Emilia Clarke’s spy thriller is jarring – yet her best role in years

Emilia Clarke’s new cold war thriller is equal parts weird, wacky and wonderful, with the Game of Thrones star delivering a stellar turn as an unconventional spy.

Ponies (a delightful acronym for persons of no interest) is set in Soviet Russia in the 1970s, where an envoy of US government workers is attempting to infiltrate the USSR’s intelligence services and give America an upper hand in the global superpower race.

Here we meet innocent Bea (Emilia Clarke), a by-the-book academic with fluent Russian thanks to her family’s Belarusian heritage and education, who has found herself playing secretary to her husband, whom she is completely in love with, thank you very much.

Then we have happy-go-lucky, born-and-bred US wife, Twila (Haley Lu Richardson), who is not interested in societal norms, knows not a lick of Russian and is, at best, indifferent to her husband’s goings-on.

The show very quickly establishes the tried and tested chalk-and-cheese dynamic between our plucky duo.

Although it is refreshing to see two women in lead roles rather than a male-female pairing, as is most often the case with a whodunnit premise.

When both of their husbands die together in a freak aviation accident, they are shipped back home to grieve and process their lives turning upside down overnight.

But, sure that there is more to their husbands’ deaths than meets the eye, a determined Twila swings their return to the USSR as newly-baptised intelligence agents. After all, two widows are the last people their enemies would suspect.

I’ll be the first to admit that the setup to get these characters where we want them to be, and fully immersed in the plot, takes a while.

At times it risked losing my interest, but it’s definitely worth sticking with because once they’ve found their feet, the action and mystery at the heart of the show will keep you coming back for more.

Harking back to her days as Daenerys Targaryen, Emilia imbues several layers to this role, first with her ability to pick up new languages and dialects and, second, with portraying soft-hearted characters who have a hardy bite to them.

Alongside the overarching plot, each episode plunges the women into a new mission in which they need to prove their mettle and apply their problem-solving skills. Frankly, it makes for a fun watch as you wait to see how they’ll get out of their next bind.

This is where the comedy comes in as we watch an aghast Bea attempt to jump from a multiple-story building and Twila try to actually take things seriously for once.

On the flip side, the show is also packed with socio-political commentary as we see the impact of the rumbling Cold War on Moscow and the complex underground world of espionage and subterfuge, packed full of double and triple agents, not to mention life and death stakes.

While both elements are compelling, at times the series struggles to strike the right tone – and decide whether it wants to lean into the levity or the severity.

There are times when you’ll be laughing away, and the show suddenly switches to a much darker tone, such as the murder of a woman, and the mood shifts quite jarringly.

Still, there is more to love about this series than not. Emilia’s chemistry with essentially everyone in the cast is endearing. You’re rooting for the friendship forged in fire between Bea and Twila and the unexpected romantic tension between Bea and double agent Sasha (Petro Ninovskyi).

Elsewhere, later on in the show, there’s a stellar guest appearance from Harriet Walter, who plays Bea’s tough-as-nails grandmother.

All in all, Haley and Emilia helm this fascinating thriller with a steady hand – supported by a standout ensemble cast that populate this rich world.

But the missions they are sent on are where this show really thrives – I could watch the pair of them get up to hijinks for seasons to come.

Ponies is available to stream now on HBO Max, NOW and Sky Atlantic.

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