(TV SERIES) Ponies Season 1 - A Fun Enough Series of Normal Women Becoming Secret Agents During Cold War

 

This brand new series was made available on HBO Max I think on 15 January, though I only started watching two days ago and finished it last night. It had a very interesting premise that made me wanted to give it a try immediately. Without further ado, here's more on the series.

Brief Story Line

Story was set in the year 1977 in Moscow, Russia during the peak of cold war where CIA and KGB were fighting against each other through various espionage means. Beatrice Grant (Emilia Clarke - Secret Invasion mini series, Me Before You etc) and Twila Hasbeck (Haley Lu Richardson - Five Feet Apart, The White Lotus season 2 etc) were wives of CIA agents who posed themselves as secretaries in the US Embassy. However their lives completely changed when both their husbands were killed in suspicious circumstances and Bea & Twila insisted to find out what actually happened.

Dane Walter (Adrian Lester - Mary Queen of Scots, Hustle TV series etc) the CIA Moscow station chief decided to give them a chance to become agents. With the support from Dane's right hand man Ray (Nicholas Podany - Juliet & Romeo etc), Bea and Twila started with simple task of contacting a Russian named Sasha Shevchenko (Petro Ninovskyi - Sydórenky - Sydorénky TV series etc) who was providing secrets to the CIA. However it became much more complicated when they were involved with a dangerous KGB agent named Andrei Vasiliev (Artjom Gilz - Das Boot TV series etc). Twila who had no skills of being secretary was having additional difficulty facing the office manager Cheryl (Vic Michaelis - host of Very Important People mockumentary etc) who was also Ray's wife.

So what would happen to Bea and Twila? You could find out in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

As you are most likely aware, I am quite a fan of espionage stories which made me interested in this series. Since this one was not the conventional type of spy, it made me even more intrigued as the premise sounded like a comedy. And in the first few episodes, it actually was pretty light and delightful seeing both Bea and Twila who had no experience and training at all doing spy works. But as the story progressed, there were heavier things involved. The completely different characteristics of free spirited but street smart Twila and the intelligent with strong emotions Bea was also the main attraction here.

During the whole 8 episodes with duration between 47-53 minutes, we saw Bea and Twila developed from simple minded wives to quite brilliant agents through various adversities though with heavy price of losing their innocence. Although everything seemed to be fine here, there was one thing that I thought was a bit inconsistent in Bea's way of thinking, particularly how she disapproved her husband's action which was exactly what she did. Other than that though, I thought it did not have major shortfalls. Oh before I forgot, the series had some graphic nudity and sexual intercourse scenes which might be uncomfortable for some audience.

The series relied heavily on the two lead stars Emily Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson who gave good performance here. Artjom Gilz was also convincing as the vicious KGB agent. In addition to the main cast above, there were also appearance of several people in support roles such as Harriet Walter (Silo TV series etc) as Bea's grandmother Manya, John Macmillan (The Burning Girls TV series etc) as Twila's husband Tom, Louis Boyer (Outside the Wire etc) as Bea's husband Chris, Lili Walter (Conrad Drakulich etc) as Ivanna and few others. I am not sure if the series was adapted from anything since there was no info in the opening or closing credits. It was created by David Iserson (writer of United States of Tara, New Girl TV series etc) and Susanna Fogel (director of The Spy Who Dumped Me and writer of The Addams Family 2 etc) who also directed several episodes of the series.

Critics were very impressed with this series as proven by its high critical rating. However I am not sure about audience views. I read some comments complaining romantization of Russia due to its invasion to Ukarine which I personally thought should not be the basis for judging a work of art. Btw this was a Peacock original, a second spy series in a row that I watched on HBO Max in the space of less than a month. There was no news yet if this one is going to be renewed but I certainly hope it would cause there were so many unresolved things by the end of its first season. Besides, I am also intrigued in finding out what would happen to everyone, including the mystery surrounding Bea and Twila's husbands deaths.

Overall this was an enjoyable enough series. It was not as hilarious as Fogel's previous work of The Spy Who Dumped Me or as sophisticated as other espionage series, but still pretty fun to watch. There was little action involved unlike in most spy films or cool gadgets since it was set in 1970s. Oh the screen format was intentionally made not in the wide screen to provide the oldies feel. So if you are interested in watching inexperienced women working as CIA agents during the cold war while trying to solve mystery and dealing with many issues, then likely you would be entertained. But if your preference is the usual spy series with the standard attributes for the genre, then this might not be to your liking. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars