TV Series
Rank the spies, exiles, and power players of Slough House and Regent's Park across Slow Horses through 2026. Weigh competence, loyalty, wit, and menace to sort Jackson Lamb, River Cartwright, Diana Taverner, and the wider cast into your own ranking.
Slow Horses Characters 2026 comes with preloaded items so you can begin ranking immediately, but the board is still flexible enough to reflect your own criteria.
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Slow Horses inverts the glamorous spy drama by following MI5's exiled rejects at Slough House while sharper operators maneuver from Regent's Park. This template gathers the series' core players and rogues through 2026, from Jackson Lamb and River Cartwright to Diana Taverner, Frank Harkness, and new faces, so you can rank them by loyalty, cunning, survival instincts, or sheer entertainment value. Drag the names into order and share your definitive Slow Horses character ranking.
Editorial review: 2026-09-11
Jackson Lamb heads Slough House, the MI5 dumping ground for disgraced agents known as the Slow Horses. Beneath his rumpled, foul-mouthed, chain-smoking slovenliness lies a razor-sharp Cold War veteran: he was stationed in Berlin and once worked under David Cartwright, who oversaw MI5's Cold War operations. Played by Gary Oldman, Lamb wields cruelty and loyalty in equal measure to keep his outcasts working.
Official sourceRiver Cartwright arrived at MI5 as a golden prospect: the grandson of retired service legend David Cartwright, he was expected to thrive. Instead, a botched live training exercise at Stansted Airport, a colleague's sabotage blamed on him, exiled him to Slough House, where he couldn't be fired. Played by Jack Lowden, River remains impulsive and idealistic, forever chasing redemption and reckoning with his grandfather's legacy.
Official sourceDiana Taverner is MI5's Second Desk, Deputy Director-General and head of operations at Regent's Park, the service's coolest political operator. Played by Kristin Scott Thomas, she is ruthless, ambitious, and ready to sacrifice the Slow Horses to protect the Park's interests. Her long game pays off when she finally climbs to First Desk, seizing the Director-General role she has craved since the first season.
Official sourceCatherine Standish runs Slough House's clerical machinery as Jackson Lamb's long-suffering office administrator and de facto caretaker. A recovering alcoholic, she once served as personal assistant to MI5 chief Charles Partner, until she learned he had worked for the Soviets and had been killed in his bath by Lamb, staged as suicide. Played by Saskia Reeves, she is steady, discreet, and quietly indispensable.
Official sourceRoddy Ho is Slough House's resident IT specialist and hacker, played by Christopher Chung. Colleagues describe him as having an inflated sense of self and being, in many ways, deluded; he is arrogant, narcissistic, and socially clueless. His surveillance and hacking skills repeatedly drive cases forward, but his inability to read people makes him a liability as often as an asset.
Official sourceDavid Cartwright is River Cartwright's grandfather and a legendary retired MI5 spymaster, played by Jonathan Pryce. His murky Cold War past and underhanded dealings earned him the nickname 'the Old Bastard.' In later seasons he develops dementia and paranoia, shifting him from commanding spy elder to a vulnerable figure whose buried secrets still create danger for Slough House.
Official sourceShirley Dander is a Slough House agent introduced in season two, played by Aimee-Ffion Edwards. The novels depict her as a coke-addicted rageaholic with PTSD who is more violent than her screen version; the TV Shirley is combative, blunt, and physically capable. Despite her volatility, her instincts and loyalty repeatedly prove valuable to Jackson Lamb's team.
Official sourceMarcus Longridge is a Slough House agent introduced in season two, played by Kadiff Kirwan. A capable MI5 officer sidelined by a gambling addiction, he sold his MI5-issued weapon to pay lingering gambling debts. In the season four finale he dies protecting David Cartwright from assassin Patrice, a sacrifice that devastates the team.
Official sourcePortrayed by Rosalind Eleazar, Louisa Guy is a skilled MI5 field officer exiled to Slough House after a botched tailing operation. Unlike the unit's more damaged misfits, she remains operationally sharp and pragmatic, though her romance with fellow slow horse Min Harper ends tragically when he is murdered in Season 2. Her grief and guarded resilience distinguish her from colleagues like the openly cynical Roddy Ho, and she later shares an emotionally messy connection with River Cartwright.
Official sourcePlayed by Tom Brooke, J.K. Coe (Jason Kevin Coe) is Slough House's quietest recruit, having formerly worked in MI5's psychological evaluation unit at Regent's Park. He carries severe PTSD from a previous assignment in which he was imprisoned and interrogated for 72 hours, leaving him mostly silent and preferring isolation. Beneath that withdrawn exterior he remains one of the team's most observant and lethally capable agents, a contrast to the louder, more performative Roddy Ho.
Official sourceReece Nesmith is Slough House's newest arrival, joining Season 6 played by BAFTA-winning actor Lenny Rush. In Mick Herron's novel Slough House, the character is Reece Nesmith III, a gay American with achondroplasia, used chiefly to let Jackson Lamb make politically incorrect jokes. Because his television role is still being introduced, he remains a comparatively unknown quantity next to established figures like Roddy Ho and Louisa Guy.
Official sourcePlayed by Sophie Okonedo, Ingrid Tearney is the Director-General of MI5, known internally as 'First Desk,' and presides over Regent's Park while locked in a power struggle with her ambitious Second Desk, Diana Taverner. In Season 3, Taverner engineers Tearney's downfall over a controversial kill order connected to a secret operation, forcing her resignation. She is later succeeded by Claude Whelan, marking a pivotal leadership change at the top of the service.
Official sourceSean Donovan is a former MI5 officer who rose to head of security at the British embassy station in Istanbul. After the death of his partner, agent Alison Dunn, he turns rogue in season three, abducting Catherine Standish and driving the slow horses toward MI5's Grey Books archive. His revenge scheme collapses inside the facility, where he is shot dead by MI5 agents.
Official sourceFrank Harkness is a former CIA officer turned mercenary who runs Les Arbres, a French chateau where he breeds and trains assassins and terrorists for hire. In season four he orchestrates the Westacres shopping centre bombing and is revealed as River Cartwright's biological father, having seduced David Cartwright's daughter Isobel decades earlier in revenge. Hugo Weaving plays the role.
Official sourcePatrice is Frank Harkness's near-silent assassin son, raised at Les Arbres and sent to eliminate witnesses. In season four he murders Sam Chapman, then storms Slough House hunting David Cartwright, absorbing punishment while fuelled by industrial-strength painkillers until the slow horses finally bring him down. Tom Wozniczka plays the part.
Official sourcePeter Judd is a floppy-haired, bicycle-riding right-wing MP who schemes his way to Home Secretary and eyes Downing Street. Played by Samuel West, he is public-school-educated, self-obsessed, and entitled; Mick Herron has said the character shares Boris Johnson's 'self-obsession' and 'complete disregard for ethics.' In season three his plot to humiliate MI5 backfires and costs him his post.
Official sourceNick Duffy heads MI5's security as leader of the Dogs, the tactical unit used to muscle Slough House whenever it threatens the agency's secrets. Unlike the rule-breaking slow horses, Duffy enforces the First Desk's interests, and in season three he backs Ingrid Tearney's bid to bury the Footprint file at any cost. Marcus Longridge out-fights him, and Louisa Guy's brick strike leaves him in a coma, keeping him out of season four.
Official sourceA retired KGB officer hiding in plain sight as a shabby language-school defector, Nikolai Katinsky is actually Alexander Popov, the spymaster behind the sleeper program known as the cicadas. Season two reveals he also ran Charles Partner, the traitor inside MI5, and staged the Glasshouse plot to avenge him. When Lamb corners him, the terminally ill Russian is left a single bullet and shoots himself.
Official sourceA former member of the Dogs demoted to Slough House, Jed Moody spent six years as a tactical operative under Nick Duffy before an unspecified error cost him his posting. In season one, Diana Taverner quietly recruits him for her off-the-books operation, but he dies accidentally while attacking Min Harper and Louisa Guy, breaking his neck in a fall down the stairs and exposing her false-flag scheme.
Official sourceAn insufferably cocky MI5 officer and River Cartwright's longtime rival, James "Spider" Webb is far more ambitious than he is competent. He deliberately sabotaged River during the Stansted training exercise, was lured into a Russian trap and shot but survived in season two, then helped coordinate the Chieftain tiger-team operation. His scheming ends in season three, when Sean Donovan kills him and dumps his body.
Official sourceFormer MI5 Head of Security who led the Dogs, MI5's internal security and tactical unit, and ran undercover operations alongside Jackson Lamb before a costly failure led to his dismissal and replacement by Nick Duffy. He now works as a freelance intelligence contractor, but Lamb and other former colleagues still hire him for off-the-books jobs, and in Season 4 he narrowly survives an assassination attempt ordered by Frank Harkness. Portrayed by Sean Gilder.
Official sourceA disgraced conservative journalist whose career collapsed after his affiliation with far-right political groups such as the British Patriotic Party was exposed, leaving him a pariah among mainstream outlets. In Season 1, River Cartwright surveils him and searches his rubbish while Sid Baker is assigned to copy the contents of his USB stick; the mission turns deadly when a masked gunman shoots Sid. He later insists an attack is imminent before being killed. Portrayed by Paul Hilton.
Official sourceA sharp, capable MI5 agent posted to Slough House who is later revealed to have been planted there by Diana Taverner to keep an eye on River Cartwright. In Season 1 she joins River's investigation of journalist Robert Hobden and copies data from his USB stick, but is shot in the head by a masked intruder during surveillance and presumed dead for years. Olivia Cooke's character unexpectedly returns in the Season 6 trailer.
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