Slow Horses Season 3 Episode 5 on Apple TV+ cuts
Slow Horses – Season 3 Episode 5 “Cleaning Up” is cutting off early (only plays ~41–43 minutes, missing the final action sequence)
Hi everyone,
I’m hoping someone else has run into this and can confirm I’m not going mad.
Season 3 Episode 5 “Cleaning Up” (released 20 Dec 2023) is currently only playing for roughly 41–43 minutes on my Apple TV+ (Apple TV 4K, latest tvOS, UK account).
The episode info screen even lists it as 41 minutes, whereas every other source (IMDb, Wikipedia, JustWatch, etc.) says it should be 48 minutes 12 seconds.
What is missing is the entire ending of the Grey Books siege:
- After Ben Dunn (Alison’s brother) is shot in the neck,
- Sean Donovan (the ex-SAS/Chieftain operative) grabs a rifle from a dead mercenary, returns fire for several seconds, and is then hit himself in the shoulder/chest,
- A grenade is thrown in, explosion, River is thrown across the room → smash to black.
Instead, my stream just fades out or skips to credits around the 43-minute mark, so none of the above happens. It completely kills the cliffhanger and makes the opening minutes of Episode 6 (where Sean already wounded and being dragged through the tunnels) feel totally unearned.
Episode 6 also feels noticeably shorter and “off” in pacing, as if the connective tissue from the proper Ep 5 ending is gone.
Questions for the community:
1. Is anyone else seeing Season 3 Episode 5 stop early (around 41–43 min) with no rifle fight / grenade scene?
2. Has this happened to other episodes or just this one for you?
3. Has Apple ever quietly trimmed episodes after the fact, or is this a corrupted file / playback bug?
@Apple Support – could a moderator or engineer please look into why some accounts/devices are being served a truncated copy of S03E05? It removes a crucial action beat and seriously harms the story.
Thanks in advance for any confirmation or fixes!
(For reference I’m on Apple TV 4K 3rd gen, tvOS 18.1, UK region) and I also watch it on the Apple TV app on my MacBook Pro. it's exactly the same Lenght online as well through a web browser.
