Image via Apple TV
Published Oct 28, 2026, 2:11 PM EDT
Kelcie Mattson is a Senior Features author at Collider. Based in the Midwest, she also contributes Lists, reviews, and television recaps. A lifelong fan of niche sci-fi, high fantasy, Gothic horror, elaborate action, and witty detective fiction, becoming a pop culture devotee was inevitable once the Disney Renaissance, Turner Classic Movies, BBC period dramas, and her local library piqued her imagination.
Rarely seen without a book in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, Kelcie explores media history (especially older, foreign, and independent films) as much as possible. You'll also find her enjoying video games, amateur photography, geeking out over all music genres, admiring birds from her porch, trying to overcome her meager baking skills, and attending fan conventions with her Trekkie family.
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With all the grace its outcast ensemble doesn’t possess, Slow Horses has stealthily emerged as one of television’s most consistently superb streaming series. For four years, six seasons, and counting, the Apple TV espionage thriller has conducted a masterclass lesson in form, tone, character, and expeditious production schedules, and it shows no signs of slowing down on any of those counts. Dig a little deeper into Apple TV's streaming television catalog, however, and one of their most acclaimed flagship shows isn’t the only ongoing adaptation of a Mick Herron book series.
Last year’s Down Cemetery Road, based on the first installment in Herron's quartet starring private investigator Zoë Boehm, debuted to critical acclaim and sleeper hit numbers. Season 2’s pre-production process has been underway since Apple TV's renewal announcement in December 2025. Thank goodness, because this is the precise kind of show that deserves to thrive. Developed by Morwenna Banks, an alum of Slow Horses' writing team, and starring the spell-binding duo of Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson, the eight-episode detective mystery-thriller is a sidesplitting and hair-raising delight with near-limitless potential — a perfect companion to Slow Horses that always stands on its own firm foundation.
What Is 'Down Cemetery Road' About?
One ordinary evening, a house explosion rocks a quiet corner of Oxford. The tragedy kills the building's two adult residents and injures their young daughter, Dinah Singleton (Ivy Quoi). Authorities blame a faulty gas main, but Sarah Trafford (Wilson), a neighboring museum art conservationist and one of the first witnesses to the devastating aftermath, smells something fishy enough to be rancid. The evidence is contradictory and doctored, the hospital rebuffs Sarah's attempts to visit Dinah long enough to deliver a supportive gift, and Dinah seems to vanish from the face of the earth.
Even once these ominous signs progress to face-to-face warnings, Sarah can't stop herself from looking for this innocent, helpless girl. She recruits one half of the husband-and-wife duo running the ramshackle Oxford Investigations, Joe Silvermann (Adam Godley) — and his investigation has an immediate high cost. Rather than surrender to a clear threat, however, Sarah and Joe's wife, the abrasive PI Zoë Boehm (Thompson), take up their side of the hunt with ferocious determination. As their cat-and-mouse pursuit takes them all the way from an Oxford suburb to a Scottish island, they uncover a scenario far more sinister than even their worst suspicions — a corrupt black ops assignment, its origins reaching the highest levels of the British government.
'Down Cemetery Road' Revitalizes Detective Mysteries in the Same Way as 'Slow Horses'
First and foremost, it's almost impossible to go wrong with Thompson and Wilson playing a well-rounded two-hander of this magnitude. Thompson's Zoë strikes an unapologetically electrifying figure from the shoulders of her faded black leather jacket to the soles of her trusty Doc Martens. A messy, caustic, and foul-mouthed antiheroine whose riotously withering one-liners make everyone in the vicinity want to crawl into their own graves, Zoë fails to be as emotionally impenetrable as she carries herself, and is all the more endearing for it.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?
Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn't work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
FIND YOUR PARTNER →
01
You're dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
ASomeone who already has three contingency plans running and is calmly working through all of them. BSomeone who reads the terrain instinctively and knows exactly how to use it against the enemy. CSomeone who keeps their nerve and their sense of humour when everything is falling apart. DSomeone who knows the history of wherever we are and what we're walking into. ESomeone with the right contact, the right cover identity, and the right exit already arranged.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
AOn foot through terrain no one else would attempt — I move where vehicles can't follow. BOn a motorcycle, a cargo plane, or anything else that gets me there before I think too hard about it. CIn something that belongs to someone else — borrowed, stolen, or improvised under fire. DFirst class, with a cover identity and a gadget that does something I won't explain until it's needed. EBy whatever means are available — I've driven, flown, and once arrived by camel. The destination matters, not the method.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
You're pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
ADisappears into the environment, flanks them silently, and ends it before I've reloaded. BCracks a one-liner, grabs a fire extinguisher or a chair, and improvises something that somehow works. CProduces a gadget specifically designed for this exact scenario and uses it with infuriating precision. DPulls out a whip, a pistol, and an archaeological insight that somehow gets us out alive. ENeutralises the threat with maximum efficiency and minimum words — they were already three moves ahead.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
AA bar with terrible lighting, cold beer, and absolutely no questions about feelings. BThe finest restaurant in the city, a bottle of something expensive, and a conversation that is equal parts brilliant and exhausting. CA local dig site, a museum after hours, or a long story about why that particular artefact matters to human civilisation. DPizza. Bad TV. Falling asleep halfway through a movie neither of you were watching anyway. EA debrief that turns into three hours of contingency planning that somehow becomes the most fun you've had all week.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
APrecise and minimal — tell me what I need to know and nothing else. Every word has a cost. BDeadpan and dry — keeping it light keeps me sharp, even when everything is on fire. CEnthusiastic and slightly chaotic — but always with useful information buried somewhere in the noise. DCalm and controlled through an earpiece, with a plan that covers every variable I haven't thought of yet. EBarely at all — silence is a language and they speak it fluently.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
AInfiltrate their inner circle, learn everything, and dismantle them from inside out before they know we're there. BStudy the historical pattern — every villain of this type has a weakness written somewhere in the past. CGet them talking. The more they monologue, the more time I have to figure out how to beat them. DGo through them. Directly. With as much force as the terrain allows. EFind the one thing they haven't accounted for — there's always one thing — and make sure we're holding it.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
Things go badly wrong and you're captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
ACome in alone, quietly, and get me out before anyone knows they were there. BHave already been working on the extraction since the moment I disappeared — the plan is already running. CCome in loud, come in fast, and worry about the collateral damage later — I'd do the same for them. DUse every resource, every contact, and bend every rule until I'm out — they don't leave people behind. ECharm their way in somehow, bluff through the hard part, and still manage to look good doing it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn't replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn't know you had.
ATechnology that shouldn't exist yet and the training to use it under any conditions. BSurvival instinct so refined it borders on supernatural — and the scars to prove it's been tested. CKnowledge of history, language, and culture that makes them invaluable in places where force is useless. DThe ability to walk into any room in the world and immediately become the most trusted person in it. EStubbornness that refuses to accept a situation is hopeless — and the improvisational skill to back it up.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
AA partner who never fully switches off — always watching exits, always calculating threats, even at dinner. BA partner who gets the job done brilliantly but has the emotional availability of a locked filing cabinet. CA partner who makes everything ten times more complicated than it needs to be — but who always comes through. DA partner who gets personally attached to every relic, ruin, and artefact we encounter, which slows everything down. EA partner who was not built for this and knows it — but shows up anyway, every time, without being asked.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
It's the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
AOne line. Absolutely dry. Delivered like the world isn't ending. Then we move. BNothing said at all — just a look that means we both already know what has to happen. CA plan I don't fully understand that somehow accounts for everything, delivered in thirty seconds flat. DA piece of historical context that reframes the entire situation and tells us exactly what to do next. ESomeone who steps forward instead of back — because that's who they've always been.
REVEAL MY PARTNER →
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn't talk much, doesn't need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you've finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You'll never need to ask if he has your back. You'll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it'll take you a moment to remember what's actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You'll never be bored. You'll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar's eye and a brawler's instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn't matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you'll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren't so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you've finished reading the briefing, and the plan he's settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn't exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
Wilson’s effortless charisma enlivens Sarah from a stereotypical concerned civilian in over her head to a multifaceted and thoroughly capable woman. Like the most successful amateur detectives, Sarah's unique skill (art restoration) ensures she notices minute details and inconsistencies. She dashes headlong past warning signs like a damsel in distress might, but she's quick-thinking and self-sufficient, stubborn and compassionate — a bored risk-taker who either thrives off adrenaline or soars once she frees herself from her stifling life. Together, Zoë and Sarah's buddy comedy chemistry utterly crackles. Thompson and Wilson make magic together, landing in that opposites-attract sweet spot between awkward, exasperated, and begrudgingly respectful.
Down Cemetery Road shares obviously recognizable DNA with its sister series without feeling like a less inspired copy of its predecessor. Rather, it revitalizes the traditional mystery structure the same way Slow Horses injects fresh adrenaline into the espionage genre — an iron-clad formula replete with Herron’s signature dry wit, riveting cloak-and-dagger intrigue, white-knuckled twists, exhilaratingly grim action, and a small gathering of misfits and malcontents waging war against bureaucrats and politicians. By the time every disconnected piece neatly fits into the correct order, Down Cemetery Road blossoms into a compact, dazzling variation on its creator's greatest refrains.
