Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson’s spy show is worth an award
Things are tough for fictional female spies on television. They have to be as smart, cunning and a step ahead as their male counterparts. Moreover, they usually have to do it in heels. Unfortunately, the TV Academy has difficulty taking note of this. Sure, Barbara Bain had it good in the 1960s when she won three consecutive lead drama actress Emmys for her work as a fashion model/covert on Cinnamon Carter in the series “Mission: Impossible” on CBS. And Claire Danes won the category twice for her work as the troubled and trouble-seeking Carrie Mathison in Showtime’s “Homeland.”
Sandra Oh never won for playing an MI5 agent in BBC America and AMC’s “Killing Eve,” even though Jodie Comer did take home a lead actress Emmy for playing her assassin counterpart. And Keri Russell never won for playing Elizabeth Jennings, the smarter half of a team of KBG agents living among us on FX’s “The Americans.” In fact, the actresses from Apple TV’s “Slow Horses” were never nominated, even though the series and some of its male talent were.
Funnily enough, the Academy’s history of minimal recognition is almost a meta-nod to the entire plot of “Ponies.” Peacock’s 1970s spy show places two unassuming American women (Emilia Clarke’s studious Beatrice “Bea” Grant and Haley Lu Richardson’s savvy Twila Hasbeck) exactly where our government thinks they would be least suspected: Cold War Moscow. These characters are young widows and are considered “persons of no interest” to anyone supervising. But thanks to some spy 101 training learned along the way and a little accent work from Clarke’s Bea – this is a show in which a British actress plays an American who sometimes pretends to be Russian – they discover untruths about both countries, engage in art forgery, meet new lovers and maybe even save a few lives.
Peacock is also changing tactics from previous channels’ spy series campaigns. “Ponies” is submitted for comedic consideration – a fact that may be the show’s biggest covert operation yet. And there are funny moments. “Better Call Saul” star Patrick Fabian appears briefly with a terrible toupee as George HW Bush. Nicholas Podany and Vic Michaelis became fan favorites for their work as the unassuming and mustachioed mid-level CIA agent Ray Szymanski and his wife Cheryl, a member of the office’s support staff who steers her ship as if she’s just taken over from “Mad Men’s” Joan Holloway. Main characters Bea and Twila themselves often operate on a level that embodies the word ‘dramedy’.
But this is a show that should be taken seriously. Other supporting players include Adrian Lester as Dane Walter, a handler who barely bothers to shake off the news that sometimes sacrifices have to be made. Lili Walters brings a pragmatic survivalism to Ivanna, a Muscovite who has learned how to work the system, while Sasha Shevchenko, Petro Ninovskyi’s Russian, is clearly and understandably afraid of the world of espionage he voluntarily enters.
And then of course there is Harriet Walter’s Manya Caplan. Manya, a Russian-born Holocaust survivor, protects her granddaughter Bea because she knows there is no way for Clarke’s character to fathom what she has been through (i.e. Bea’s shocked face when she casually mentions a harrowing experience with a Russian People’s Liberation Army officer: “When was I going to tell you that story? While I was dropping you off at a horse riding camp?”). It also helps that Walter speaks Russian himself. Manya gets closure in the season finale, when she returns to her village for the first time since the war and manages to reconnect with her childhood friend. Manya wouldn’t appreciate me describing them this way, but the scenes are emotional.
None of this stuff is particularly funny. But these heroines may have to dress up as comedy to get the job done.
