Loved Slow Horses? This Twisty Spy Thriller With A Rookie Lawyer Will Keep You Hooked!

This rookie lawyer didn’t expect his first week at the CIA to involve high-stakes espionage. Here’s why it’s winning over fans of gritty spy thrillers.

By
Hari P N
- July 1, 2025 | 4:59 PM IST
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If you’ve watched and enjoyed Slow Horses on Apple TV+ and are on the hunt for another spy-action thriller, you’ve come to the right place. This time, however, the series isn’t on Apple TV+; it’s available on Netflix. It’s titled The Recruit, and as of now, two seasons are available.

The protagonist of The Recruit is a young lawyer working for the CIA. Unlike Slow Horses, where the main character’s grandfather is a powerful figure in the intelligence agency and can offer him some level of protection, The Recruit features a lead with no such advantage. He has a distant relationship with his mother, and his father, a soldier, died in combat.

The Recruit’s Critical and Audience Reception Compared to Slow Horses

The Recruit is a highly entertaining series, though its critical and audience reception is somewhat lower compared to Slow Horses. It holds a tomatometer rating of 77% and an IMDb rating of 7.4/10, while Slow Horses boasts a 98% on tomatometer and an IMDb rating of 8.3/10.

Plot of The Recruit

The protagonist in The Recruit is a freshly recruited lawyer, hired straight out of law school with no prior law practice experience. He is assigned to handle graymails, basically blackmail letters sent to the CIA. Most of these are written by conspiracy theorists or delusional individuals and are generally dismissed as junk. However, the protagonist manages to uncover one genuine threat buried in the pile, which leads him to a prisoner who knows a little too much about the agency and its operations. This discovery throws our protagonist into the middle of a full-blown crisis.

Main Cast of The Recruit

Starring Noah Centineo as Owen Hendricks, the protagonist; Laura Haddock as Max Meladze, the prisoner; Fivel Stewart as Hannah Copeland, the protagonist’s ex-girlfriend and roommate; Daniel Quincy Annoh as Terence Hoffman, the protagonist’s roommate; Aarti Mann as Violet Ebner, a colleague; Colton Dunn as Lester Kitchens, a colleague; Vondie Curtis-Hall as Walter Nyland, the protagonist’s boss; Kaylah Zander as Amelia Salazar, a colleague and romantic interest; Kristian Bruun as Janus Ferber, a colleague; and Angel Parker as Dawn Gilbane, a CIA operative.

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