Slow Horses Officially Sets New Series-Record Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score After Season 6 Finale

Published Oct 26, 2026, 11:32 AM EDT

Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more.

Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics."

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The crew at Slough House debriefs a shocking new Slow Horses record.

Slow Horses debuted on Apple TV in 2022, quickly growing to become one of the most popular spy thriller series in recent years. The gritty series also perfected the art of annual releases in the streaming age, making it an exception to the rule of multi-year waits between new seasons of TV shows on streaming services. Slow Horses is based on the Mick Herron series of spy novels, with the Apple TV thriller already confirmed to return for at least two more seasons. That said, before seasons 7 and 8, Slow Horses season 6 has just set a surprising new record.

On Rotten Tomatoes, Slow Horses season 6 is currently at an 80% audience score, which stands as the lowest thus far for a season of the Apple TV spy thriller series. The negative record is surprising for a few major reasons. For one, Slow Horses season 6 debuted with a stellar 91% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. That mark is the highest for any season of the show, which means that Slow Horses went from its highest point with viewers to its lowest by the end of its new six-episode season. The Slow Horses season 6 finale aired on October 21.

Slow Horses' new negative Rotten Tomatoes audience score record also comes as a surprise due to the new season's standing with critics on the review aggregator. At the time of writing, Slow Horses season 6 boasts a near-perfect 98% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 39 reviews. The season is Certified Fresh, with its Critics Consensus' stating that even in season 6, Slow Horses finds "new ways to surprise." In ScreenRant's Slow Horses season 6 review, Ben Gibbons gave the Apple TV spy thriller series a perfect 10 out of 10 score, praising how Slow Horses returned to form.

On IMDB, there is a tie for the lowest-rated episode of Slow Horses season 6, with the first half of the season holding an 8.2 user score, which is still high. That said, the Slow Horses season 6 finale, "Judgment Day," is currently the highest-rated of the Apple TV spy thriller series' new season, standing tall at an 8.7 user score. Based on that data, as well as how critics have rated Slow Horses season 6 on Rotten Tomatoes, the espionage show's new audience score record comes as a shocking turn of events ahead of the already renewed seasons 7 and 8.

Slow Horses season 6's new negative record might be connected to two events. One of them comes from the show's behind-the-scenes, as the creator of the Apple TV series, Will Smith, departed as showrunner after season 5, making the spy thriller's new season the first without him, which might have caused this reaction from viewers. Another possible factor is how the Slow Horses season 6 finale ends with a key character in a life-threatening situation, with the cliffhanger ending not revealing if they die or make it. That could have impacted Slow Horses season 6's audience score, based on the character's popularity.