Slow Horses Season 6 Is Officially Skipping One Key Book Location

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Christopher Chung as Roddy Ho looking over his shoulder in Slow Horses

Published Oct 5, 2026, 8:32 AM EDT

Nick Bythrow is a Lead Writer for ScreenRant. He has been writing for the site since September 2022. He graduated from Hampshire College in 2022, where he triple majored in Journalism, Communications, and Media Studies. When he's not writing about TV and movies for ScreenRant and his blog, Frayed Branches, Nick is penning speculative fiction and poetry on Amazon. He lives outside Boston, Massachusetts.

Slow Horses season 6 will officially be skipping one key location.

Series star Christopher Chung has unpacked season 6 cutting one major location from the book series, revealing more about the show's decision. Slow Horses season 6 follows former members of the Slow Horses getting targeted for assassination by an unknown enemy. As the show plays out, more elements are peeled back to reveal additional clues as to what's going on, and who's behind the murders. Season 6 is the first to be based on two books from Mick Herron's Slough House series, namely Book 6, Joe Country and Book 7, Slough House.

Speaking with RadioTimes about the show, Chung, who portrays Roddy Ho, revealed that Slow Horses season 6 will be skipping a key part from Joe Country, that being the team going to Wales. Part of the sixth book involves the team going to Wales in the winter, with the cast expecting to have moved filming there for a bit. However, this ultimately didn't happen, a side effect of season 6 adapting two books in the series at the same time.

Check out what Chung had to say below:

I think the thing that we were all anticipating was going to Wales in the snow. and there was a moment where it was floated that we might go to a Scandinavian country to film in a snow covered field somewhere.... We were all kind of psyched to go on a Slow Horses field trip that didn't happen.

While other seasons have used their six-episode formats to tell the story of just one novel from Herron's series, an executive decision had been made to adapt the sixth and seventh books together as far back as when season 6 was renewed. Because there are two books in the mix, some elements of the pair have been remixed for the series. This includes the return of Sid Baker, who shows up again in Book 7, but appears for the first time in season 6, episode 2 of the show, quite early into the combined story arc.

Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb in Slow Horses season 5

One of the biggest reasons for the show's ultimate combination of both books is that Joe Country doesn't have many major moments for some of the core members of Slow Horses' ensemble cast. This includes the leader of the Slow Horses, Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), who serves as the face of the show, his presence significantly smaller in the sixth installment. If the series had adapted Joe Country on its own, there wouldn't be much to do for one of the show's central characters.

However, despite the absence of Wales, the show still features a number of crucial elements from Joe Country in the plot. But, like other seasons of Slow Horses, the series' ultimate focus is on a single-season investigation for the team, this one more personal than ever before. If it's anything like previous installments, the show will maintain faithfulness to the original novel, specifically focusing on the most vital elements in order to ensure the story arc earns a proper conclusion by the end of the season.

As of writing, Slow Horses season 6 has three episodes left. While none of the upcoming episodes will see the team travel to Wales like in Joe Country, the show is ensuring its most vital elements from the first two books are still showing up onscreen. Even if that means cutting some big elements from the novels, it seems the determination of putting two books into one story ultimately means sacrifice. But, with the upcoming seasons 7 and 8 pulling from one book each, this is less likely to be the case going forward.