REVIEW: ‘Ponies’ is a Gripping Cold War Espionage Thriller Starring Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson
- Emma Fisher
- 42 minutes ago
- 5 min read
This review contains spoilers for Ponies.
Following the success of The Paper, All Her Fault and The Copenhagen Test last year, Peacock is clearly looking to build momentum around their original content in 2026. The first of these is Ponies, an eight-episode Cold War espionage drama. Co-created by Susanna Fogel and David Iserson (The Spy Who Dumped Me), it stars Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson and is set for release on January 15. While the series would benefit from a weekly rollout, thanks to its cliffhangers, reveals, and plot twists that invite post-episode discussion through theories and analysis, the full season will be available to stream on the day of launch.
Opening in Moscow, 1976, Bea (Clarke) and Twila (Richardson) meet at a market. Bea has been stationed in the city for six months, and Twila for 24 hours. From the outset, it’s obvious that the pair couldn’t be more different. Bea is an over-educated, Russian-speaking child of Soviet immigrants, and Twila is a small-town American who is as abrasive as she is fearless and openly disdainful of her surroundings. Moscow, to her, is a shit hole, but it’s where they find themselves living while their husbands, Tom (John Macmillan) and Chris (Louis Bayer), work for the CIA. Or at least, that’s what they believe.
The initial 16 minutes of the first episode are well-paced, immediately upending the trajectory of what the audience will expect the series’ plot to be (unless you have read the logline). While attending an embassy Christmas party later that evening, Bea and Twila are soon taken into a private room, where they are told that a small single-engined aircraft crashed in a field 30 kilometres south of Moscow. Their husbands were on board, and there were no survivors. They are to pack their belongings as they will be returning home to the US to be with their families. If asked about their loss, they are to tell people that while on diplomatic business, two embassy employees were flying a single-engined Soviet aircraft that encountered engine failure and crashed. Twila knows this is a cover story, but she will have no choice but to repeat it.
That is, until Bea returns to Providence, Rhode Island, distraught and unsure of what her life is meant to look like without Chris. She does, however, know that she has no choice but to discover what really happened to her husband. When the pair meet up, Twila tells Bea that there is nowhere for her to go, so she is heading back to Moscow, where she will have a place paid for by the US government with no rules. Bea, in turn, was also thinking about going back so that she could discover the truth. She reveals that Chris had a card in his pocket written in another’s handwriting with the phrase “winged horse over the entire world” in Russian. This is their first clue that something is amiss in their husband’s deaths, and they cannot figure out what it means unless they go back to Moscow.
Dane Walter (Adrian Lester) is the head of the Moscow station whom they must convince to let them return to the USSR and join America’s intelligence work. Bea wants to make an impact and do something important with her life, and Twila agrees. The latter believes that no one would suspect them of anything as they’re women. While he says no, he does speak to another above him in the CIA, noting that where Bea speaks Russian, Twila is fearless like a bull. Together, they could make a good officer. The US has never successfully run a secret agent in Moscow, and the Russians would never bring on a woman as a case officer. Naturally, they’d never expect the US to either, so they would be one step ahead on their turf. Once agreed, Bea and Twila are to pass and retrieve documents as Ponies, persons of no interest, but they will never be privy to the intelligence, nor will they be a part of the operation. You know how that will go.
What follows is steeped in suspicion, encouraging viewers to scrutinise each character, including their relationship to both the Soviet Union and the United States. As Bea and Twila work to piece together the truth behind their husbands' deaths, they also work to uncover a vast Cold War conspiracy, zeroing in on the KGB from the inside and outside. Although Ponies deals with heavy subject matter, namely grief, betrayal, and morality, it remains an entertaining watch. There's a real pleasure to be had in losing yourself within the plot, with no line too small or unimportant to use in your theories. However, given how tightly packed each episode is, it's easy to gloss over characters, particularly those unnamed on either side.
Ponies is at its strongest when Clarke and Richardson share the screen. Whether working in tandem or separately, they form a compelling partnership. Their differences never disappear, but over time, they learn how to move in sync, effectively acting as a single agent as they become increasingly entangled with the inner workings of the DPG.
Clarke delivers an impressive performance. Her command of Russian, a language she did not speak before the show and learned with her language teacher Fabien Enjalric, adds credibility and tension to Bea's presence in Moscow, reinforcing how exposed and capable she is in equal measure. The relationship she forms with Andrei Vasiliev (Artjom Gilz), the most dangerous KGB officer, is a high point, though it's her chemistry with Sasha Shevchenko (Petro Ninovskyi), a technician for top-secret Soviet technology, that is delightful.
Richardson, meanwhile, breathes life into Twila, ensuring she never becomes comic relief, despite often being very funny, nor merely a counterpoint to Bea's restraint. Her unconventional outlook is never treated as a caricature either, even as she navigates new emotional and sexual experiences with a woman. Together, Clarke and Richardson ground the show, making a strong case for the pairing as Ponies' greatest asset.
With the series ending on a cliffhanger, it's difficult not to hope that this won't be the last time we see Bea and Twila. An assured and consistently engaging run that understands both the pleasures and anxieties of the spy genre should find its audience, particularly as it releases while the second season of The Night Manager, a British spy thriller, is airing. Tense and character-driven without losing momentum, Ponies is your next TV obsession.
About Ponies
Premiere Date: January 15, 2026
Episode Count: 8
Showrunner: Mike Daniels
Executive Producers: Susanna Fogel, David Iserson, Mike Daniels, Jessica Rhoades, and Emilia Clarke
Writers: Susanna Fogel, David Iserson (101-105, 108), Rosa Handelman (106), Carolyn Cicalese, and Jordan Riggs (107)
Directors: Susanna Fogel (101, 102, 105, 108), Viet Nguyen (103, 104), and Ally Pankiw (106, 107)
Production: Universal Television, a division of Universal StudioGroup
Cast: Emilia Clarke, Haley Lu Richardson, Adrian Lester, Artjom Gilz, Nicholas Podany, Petro Ninovskyi, and Vic Michaelis
Synopsis: Moscow, 1977. Two “PONIES” ("persons of no interest" in intelligence speak) work anonymouslyas secretaries in the American Embassy. That is until their husbands are killed under mysterious circumstances in theUSSR, and the pair become CIA operatives. Bea(Emilia Clarke) is an over-educated, Russian-speaking child of Sovietimmigrants. Her cohort, Twila (Haley Lu Richardson), is a small-town girl who is as abrasive as she is fearless. Together, they work to uncover a vast Cold War conspiracy and solve the mystery that made them widows in the first place.
