place. I’ll pick up dinner or order delivery, and I think we should be good.
But since there are plenty of cat experts here (that’s YOU!), including those of you who have dealt with this situation, I figured it’s a good idea to ask if there’s anything I haven’t considered or if you have advice for helping things go smoothly.
I think we have a good secure attachment thing going on. The earthquake about 18 months ago verified that — we woke up to the building shaking, Bud was sleeping on me, and he popped up his head to look at me like “Are we good here, Big Bud, or should I start running around screaming?”
I was actually proud of him for that, and for taking my word for it that everything was fine. Once he got reassurance from me, he relaxed and went back to sleep.
So I think that as long as I’m there with him, my fearless tiger companion will be okay.
Cats = happiness?
So, about that study: a research team looked at happiness indicators in 93 countries, as well as rates of cat ownership, toxoplasma gondii infection rates and other factors.
They found that having a cat or cats is linked to higher self-reported satisfaction with life.
It’s pretty wide-ranging, and the researchers themselves caution against drawing any hard conclusions from the data. However, they did note a few interesting points, including:
Toxoplasma gondii infection is higher in countries with fewer cats. This tracks with earlier studies that show even though t. gondii is heavily associated with cats in the popular imagination, felines are actually not the primary transmission vector. Other factors, like rodent infestations, as well as the quality of waste and sanitary infrastructure, are much more closely related to exposure and infection in people
The total number of estimated cats in a country is not associated with higher happiness levels, but the number of “owned” cats is. In other words, the link between cats and happiness seems to hinge on our personal relationships with cats, and not merely their presence. Countries overrun by strays, for example, do not have the same correlation
Speaking of correlation, that’s as far as this goes. The researchers note the data they have cannot prove causality. In other words, countries that have higher levels of cat adoption and ownership may be wealthier in general, and wealth — at least enough to free people from true poverty — is correlated with happiness. It could be that people who have more money are more likely to spend disposable income on little buddies. It does not mean you have to be wealthy by societal definitions, and it helps to remember how fortunate most of us in the first world are compared to the true poverty of the “global south”
Overall, the study’s authors conclude we need follow-up research to firmly establish a potential causal link between felines and greater satisfacfion in life.
Telegraph columnist Hannah Betts
If you’re skeptical of a causal link between cats and happiness, here’s a take from a Telegraph columnist who admittedly loves the slobbering subservience of dogs and detests the fact that feline affection must be earned. In fact, she questions whether feline affection actually exists.
Fair warning, she has an uncharitable view of our beloved house tigers and retrograde views on what their behaviors mean, but sometimes it’s helpful to understand why certain people don’t like our perfect little angels who can absolutely do no wrong. And yes, that’s sarcasm. I love Bud in spite of the fact that he can be a jerk at times, and maybe even a bit because of it, but it would be madness to claim cats don’t feel affection toward their bonded humans.
Influencers
Speaking of Jenner-Kardashians, I’m not sure if I missed this at the time or decided if it wasn’t worth getting upset over, but while I was just searching for Betts’ column to add the link, I found this story from seven months ago about widespread disgust with Khloe Kardashian for having her cats declawed.
That the Kardashians are a family concerned with little else besides fame and money is not news, but I am planning on posting about the effect of celebrities and influencers on pet trends in the near future, and whether it’s declawing, purchasing “exotic” wildlife like monkeys as pets or keeping entire menageries of neglected, miserable animals, like it or not there are a lot of people who think it’s okay to do things because the walking examples of botched plastic surgery they idolize have made the behavior popular.
Animals are the ones who suffer, and groups dedicated to their welfare fight uphill battles trying to correct misinformation/combat harmful trends spread by influencers. There’s gotta be a better way, including holding social media platforms accountable when they elect to ignore animal welfare concerns. A video does not have to involve direct violence inflicted on an animal for it to qualify as animal abuse, and it’s crucial people understand that.
One disturbing example is a Youtube video uploaded by a young woman who adopted an adorable baby macaque, then proceeded to mentally torture the poor animal. One video involved her repeatedly offering a bottle of milk to the baby only to yank it away at the last second, laughing as if her actions were pure comedic genius. The baby became so traumatized, she stopped eating. That IS animal abuse, even if some minimally-trained, ignorant moderator employed by Youtube does not agree. Social media operators are not the ultimate arbiters of morality, animal welfare, criminality, political speech or anything else, even when they’ve appointed themselves to those roles.
These are the same people who invite teenagers and pre-teens onto their platforms, employ psychologists to help them keep the kids hooked and doomscrolling all day, provide them with filters that do little besides undermine their self confidence, provide platforms that are practically custom-made to enable anonymous bullying, then absolve themselves of responsibility when the inevitable happens. They are the last people we should trust with deciding what is acceptable or moral.
Mike Flanagan’s ‘Carrie’
Amber Midthunder, a Native American actress, played a Comanche healer named Naru who wants to follow in her brother’s footsteps as a hunter in 2022’s “Prey.”
Which finally brings us to the brand new adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie, streaming now on Amazon.
I’m only a few episodes in so I can’t offer any major conclusions, but so far it seems to be everything we’ve come to expect from a Flanagan project — thoughtful, respectful of the source material while also giving it a modern makeover, and operating on a strong foundation of writing and acting.
It has a lot to say about bullying and the modern technologies that turbo charge the cruelty kids are capable of. Adults are hopelessly outgunned on the tech front, which makes foundational parenting more crucial than ever.
I’m especially happy to see Amber Midthunder in a major role after her exceptional performance in 2022’s Prey, and I’m really hoping we’ll see more of Cassandra Naud, who showed up briefly in one scene so far with a hint of more to come.
Cassandra Naud
Naud was awesome as the legitimately terrifying antagonist in Influencer and its sequel, Influencers, and she’s unmistakable thanks to the birthmark that dominates the right side of her face. She’s a fantastic actress and astonishingly beautiful, and in interviews she talks about her childhood decision not to have the birthmark removed because of potential complications. She came to see it as an advantage because it renders her unforgettable, but I think her work speaks itself these days.
Carrie was released this week, with all eight episodes available to stream at your pace. Frequent Flanagan collaborators Samantha Sloyan, Michael Trucco, Rahul Kohli, and Ruth Codd have returned, while Flanagan’s next project is an Exorcist sequel due early next year.
Thoughts? Questions? Links? Stories about your cats? Flattering notes about what a dapper furred fellow the Budster is? Leave ’em in the comments!
Unlike anything else on TV, Slow Horses expertly blends action, intrigue and wit for an unrelenting spy thriller.
Someone’s coming for the Slow Horses, and our heroes don’t have plot armor.
In our first review of Apple TV’s smash spy hit Slow Horses more than two and a half years ago, we called it the best thriller on TV and praised Gary Oldman’s turn as the surly codger Jackson Lamb, who captains an office of MI5’s worst screw-ups and delights in tormenting them.
Now in its sixth season, the espionage drama has never been better.
The show’s writers have perfected the art of cranking up tension while knowing when to cut it with dry humor, whether it’s Lamb’s biting sarcasm, agent River Cartwright’s annoying earnestness or the delusional confidence of Roddy Ho, the Slow Horses’ tech specialist who believes women are lining up to get a crack at him.
The last two seasons have seen the Horses dismantle a terror ring, get pulled into the ugliness of national politics, and face down an extraordinary manipulator with a serious grudge against the British.
James Callis and Kristen Scott Thomas play MI5’s bosses in the UK spy thriller. Credit: Apple TV
The sixth season is the deadliest yet, with an unidentified foe from the past systematically assassinating anyone who’s ever worked at Slough House, the Horses’ dilapidated, grubby headquarters.
They lock one former Horse in a shipping container full of accelerant and burn him alive, drown another in London’s canals, and stage the death of a third with a lethal gas before Lamb and his “losers” (his words) realize they’ve got targets on their backs. And that’s just the very beginning of the season.
All three assassinations are meant to look like accidents, but Lamb tells the Horses to go to ground. The show’s spies have occasionally reminded the audience there are two sets of rules: under Moscow rules, watch your back. Under London rules, cover your arse.
Lamb fears he and his agents are the sacrifice in a panicked MI5 attempt at arse-covering, meaning Moscow and London rules are now in play. The Slow Horses will get no help from “the park,” MI5’s headquarters, nor from any of its brass, who are likely in on the plot to stab Lamb and his spies in the back.
Oldman’s Jackson Lamb, whose rumpled, hygienically challenged appearance masks the sharp mind of a Cold War veteran spy always several steps ahead of everyone else. Credit: Apple TV
No fat or filler
At a time when it’s unfortunately common for TV shows to take two or even three-year breaks between seasons (with Netfix taking more than five years between installments of one of its most popular shows), Slow Horses releases a new season like clockwork every 11 or 12 months.
The showrunners accomplish this in part because they’re constantly writing, even while filming, and because with six hour-long episodes per season, there is no filler. Things move fast, plots ramp up quickly, and we learn about the characters not through leisurely exposition but in the most natural way, by seeing how they react and pull together when things are at their worst.
Oldman’s Lamb is the role of a lifetime and the veteran actor is at his best here, only occasionally letting his vulgar, derisive mask slip to show paternalistic care for the agents under his wing. Not all of them are the screw-ups they’re portrayed as, and some are actually excellent spies who have been railroaded or sidelined due to character issues.
Shirley, center, shows the other Slow Horses video proof that an assassination squad is after one of their own. Credit: Apple TV
Cartwright (Jack Lowden), the most prominent of them, unknowingly did too good of a job when tailing MI5’s second-in-command during a training exercise and caught her debriefing an off-the-books agent who was tasked with burying one of the agency’s worst screw-ups. His reward was being set up to fail in a major training exercise and a subsequent exile to Slough House.
Shirley (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) is almost as abrasive as Lamb and has a drug problem, but is also an extremely capable agent, a crack shot and, in the words of Lamb, “a brave little hobbit” who routinely charges into the most dangerous situations despite her tiny 5’1″ frame. She’s also the first to realize a plot against MI5 in one season and is repeatedly dismissed as paranoid and crazy before reality forces the brass to acknowledge they have a serious problem on their hands.
A “brave little hobbit”: Aimee-Ffion Edwards plays the Welsh spy Shirley Dander. Credit: AppleTV
Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves) is routinely overlooked because of her past as an alcoholic, but proves to be a quick thinker and uses her useless reputation as camouflage to devastating effect, while the mysterious Coe (Tom Brooke) is understated and hides a sharp mind.
Then there’s Roddy Ho, who lives in a universe of his own creation, one where he’s absolute catnip to women, a hacker of worldwide repute and a legend in the spy world. Ho incessantly invents flattering nicknames for himself — the Rodzilla, the HoDron Collider, the Hot Rod, the Ramrod, “Roddy by name, Ho by nature” — bragging to one MI5 bigwig that he has “many nom de guerre.”
“I am mythical, historical and futuristical!” he says in one scene, flexing his biceps and bragging that he’s been called a dragonslayer and the True King of Gondor.
Roddy Ho, the Slow Horses’ tech specialist, lives in a universe of his own creation. Credit: Apple TV
In a lesser actor’s hands, the performance would be over the top to the point of pulling viewers out of the narrative, but Christopher Chung imbues Ho with off-the-scale confidence so he comes off as a man-child who’s been telling himself legends of his own invention for so long that he can’t distinguish between reality and fantasy.
It makes for rich comedic material even in the most tense situations. Ho can go from cowering in a bathroom while yelling “I don’t want to die!” to bragging about his martial prowess in the blink of an eye, and somehow it works.
Both the show’s humor and spy narratives are top notch, and we get plenty of action worthy of Hollywood blockbusters, with spectacular set pieces, brutal fights and explosions enough to satisfy even Michael Bay.
American audiences haven’t fully caught on, and I expect that’s because we generally don’t do the kind of ultra-dry humor that is a trademark of the UK’s best productions. But I’d advise anyone to give it a shot. This isn’t a show you watch with one eye on your smartphone. It demands your full attention, and it rewards you in equal measure.
Slow Horses is currently airing its sixth season on Apple TV, with a seventh already filmed and slated for release next year.
Header image of River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) credit: Apple TV
