Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson both became famous because of their roles on HBO shows. Clarke was of course, the Mother of Dragons– Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones while Richardson was Jennifer Coolidge’s beleaguered but adorable assistant in Season 2 of The White Lotus.
So it’s a bit of a thrill to see them together as completely different characters in Ponies,
Peacock’s most buzzed-about new show of the season. It isn’t your typical espionage drama — it’s a stylish, eight-episode spy thriller with elements of female power and friendship forged in the frigid heart of 1970s Moscow.
Created by The Flight Attendant’s Susanna Fogel and Mr. Robot’s David Iserson, Ponies blends Cold War suspense with a comic edge and great period music in a way that feels fresh, fun, and surprisingly emotional.
Clark and Richardson are two American wives stationed in Moscow whose lives are upended when their CIA-operative husbands die in a mysterious plane crash during the holiday season.
Instead of returning home to grieve on American soil, Clarke’s Beatrice “Bea” Grant and Richardson’s Twila Hasbeck take matters into their own hands. Without any training in espionage, they volunteer to work for the CIA to uncover what really happened.
The duo initially serve as low-profile secretaries at the U.S. Embassy — covert “persons of no interest,” or ponies in intel parlance — but they soon find themselves thrust into a deadly world of espionage, tangled conspiracies, and KGB double-crosses.
Through each of their own intuitive talents, they earn the respect of their CIA handlers, ably portrayed by Adrian Lester and Nicholas Podany.
The contrasts between the two women are stark. Bea is an Ivy Leaguer, fluent in Russian who is wrestling with her identity after her husband’s death and Twila is shown to be working class, bold, irreverent, and unafraid to shake things up.
Visually and thematically, Ponies thrives on its 1970s setting: snowy Moscow streets, vintage wardrobe flourishes, and an atmosphere thick with surveillance paranoia and ideological tension, even as the relationship between the women takes center stage.
Things get even more complicated when a KGB baddie shows up and becomes romantically entangled with Bea, as she starts focusing her attentions on a handsome young double agent.
Yes, there’s a showdown between the two men, with a surprising outcome as the story leads to darker places in the Soviet spy hierarchy.
The show’s cliffhanger finale already has fans whispering about what might come next.
