Jackson Lamb

Jackson Lamb runs Slough House, the dumping ground for MI5 rejects, and he does it from behind a fog of takeaway containers, flatulence, and open contempt for everyone around him. Slovenly, rude, apparently indifferent to his disgraced agents' fates, he seems like a joke of a spymaster — until the moment he isn't.

Gary Oldman plays him as a magnificent insult to spy-movie glamour: unwashed, unbothered, always eating something regrettable. The joy is in the gap between how little he seems to care and how completely he sees everything happening around him — the show keeps proving he's the smartest, most dangerous person in every room he's slobbing in.