In the fog-shrouded spires of Oxford, where ivy-cloaked secrets fester behind manicured hedges, Apple TV+ detonates a bombshell thriller that’s redefining the genre: Down Cemetery Road. This eight-part pulse-ripper, adapted from Mick Herron’s 2003 debut novel, catapults two-time Oscar winner Emma Thompson into her iciest role yet—as Zoë Boehm, a chain-smoking, no-nonsense private eye whose unflinching gaze peels back layers of privilege and peril. Teaming with Golden Globe darling Ruth Wilson as the unraveling suburbanite Sarah Trafford, the series erupts with a gas explosion that shatters a quiet dinner party, vanishing a young girl and igniting a conspiracy that claws from local cover-ups to the corridors of Whitehall power. Premiering October 29, 2025, with episodes dropping weekly through December 10, it’s the “must-watch of the year” for its relentless tension, brutal reveals, and performances that linger like smoke. Early screeners whisper a chilling truth: it’s not the missing girl that haunts—it’s the rot they unearth, where the dead walk and the elite bleed.
Herron, the CWA Diamond Dagger maestro behind Apple TV+’s Emmy-sweeping Slow Horses, crafts a web of acerbic wit and moral decay here, his first Zoë Boehm outing now a “companion piece” to Slough House’s misfits. Sarah (Wilson), an art historian trapped in domestic drudgery, spies escape in the blast’s chaos: delivering a get-well card to the injured child, only to find her vanished, bodies mangled, and neighbors gaslighting her obsession. Enter Zoë (Thompson), a “struggling Oxford private eye” with a whiskey rasp and a nose for lies, pulled from her dingy office into Sarah’s vortex. Their alliance—a prickly fusion of Sarah’s frantic intuition and Zoë’s razor cynicism—unravels a labyrinth of sealed records, phantom identities, and desperate cover-ups. “Two bodies. And a disappeared child,” Sarah hisses in the trailer, as explosions bloom and shadowy operatives (led by Darren Boyd’s enigmatic “C”) scramble to bury the truth. What starts as a neighborhood nightmare spirals into a nest of power and privilege, exposing how the elite’s locked doors guard sins that could topple empires.
Thompson, shedding her beloved warmth from Sense and Sensibility and Howards End for Zoë’s “ruthless, unflinching magnetism,” delivers a career pivot that’s electric. “I was a mad Mick Herron fan long before Slow Horses,” she revealed in a recent sit-down, praising his rare blend of “funny” thrills amid the grim. Wilson, channeling Luther‘s brooding fire as Sarah, mirrors the descent: “This role’s about that quiet life exploding—literally,” she quipped, her chemistry with Thompson crackling like live wire. Supporting turns from Tim McInnerny as a slick fixer and Michael Begley as the haunted Downey add layers, while Morwenna Banks (Slow Horses alum) scripts the adaptation with Herron exec-producing via 60Forty Films.
Buzz is stratospheric. Elle dubs it “edgy” and “hooked-from-the-first-blast,” with fans on X erupting: “Emma Thompson ice-cold? Ruth Wilson unraveling? SIGN ME UP!” Good Housekeeping hails the “brilliant” duo as “the new Slow Horses,” while Collider‘s sneak peeks warn of “far-reaching conspiracy at the highest levels.” In a fall slate bloated with reboots, Down Cemetery Road stands as a clarion call: Herron’s Oxford is no ivory tower—it’s a pressure cooker of rot, where every reveal snaps like bone. Apple TV+ creative director Jay Hunt promises “all the hallmarks of Mick Herron’s funny and acerbic writing,” making it unmissable.
Dive in now—the trailer’s a tease of carnage at updatetinus.com/7er10z. Will Zoë and Sarah topple the throne, or join the ghosts? One locked door at a time, this thriller grips, guts, and gloriously guts the elite. The truth? It’s buried deep—and it’s clawing out.
