Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The hit espionage comedy Slow Horses continues to be the surest bet for first-rate entertainment in the Apple TV+ stable with a new series of slick, if frequently squalid, spycraft. Returning for a fourth season in just over two years, the show quickly dispels any notion that it might be losing its freshness in its opening 10 minutes, in which a bomb going off in central London is only the second most shocking development.The only thing that’s stale here is the air in the general vicinity of Jackson Lamb, the chain-smoking, shower-avoiding agent (Gary Oldman) whose personal hygiene is on the verge of becoming a risk to national security. Yet there remains a sharp, observant mind under those thinning strands of lank hair and dependable guts next to that whisky-ravaged liver. When an attack on a shopping centre is compounded by an violent incident involving his protégé River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) and the latter’s grandfather — an ailing MI5 grandee — Jackson is the first to recognise that not all is as it seems.What follows is the familiar blend of punchy storytelling and pungent humour; high stakes and the low-key mundanity of Slough House, the dreary purgatorial outpost of MI5 rejects overseen by Jackson. But these new episodes also bring a touch of spookiness to this world of spooks with a story involving uncanny lookalikes and a clandestine cult led by an American mercenary (a terrifically sinister Hugo Weaving) from a sleepy French town.Another unexpected element is the pronounced emotion found in scenes involving the older Cartwright (played by Jonathan Pryce), whose anguished mental decline as a result of advancing dementia not only renders him a liability to the agency, but a danger to himself and those close to him.Still, such moments of earnestness are never overplayed in a show that, perhaps more than any other right now, celebrates that distinctly British penchant for caustic wit and withering cynicism — much of which comes courtesy of Kristin Scott Thomas’s devastatingly dry MI5 deputy Diana Taverner. For all the expletives and explosives that fly around this season, there’s nothing quite as impactful as Taverner dismissing someone for being “a sanctimonious fool”.★★★★☆First episode on Apple TV+ from September 4. New episodes released weekly
