Slow Horses is available to watch on Apple TV+.
Season 2 Quotes
Shirley Dander: I wouldn’t take length of service in this s**thole as a status symbol.
Roddy Ho: Prisoners have hierarchies. Humans organize themselves according to power.
Jackson Lamb: This is Soho? But where’s all the prostitutes and the junkies?
Louisa Guy: [referring to Bow’s cause of death] Well, he was in his sixties, smoked, drank. Was probably on the cards.
Jackson Lamb: But I do all that and look at me. I’m in my prime.
River Cartwright: [referring to Bow] Why would someone want to kill this guy?
Jackson Lamb: Maybe he went for a job interview without telling his boss. That’s grounds for murder.
Roddy Ho: It’s legwork. You need a donkey for that, and I’m a thoroughbred.
Jackson Lamb: You, Ho, are a massive horse’s c**k. But you’re right. I need a donkey to fetch those hard drives. Harper.
Min Harper: We’ve been seconded.
Jackson Lamb: Who by? Twats “R” Us?
River Cartwright: [to Min, referring to Webb] You’re going to work for that d**k after he f***ed me over?
Jackson Lamb: I don’t know. I think it shows excellent taste.
River Cartwright: Wait. So what do I do then?
Jackson Lamb: F*** off to the job center for all I care.
David Cartwright: If this is leading towards, “You’d be better off in a home,” I think I should warn you I once killed a man with a pair of shears.
River Cartwright: Wait. Really?
David Cartwright: No. But it’s never too late.
David Cartwright: I can’t see you in private intelligence.
River Cartwright: Well, luckily neither can the people in private intelligence, because to them I’m still the d**khead who crashed Stansted on a training exercise.
Jackson Lamb: That seat’s taken.
River Cartwright: Oh, yeah? By who?
Jackson Lamb: Gillian Anderson’s in the lav.
River Cartwright: Well, I imagine she’ll be a while throwing up after watching you eat.
Jackson Lamb: [to River] Do you know how much it hurt me to write you an even half-decent reference? And all for nothing. I mean, you’re still here. What you do, take a s**t in the wastepaper bin halfway through the interview?
Jackson Lamb: [to Katinsky] Is it really worth locking this place up? A burglary could improve it.
Roddy Ho: So, I am your PA?
River Cartwright: Only if it stands for “prickly a**hole”.
Roddy Ho: I don’t bicker. I play judo with words.
Min Harper: Harper. It’s Min Harper.
Kyril Asimov: You say it like, “Bond. James Bond.”
Diana Taverner: I saw you. You got here first then left to keep me waiting.
Jackson Lamb: Well, that’s because I knew you were watching and waiting, so you could arrive after me. What a pair we are. Made for each other.
Diana Taverner: Coats cleaned. Teeth fixed. Hair washed. I know it’s news for you.
Jackson Lamb: I’ve been busy lately. It’s possible I’ve let myself go.
Diana Taverner: I do this, and it’s done and dusted. Right?
Jackson Lamb: Absolutely. Wipe the slate clean. You might want to wipe your coat while you’re at it. I think you sat in some bird s**t.
Min Harper: [to Louisa, referring to the house] Bit out of our price range, I’d say. Unless we sell a couple of kidneys. Your kidneys.
Roddy Ho: Well, what you got there is a missing digit. Can you check it’s not the one stuck up your a**?
Louisa Guy: You deliberately didn’t tell me you were going out later so I’d still have sex with you, Min. Come on.
Min Harper: Woh. I mean, you’re crediting me with a level of calculation I do not possess.
Jackson Lamb: Sometimes the only way to work out why a trap has been set is to walk into it.
Jackson Lamb: They play a long game, the Russians. Have an incredible capacity for pain, and sacrifice, and grudges. F***ers never quit.
River Cartwright: I’ve been writing a piece about village life. And, well, Upshott just seemed like the perfect place to start really.
Kelly Tropper: Who do you write for? Insomniacs Weekly?
Jackson Lamb: The day they introduce ethics into what we do, they might as well shut us down. Jackson Lamb: I wouldn’t trust him to tell me the time if we were standing in front of Big Ben. Nicolai Katinsky: I wanted the professional humiliation of you and your team.
River Cartwright: Well, where there’s people, there’s stories.
Catherine Standish: How safe do you think River is?
Jackson Lamb: He’s gone to the Cotswolds, Standish, not the Helmand Province.
Catherine Standish: I’m sure you remember what I did before I came here, Jackson.
Jackson Lamb: Yeah, you drank for England.
Kelly Tropper: I lock the door so that the village alcoholics, by which I mean the villagers, don’t barge in and demand a breakfast lock-in.
Roddy Ho: [after Min has been killed] Shame. He was okay for an average guy.
Jackson Lamb: F***ing hell. I hope you don’t get to write my obit.
Jackson Lamb: Well, I think we both know these kind of conversations are not my forte.
Jackson Lamb: [to Louisa, referring to Min’s death] Oh, anger already? Aren’t you supposed to go through denial first? What is it? Denial, anger, drinking? More drinking. There’s something else. I know acceptance comes in somewhere.
Diana Taverner: Slow Horses. They can’t even cycle home without getting killed.
Spider Webb: [referring to Lamb] Can we trust him?
Diana Taverner: Of course not. But then, I don’t trust you. And you definitely shouldn’t trust me.
Jackson Lamb: I assume they take money. Four quid?
Sam Chapman: Yeah. And washing powder, and, indeed, washing. Jesus, Lamb. Have you never been to a launderette before? This is Spycraft 101.
Jackson Lamb: I was your other kind of undercover. Casinos, Krug, five-star hotels. Washing was mostly room service.
Marcus Longridge: You know, luck’s like the tide. It comes in, it goes out.
Jackson Lamb: There’s six cameras pointed at the road. We should be having our prostates exfoliated by a couple of calloused Russian fingers by now.
Victor Krymov: You usually work behind a desk?
Catherine Standish: You can learn a lot from sitting behind a desk.
Jackson Lamb: Look, right now, I am going out of my way to avenge the death of Dickie Bough, a man I didn’t even like. So, you can imagine what I’m going to do to the person who murdered Min Harper, a man who I at least tolerated.
Jackson Lamb: [to Duffy, referring to Min’s murder] Yeah. Well, if you’d done more than scratch the surface, you’d have found a connection between the driver, and two Russian goons who couldn’t be more suspicious if they had scars running down their cheeks and glass f***ing eyes.
Molly Doran: Jackson Lamb. Oh, the years have not been kind to you.
Jackson Lamb: Nor you. I see your leg hasn’t grown back.
Molly Doran: Christ. I’m getting your breath from here.
Jackson Lamb: Really? Well, I brush twice a month.
Roddy Ho: [referring to Chernitsky next killing] You fancy a flutter on the method? So far we’ve had death by poisoning, traffic accident, and radiation. What do you reckon next? Sword? Thumbs in the eyeballs?
River Cartwright: I’m an MI5 agent. And my name is River Cartwright.
Kelly Tropper: That’s an even more stupid name than Johnnie Walker!
Jackson Lamb: I’ll see you in another fifteen years, Molly.
Molly Doran: Jackson, I have grave doubts you’ll last the day.
River Cartwright: Look, Russian operatives want the city shut down for some reason. I don’t know why, but there’s no bomb. You have to rescind that order.
Diana Taverner: This isn’t like canceling a Deliveroo, Cartwright.
Jackson Lamb: I don’t know about you, but at my age, it’s murder on the wrists to keep them pointed longer than five minutes.
Jackson Lamb: Well, that was a waste of effort. My team have already professionally humiliated themselves. That’s why they’re my team.
Nicolai Katinsky: I was waiting for a call.
Jackson Lamb: Who from? A contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
David Cartwright: I’m going to put the kettle on, and you can tell me who I just killed.
Diana Taverner: [to Lamb] Is this going to last long? Only normally we meet outside where your lack of deodorant is slightly less noticeable.
Diana Taverner: [referring to Webb] He’s doing quite well, actually.
Jackson Lamb: I could always pull the plug. Waste of a pair of good kidneys, that one.
Jackson Lamb: These places haven’t been the same since they banned smoking.
River Cartwright: Yeah. You were never allowed to smoke in the church.
Jackson Lamb: Well, they should reconsider that. Huh? Might boost the numbers.