Slow Horses and the strangeness of memory

The fourth season of Slow Horses starts this week. I’ve written before about how much I love this series, both the books and the television adaptation, and I’ve written about Jackson Lamb is one of my favorite all time characters, both in the books and as portrayed by Gary Oldman. I’m looking forward to the new season immensely.

In order to make sure that I was caught up we rewatched the first three seasons over the last couple weeks. It was great to watch again even knowing all the twists. The characters are just so much fun that their reactions to these plots is great to watch even if I’ve already seen it, and before that read it.

That said, I noticed something very interesting. I kept thinking entirely different things were going to happen and that even characters who haven’t appeared yet were in the season. It took me a moment to realize that it’s not that I’m remembering the show, I’m remembering the books they haven’t done yet and confusing those characters and plots with what’s already aired.

I’ve read six of the novels, I’m one or two behind the novel series, but still ahead of the TV series. I’ve also read the novellas which are interesting I think partially because they help flesh out the world with additional characters that we don’t see in the Slow Horses series, but they make that world feel more real.

Having this extra knowledge and sense of the world only improves watching the series, and yet I’m super interested in this weird hallucinatory feeling that I’ve seen stories, seasons of the show, that don’t yet exist. There are characters I see in my minds eye that as far as I know haven’t been cast yet. It seems real enough to me that it’s almost like I’m remembering something from another universe where they’re a couple seasons ahead.

Anyway, I can’t wait to see the new season and where they go and how this matches up to my hallucinated memories.