Regardless of its equestrian-themed title, misfit-spies motif and occasional reference to “Moscow guidelines,” Peacock’s new espionage thriller “Ponies” has little in widespread with Apple TV+‘s “Sluggish Horses.” Set in Chilly Battle Moscow, “Ponies” falls, intriguingly and sometimes uneasily, someplace between FX’s “The Individuals” and underappreciated female-empowerment comedy movie “The Spy Who Dumped Me.”
Which isn’t shocking because it was created by Susanna Fogel and David Iserson, co-writers of “The Spy Who Dumped Me,” which the previous directed and the latter government produced.
Opening with an try and extract a CIA asset from the clutches of the KGB, the sequence facilities round Moscow’s American Embassy circa 1977 (with a soundtrack and temporary glimpses of a younger George H.W. Bush and, later, Elton John, to show it).
Because the American operatives have interaction within the compulsory shoot-‘em-up automobile chase, two ladies meet in a market. Although they’re every lower than thrilled with their virtually nonexistent lives as wives of envoys to the affiliate of the U.S. ambassador (i.e: the spies from the opening sequence), their contrasting attitudes and sparky, odd-couple chemistry is instantly, and a bit ham-handedly, established.
Well mannered, rule-following and Russian-fluent Bea (Emilia Clarke) believes her husband Chris (Louis Boyer) when he lovingly assures her that this posting might be over in a number of years and shortly she might be placing her unidentified Wellesley diploma to higher use. (Observe to whoever wrote the Peacock press notes: A Wellesley diploma doesn’t make a lady “over-educated.”)
Powerful-talking, streetwise Twila (Haley Lu Richardson) just isn’t so deferential or deluded; she pushes Bea to face down an unscrupulous Russian egg service provider with profanity-laden elan. Unsurprisingly, her marriage to Tom (John Macmillan) is greater than a bit rocky.
Nonetheless, when their husbands die, ostensibly in a aircraft crash, Bea and Twila are grief-stricken — they’ve misplaced not solely their husbands however their careers as overseas service wives.
Again within the U.S., Bea is bucked up by her Russian, Holocaust-surviving grandmother (the all the time welcome Harriet Walter) whereas Twila realizes she fled her hardscrabble Indiana background for good purpose.
Decided to seek out out what actually occurred to their husbands, the 2 return to Moscow and confront station head Dane Walter (Adrian Lester), convincing him that their standing as wives — the last word Individuals of No Curiosity, or “PONI” in spy parlance — affords the proper cowl.
Ignoring the historic proven fact that each international locations have lengthy had feminine undercover operatives, Dane decides (and convinces then-outgoing CIA head Bush, performed by Patrick Fabian) that Russia would by no means take into account two ladies (together with, you already know, one fluent in Russian) a menace and, by the center of the primary episode, we’re off.
Reinstalled as secretaries, Bea’s mission is to get near new asset Ray (Nicholas Podany), Twila’s to … be a secretary. She, in fact, decides to change into extra concerned, enlisting the help of Ivanna (Lili Walters), an equally powerful market service provider.
Andrei (Artjom Gilz) is a murderous KGB chief who Bea (Emilia Clarke) and Twila should confront.
(Katalin Vermes / Peacock)
Every thing will get instantly extra sophisticated, and harmful, when Bea catches the attention of Andrei (Artjom Gilz), a murderous KGB chief who might be able to lead the CIA to the surveillance facility Chris and Tom had been looking for after they died.
Clarke, returning to TV for her largest function since her career-making flip as Daenerys Targaryen in “Sport of Thrones,” is the apparent headliner. And in early episodes she does in reality carry the sequence, evoking, with as a lot realism because the comparatively mild tone of the writing will permit, a lady whose self-knowledge and self-confidence have eroded after she was sidelined into the function of spouse.
Richardson, who many will bear in mind as Portia, long-suffering assistant to Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) in Season 2 of “The White Lotus,” is given the other activity. Twila is, in Hollywood parlance, a “firecracker” — you already know, the tough-talking dame who inevitably nurses a wounded coronary heart. Whereas drafting Bea as a spy makes a specific amount of sense, Twila’s ability set, as she is advised, is being “fearless.” Her actual expertise, nevertheless, seems to be standing up for “abnormal ladies,” together with a string of prostitutes, murdered and forgotten.
Since neither girl receives the sort of coaching even most fictionally drafted civilian-spies get in these sorts of tales, Bea and Twila are compelled to depend on their wits, and the yin-yang stability of their good woman/powerful woman relationship.
This makes for some nice banter and fish-out-of-water moments, but it surely muddies the tone — are they being taken severely as spies or not — and requires vital suspension of perception (as does the Moscow setting created by Budapest; everybody retains speaking about how chilly it’s, but it surely by no means appears that chilly). Happily, in contrast with their skilled counterparts in most espionage dramas, the profession brokers on either side seem, not less than initially, to be fairly restricted of their spy craft as nicely.
An rising plotline involving intercourse tapes and blackmail provides all types of tensions, in addition to traditionally accuracy, and, as issues get rolling, the spies change into sharper and the notion of surveillance grows more and more sophisticated and tantalizing.
Nonetheless, “Ponies” is clearly much less within the granular ins and outs of devices, codes and lifeless drops than it’s within the private motivations of these concerned and the ethical morass that’s the Chilly Battle. “You got here to Moscow to seek out fact?” an asset scoffs.
The forged is uniformly robust, the performances stable and interesting (Walter’s Russian grandma reappears halfway by means of to point out everybody the way it’s finished). If “Ponies” takes virtually half of its eight-episode season to equal the sum of its components, Fogel, who additionally co-wrote “Booksmart,” is a grasp spinner of feminine friendship, and Clarke and Richardson make it unimaginable to not immediately acknowledge, and join with, Bea and Twila.
Their chemistry, and the absurdity of their state of affairs, propels the story over any early “wait, what?” bumps and complicated tonal shifts into an more and more propulsive and cohesive spy drama, with loads of “belief nobody” twists and turns, and the sort of interval element that might make “Mad Males” proud. (OK, sure, I’m sufficiently old to have tried the shampoo “Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific.”)
Happily, even because it strikes with rising assurance into “Tinker, Tailor” territory, “Ponies” stays a narrative of affection. Which, as spies know solely too nicely, can solely exist once you settle for, and share, the true fact about your self. With a cliff-hanging ending, “Ponies” is betting that Bea and Twila will get one other season to seek out their truths, even in Moscow.
