This Is the Only Prestige Drama Promising a ‘Story-Based’ Fart

Prestige drama is supposed to be all steel-gray lighting, moral compromise, and characters who stare into the middle distance like they’re trying to remember where they hid the bodies and their feelings. It’s not supposed to be… flatulence-forward.

And yet: one acclaimed spy drama has gone on record promising a fart that isn’t a cheap gag, a random sound effect, or a “we needed something to break the tension” moment. This one is reportedly plot-relevanta “story-based” fart. Which is either the greatest commitment to narrative efficiency in television history or the most sophisticated excuse anyone has ever made for being gross on purpose.

Let’s talk about why this is happening, why it oddly makes sense, and why the show pulling it off might be the most “prestige” thing about it.

The Show Behind the “Story-Based” Fart: Slow Horses

The prestige drama in question is Slow Horses, Apple TV+’s sharp, darkly funny spy thriller set around a group of MI5 misfits exiled to a bureaucratic purgatory called Slough House. These are not James Bond types. These are “HR training module” typesonly with higher stakes, worse tempers, and more emotional baggage stuffed into filing cabinets.

At the center is Jackson Lamb (played by Gary Oldman), the sort of boss who could weaponize an eye-roll. Lamb is brilliant, rude, and aggressively allergic to niceties. He leads the slow horsesdisgraced agents like River Cartwright (Jack Lowden)through messes that should be above their pay grade and below their moral comfort level.

It’s the kind of show that gets called “prestige” because it’s tightly written, beautifully paced, and acted like everyone is trying to win an award while also pretending they don’t care about awards. Which makes the fart news feel like a prank. But it isn’t.

What Does “Story-Based” Even Mean?

According to comments that quickly ricocheted around entertainment coverage (and the internet’s collective inner 12-year-old), Slow Horses has promised exactly one fart in its fifth seasonspecifically from Lamband that it will be “weaponized” and “story-based.”

That phrasing matters. A random fart is bathroom humor. A weaponized fart implies intent: leverage, dominance, distraction, misdirection, humiliation, maybe even an improvised smoke screen for the soul. A story-based fart implies structure: setup, payoff, consequence. In other words, it suggests the writers are treating flatulence like it’s a narrative devicenot a noise, but a choice.

Think of it as Chekhov’s whoopee cushion. If a fart is introduced in Act One, it must go off in Act Three… and somehow expose a conspiracy.

Why a Prestige Spy Drama Can Get Away With This

Prestige TV isn’t “no jokes allowed.” It’s “jokes must serve the story.” The best dramas use humor the way chefs use acid: not to make the dish silly, but to keep it alive.

1) Humor can be character truth

Lamb’s whole deal is psychological warfare. He’s a slovenly genius who uses disrespect, discomfort, and unpredictability as tools. If he makes someone recoil, he controls the rhythm of the room. A strategic fartif that’s truly what this isfits his style like a greasy glove.

2) Comedy can be a pressure release that tightens the tension

When a show is consistently tense, a well-timed laugh can make the next serious moment hit harder. The trick is making sure the comedy doesn’t undercut stakes. Slow Horses has long excelled at that balancing act: workplace comedy energy inside a genuine espionage thriller engine.

3) “Prestige” is often just “confidence”

Shows become “prestige” when they’re brave enough to be specific. Not generic cool, not safe dramatic posturingspecific. A “story-based” fart is, if nothing else, a hilariously specific promise that suggests the writers know exactly what they’re doing.

Jackson Lamb: The Anti-Hero Who Can Turn Gross Into Gravitas

Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb isn’t merely “unpleasant.” He’s a full-time weather system. If he enters a scene, everyone else adjusts their posture like they’ve just been told the building’s pipes are about to burst.

Part of what makes Lamb compelling is that he’s simultaneously:

• crude enough to drop the temperature in a room with one line,
• smart enough to see three moves ahead, and
• human enough (occasionally) to make his team’s survival feel personal.

In a lesser show, grossness is a substitute for personality. In Slow Horses, grossness is part of the disguise: Lamb makes himself easy to underestimate. If he smells like failure, people stop looking for the knife. And if he can use that to win, wellwelcome to Slough House.

Season 5 Context: Why This One Fart Might Actually Matter

Season 5 of Slow Horses adapts London Rules, one of Mick Herron’s Slough House novels. The season’s hook is instantly suspicious in the best way: Roddy Ho has a glamorous new girlfriend. The kind of development that sets off alarms because… it’s Roddy Ho. The math doesn’t math.

From there, the season builds around a series of increasingly strange events across London, with the slow horses doing what they do best: stumbling into something enormous while trying not to get fired, arrested, or exploded.

The show’s own tagline energy for this season can be summed up as: “Cover your back.” That’s the “London Rules” ideawatch yourself, trust carefully, and assume the person smiling at you is also quietly building a file on you.

Against that backdrop, a “story-based” fart becomes more plausible as a tactical moment than you’d think. In spy stories, tiny details matter. A sound heard at the wrong time. A delay that exposes a lie. A moment of discomfort that forces someone to leave a room. Espionage is basically weaponized awkwardnessso it’s not a huge leap to weaponize something else humans find awkward.

How a “Weaponized” Fart Could Function as a Plot Device

No, we don’t know the exact scene (and if we did, we’d still be polite and let you enjoy it fresh). But we can talk about how a show like this might build a fart that earns its place in a prestige drama.

A distraction that changes the chessboard

One of the oldest tricks in storytelling is the deliberate interruption: a sudden disruption that forces a character to break pattern. A strategically timed gross-out moment can disrupt a meeting, stop someone mid-sentence, or make a polished character lose composureand in spy stories, composure is currency.

An intimidation move disguised as incompetence

Lamb thrives on making people uncomfortable. If the fart is truly “weaponized,” it might be less about the sound and more about the message: “I am not playing by your rules, and I’m willing to be disgusting to win.” That’s dominanceunfortunately scented.

A test of loyalty and endurance

Spy teams are forged through shared misery. Sometimes that misery is danger; sometimes it’s bureaucracy; sometimes it’s your boss turning the room into a hostile environment in a brand-new way. A scene like this could be a twisted bonding moment: if you can survive Lamb at his worst, you can survive the job.

A clue in a mystery (yes, really)

Prestige storytelling loves weird specificity. If the fart is “story-based,” it could be tied to a practical detail: timing, location, cover story, someone’s reaction, or a chain of events that starts because a room clears out at exactly the wrong (or right) second. Not glamorous. Very effective.

The Real Prestige Move: Restraint

Here’s the funniest part: the boldest fart isn’t the loudest fart. It’s the one a show refuses to overuse.

By limiting Lamb to one fart in Season 5, the series is effectively saying: “We could do this constantly. We are choosing not to. We have standards. Terrible, disgusting standardsbut standards.”

In TV terms, that’s restraint, and restraint is what keeps a show from becoming a sketch. It’s also what helps Slow Horses stay in the conversation as an awards-friendly drama, not just a meme factory with good lighting.

Why Fans Keep Coming Back to Slow Horses

The show’s success isn’t a mystery. It’s fast, sharp, and unusually consistent for modern TV. It has:

• a clear premise (MI5 rejects doing real work anyway),
• strong performances across the ensemble,
• tight seasons that don’t wander,
• a tone that blends dread and humor without turning either into wallpaper.

It’s also been recognized by major awards bodies for its writingsomething that matters here, because the only way a “story-based” fart works is if the writing does. You can’t improvise your way into narrative flatulence. You need structure. You need timing. You need trust that your audience will follow you into a scene that might make them laugh and then immediately make them worry about a political disaster.

How (and When) to Watch Season 5

Season 5 of Slow Horses premiered on Apple TV+ on September 24, 2025, launching with two episodes and then dropping new episodes weekly. The season runs six episodes total, which is about the perfect length for a show that doesn’t waste timeor farts.

If you’re catching up, the earlier seasons set the tone quickly: Slough House is grimy, Lamb is monstrous, and the slow horses keep proving that “professional embarrassment” and “operational effectiveness” can live in the same bodysometimes literally.

Conclusion: The Most Serious Case for a Not-So-Serious Sound

A “story-based” fart sounds like a punchline. But in the context of Slow Horses, it’s almost a mission statement: the show is committed to character, tone, and consequenceeven when the tool is crude.

That’s what makes it the only prestige drama that can promise something this ridiculous and still have people respond, “Honestly? I believe you.” If the moment lands, it won’t be because it’s loud. It’ll be because it’s earneda tactical, character-driven beat that somehow fits into a spy thriller about institutional failure, personal redemption, and the kind of leadership style HR can’t legally describe in an email.

And if it doesn’t land? Well. At least they only did it once.

Watching Experience: The Prestige Drama That Makes One Fart Count (Extra )

There’s a particular kind of joy in watching a show that clearly respects your intelligence and then uses that respect to pull something shameless. Not in a “cheap shock” waymore like a magician who’s been doing card tricks all night and suddenly says, “Now watch me juggle chainsaws.” You laugh because it’s absurd, and you lean in because you trust the hands.

That’s the viewing experience a “story-based fart” promise creates. You don’t just anticipate a joke; you anticipate craft. You start watching scenes like a detectiveexcept instead of searching for the murderer, you’re scanning for the moment the writers decided flatulence is narratively essential. It’s a weirdly interactive feeling. You’re not only following the plot; you’re evaluating the show’s nerve.

If you’ve ever worked in an office (or a classroom, or any place where people pretend to be professional while slowly losing their minds), Slow Horses hits a familiar rhythm. There’s the constant drip of petty politics. The fear that someone upstairs has misunderstood your entire job. The sense that one tiny mishap could become your permanent reputation. In that environment, bodily humor isn’t randomit’s practically realism. Humans under stress do not become elegant. They become weird. They snack at odd hours. They snap at the wrong person. They say the dumb thing they promised themselves they wouldn’t say. And sometimes, yes, the body betrays the vibe.

Watching a “prestige” show make room for that messiness can feel oddly grounding. It reminds you that tension doesn’t always break with a poetic monologue. Sometimes it breaks with a noise you’d rather blame on a chair. That contrasthigh stakes, low dignityis a big part of what makes Slow Horses satisfying. It’s not glamorizing espionage. It’s showing you the friction: competent people trapped in incompetent systems, trying to do serious work while dealing with personalities that should come with warning labels.

And when the show finally delivers the promised momentwhatever it turns out to bethe experience will likely be less “laugh and move on” and more “laugh and then immediately rewind because you’re not sure what you missed.” That’s the best version of this gag: the fart isn’t the whole point; it’s the turn. It’s the beat that changes the scene. It’s the thing that makes someone glance at someone else, hesitate, step out, slip up, reveal a tell, or lose their mask for half a second.

It also becomes a shared-viewing event in a way most dramas don’t. People will text friends: “Did you get to that part?” Not because it’s crude (okay, partially), but because it’s rare to see a serious show treat comedy like a precision tool. That’s an experience worth savoring: a series confident enough to be ridiculous for one moment, so it can be even more devastating the next.

In the end, the promise of a “story-based fart” is really a promise about tone: Slow Horses won’t pretend the world is cleaner than it is. It will let genius wear an ugly coat. It will let heroism show up with terrible manners. And it will remind youat the least glamorous possible momentthat stories aren’t about perfection. They’re about what people do under pressure… even when the pressure is, unfortunately, internal.