No matter how crowded the content archive of the espionage genre might feel, there is always room for more, as long as creativity isn’t an issue. Bringing well-written female characters to lead the espionage game while exploring Cold War tensions in late 70s Moscow, Susanna Fogel and David Iserson have showcased a brilliant example of the diversifying potential of the genre with their latest venture, Peacock’s spy thriller series, Ponies. With equal parts humor, heart, and action on display, Ponies highlights the significance of the human cost of spycraft through an oft-neglected female perspective. The only minor drawback to this otherwise brilliant series is its adherence to the recent tendency of ending the story on a cliffhanger at the end of the first season, without providing closure to the ongoing narrative.
Spoilers Ahead
Why Do Bea and Twila Join the CIA as Operatives?
The changing geopolitical scenario, especially the long-standing era of cooperation coming to an end, the humiliation of the US in the Vietnam War, and communist revolutions across the African continent being backed by the Soviet Union resulted in the seemingly thawed Cold War era tensions rising once again during the late 70s. In sync with this and the renewed arms race, espionage conflicts escalated between the two global superpowers. The series kicks off on 24th December, 1976, as the narrative focuses on Beatrice Grant and Twila Hasbeck, wives of CIA operatives Chris Grant and Tom Hasbeck, stationed in the American embassy in Moscow. Unlike their husbands, who are Persons of Interest for both their nation and the ‘enemy’ state and have to risk their lives on a daily basis, the wives of intelligence operatives are considered Persons of Non Interest, aka PONI. A sharp, loudmouthed, street-smart Twila, who has spent two years in Moscow, gets acquainted with Beatrice, a typical refined, educated high-society underachiever housewife, who has only been in Moscow for six months and is trying to get a hang of things. Both their respective worlds come crashing down after Chris and Tom meet a tragic end following a plane crash, news that CIA’s Moscow Station Captain, Dane Walter, passes onto them, personally. However, as both of them return to the States, the mystery regarding Chris’ death starts irking Bea, while Twila doesn’t even have a home to return to. Bea finds a card in Chris’ belongings, which has the phrase ‘Winged Horse Over the Entire World’ written on it in someone else’s handwriting—which makes her more suspicious about the truth of her husband’s passing.
Twila proposed to Bea that they return to Moscow, and together they muster enough courage to ask Dane to let them participate in intelligence operations for that to happen. Initially, Dane outright rejects the proposal, given the majority of his well-trained male agents have repeatedly failed in their assignments, and entrusting women who only have experience in desk jobs will be a fool’s errand. However, Walter eventually sees the possible upsides of such a risky plan, given the KGB doesn’t consider the possibility of women having the mettle to become competent spies—assigning these so-called PONIs to espionage missions. The Soviets will inevitably underestimate female operatives and let their guard down, allowing enough of a change for the CIA to take advantage. Walter convinces the then-director of the CIA, George H. W Bush, to secretly approve the mission, ensuring the blowback of the mission’s possible failure will not touch him. At Moscow’s US Embassy, Bea and Twila take desk jobs, which act as cover for their secret, real vocation as spies.
The Differing Nature of Bea and Twila’s Missions
Bea’s composed demeanour and sociable and emotional nature make her a perfect fit for missions that require learning about the target, earning their trust, and extracting intel. Initially, Walter and the rest of the CIA unit remain unsure as to what role can be given to Twila, given that her unconventional approach to things and straightforward approach don’t really allow her to blend in among the crowd. However, Twila proves that she is fit for active field duty by saving Bea from almost getting nabbed by Andrei Vasiliev, a ruthless, young KGB officer, by creating a distraction. While delivering a package to one of the Russian informants named Sasha in a pub, Bea almost gets her cover blown by Andrei’s sudden appearance. Thanks to Twila’s quick-wittedness, Bea is able to escape. It should be mentioned that Sasha is helping the CIA get their hands on Soviet spyware and confidential intel to seek immunity and learn the truth about his sister, Galyna’s murder, since he believes KGB was responsible. Bea has to undertake increasingly difficult missions that challenge her moral compass as she has to spy on Sasha and put her life in peril while forming a romantic relationship with Andrei to extract intel from him. At one point, Bea almost decides to quit the CIA and return to the States, until Twila helps her to remember what she is fighting for. Later on, Walter assists Bea to keep her head in the game and focus on the mission at hand. Bea manages to earn Andrei’s trust, gets close to him, and also becomes good friends with Sasha.
On the other hand, Twila unexpectedly finds herself investigating a heinous KGB cover-up involving the serial murder of sex workers. To gather intel from high-profile American bureaucrats, Russians paid sex workers to get close to them in order to gain leverage over them in the form of recorded sex videos. George Tellman, an American ambassador who got similarly tricked, seeks his attaché, Twila’s help after learning the sex worker with whom he had a one-night stand was found murdered on the same night. Unlike most others, who don’t care a dime about the death of a sex worker, Twila decides to get involved and seeks help from Walter’s right-hand man, a mild-mannered agent named Raymond. Ray’s research reveals a series of mysterious prostitute murders that were covered up by the authorities. Unbeknownst to them, Andrei, who is building his own blackmailing network to quickly rise through the ranks of the KGB, murdered the sex workers to cover his tracks. Twila seeks help from one of her acquaintances, a local salesgirl named Ivanna, about the case, who directs her to one of her sex worker friends, Maria. Aside from one of the girls in Ray’s files, Maria recognizes the rest of the women as her old friends. The girl Maria couldn’t recognize later turns out to be Galyna, Sasha’s sister—as Bea identifies her from the picture of the siblings she saw at Sasha’s apartment. A tricky situation develops, as Andrei is led to believe that Sasha and Bea are in a relationship, and Bea has to play along with Sasha to keep her cover from getting blown.
Manya Gets Involved, and Twila Learns a Terrible Truth
Twila gets assigned to negotiate with Vera, one of the mediators between the CIA and the KGB, who can direct her to one of her contacts, known by the codename Caterpillar. Apparently, Caterpillar knows the coordinates of the KGB facility that Chris and Tom were investigating before their death. Also, Vera was with them during their last mission, so there is a chance she knows more about their final moments than Walter or the other CIA higher-ups do at present. Twila uses her wit and pulls off the seemingly impossible negotiation to arrange a meeting with Caterpillar and hands Vera a US passport according to her demand, as the fixer wants to settle in the States and live out the rest of her life peacefully. However, Twila receives the shock of a lifetime upon learning from Vera that Tom and Chris were gunned down by soldiers, and Tom apparently sold out his country, as he was working with the KGB. Things go awry when Twila tries to ask Vera for further intel, but the old woman trips and falls from a bridge, drowning. While recovering Vera’s belongings with Bea’s help, Twila gets really emotional upon realizing how expendable they really are in this business. Twila keeps the news about Tom’s betrayal a secret from Bea, who has her own troubles to face as she finds a video recording that shows Chris cheating on her with Galyna. A distraught Beau shows the video to Walter, who acknowledges that Chris had to do so to secure his cover while working as a double agent for the CIA, who needed to win the trust of the KGB. Bea’s emotional spectrum goes through massive shuffling as trust and the lack of it mark her relationship with Chris, Sasha, and Andrei.
With Vera’s demise, the whole operation nearly ends up compromised, until Bea decides to involve her Belarussian immigrant grandma and Holocaust survivor, Manya, in the mission by making her pose as Vera. Twila decides to take the responsibility of ensuring Manya’s safety, but things go awry when the KGB ends up abducting her and takes her to be interrogated. Andrei becomes aware of the situation, and Bea, who is on a date with him, insists on taking her along upon realizing how much danger she has pushed her grandma into. Andrei knew the real Vera, and realizing Manya to be a CIA mole, he sends her to a prison camp at Lefortovo. Twila informs Walter, who actively takes the lead in the rescue mission with Bea, Twila, and Ray’s help, and is able to rescue Manya. It should be mentioned that the operative known as Caterpillar was arrested by the KGB along with Manya, and even though he wasn’t able to provide any coordinates, he handed a piece of spyware tech developed by the Soviets to her. The team fails to protect Caterpillar during the daring rescue, as he ends up getting caught by the Soviets. In exchange for her assistance in the mission, Manya convinces Walter to arrange safe passage for her to her village in Belarus, as she hopes to meet with her dear old friend, Sofia, one last time. You have to keep in mind that Belarus was under the USSR’s control until 1991, so arranging safe passage for a commoner regarded as a defector was a rather difficult task, even for the CIA. Bea and Twila’s relationship becomes strained after the incident involving Manya, and later, as Twila confesses to Bea about Tom’s act of betrayal, she becomes livid upon realizing Chris’ death happened due to someone else’s act of treachery. However, it doesn’t take long for the friends to patch up once again.
Walter’s Trauma
Ray employs Eevi, a Russian nanny, to look after his young son, Trent, even though Ray’s wife, Cheryl, remains suspicious of her. On one occasion, Trent finds an audio bug attached underneath the fireplace of Ray’s apartment, and upon learning of this, Ray sweeps the area, which allows him to find a secret network of tunnel systems.
The pressure mounts on Walter as he faces scrutiny from the higher-ups for the troubling state of his operations, and in light of recent events, his mental health starts declining. Walter goes to Germany to get his personal ‘therapy’ by sharing his burden with a questionable psychiatrist whose experimental treatment involves using shock therapy to bury short-term memories and unresolved emotional issues. Walter feels guilty for assigning Chris to his final mission, which resulted in his demise, and it is hinted Walter might have been involved in an affair with him. Emile, a senior agent/Holocaust survivor who helped the new recruits to get accustomed to the espionage affairs, ensures Walter’s secrecy by making the necessary arrangements.
Who Was the Mole?
In the meantime, Twila and Ray get the assignment of bugging one of the Soviets’ hidden cameras with a tracker by infiltrating a hotel where a large-scale blackmailing operation is going to take place. By putting a tracker in one of the devices, they aim to locate the containment facility where the KGB’s mass surveillance takes place. Twila hatches a plan to seek Maria’s help in the operation, and she ends up sending Ivanna instead. Ray and Twila enter the hotel by disguising themselves as an elderly couple, and Twila takes it upon herself to protect Ivanna from a pervy, drunk rich man in the course of the mission. Twila and Ivanna give in to their feelings for each other and get close, while Ray manages to plant the tracker inside one of the recording devices while helping one of the sex workers sent by the Soviets to share her burdens. Bea and Sasha commit to their feelings for each other. Walter asks Bea and Twila to see the rest of the operation through and find the evidence containment facility, and Bea manages to track down the location without getting her cover blown. Much to Bea’s horror, she witnesses Yuri, one of the KGB higher-ups, threaten Andrei with his own blackmailing videos, which show him murdering the sex workers around Moscow to take care of loose ends. In the meantime, Twila manages to get close to Andrei’s wife by using the excuse of ‘saving’ their infant and unknowingly gets her hands on one of Andrei’s bugged devices made to look like a shampoo bottle, used for his personal blackmailing network. Before Bea and Twila can do something about this, things take a shocking turn as, during an event organized by the US embassy, they come face-to-face with Andrei—who now knows their entire scheme and chases after them like a madman.
Andrei almost manages to capture them, but a timely intervention by Ivanna gives them enough of an opening to escape. Bea takes Sasha along with her, knowing Andrei will come after him—and the trio seek refuge in the dacha of one of Andrei’s former lovers, Aksana. Bea had met Aksana while accompanying Andrei during one of the meetings with KGB higher-ups, and Aksana, who is hinted to be an undercover agent as well, had correctly deduced Bea’s ruse. Aksana helps Bea by providing a safehouse in the form of the dacha, which turns out to be Andrei’s, as the trio finds a huge stack of shampoo bottle recording devices with blackmailing videos recorded in each of them. Calling the embassy, Twila asks for extraction before trying to leave with the evidence, when two of Andrei’s operatives attack them. Sasha manages to kill one of them by forcing a cyanide pill into his mouth that he had intended to keep for himself, while Bea takes down the other using a fire poker. Sasha is gravely injured during the fight, and taking him and Bea along with the evidence, Twila drives towards the city. Andrei manages to catch up, but Twila’s daredevil drifting results in Andrei losing control over his car and crashing. A US Marine arrives just in time as part of the extraction team to take the evidence and Sasha away, while Bea and Twila take Andrei back to the US embassy, specifically the CIA office, as a prisoner. En route to the embassy, Twila comforts Bea while opening up about her past. As the friend duo interrogates Andrei, they are shocked to learn Vera was mistaken in identifying the CIA operatives, and Bea’s husband, Chris, was the mole all along. Additionally, as Bea calls him out for murdering the sex workers he exploited for his blackmailing missions, Andrei reveals Sasha’s sister, Galyna, was working for the KGB, and she was murdered by the CIA, which means—contrary to Bea and Twila’s belief—the Americans are no saints in comparison.
Walter and Emile go to Belarus, and initially it appears they are spying on Manya, who has recently reunited with her old friend, Sofia. But much to the viewers’ surprise, Chris turns out to be alive, as Walter and Emile take Manya to meet him at a secret location. It remains unclear whether they know about his role as a KGB mole, which will probably be highlighted in the next season. On the other hand, Cheryl catches Eevi red-handed while she is going through Ray’s confidential CIA devices during the couple’s absence and shoots her. It almost seems Cheryl was right in her suspicion in identifying the nanny as a KGB agent, but eventually her larger role in KGB’s operations comes to light as Cheryl turns out to be another KGB mole. Cheryl was instructed to have a device planted in the US embassy’s evidence/archive room, which the KGB remotely detonates to destroy all the evidence Bea and Twila had procured to expose the KGB’s large-scale blackmail operation. With Walter and Emile, two of the head honchos of the CIA’s Moscow station, gone at the moment, Cheryl perfectly orchestrates her plan and destroys the evidence. As the first season comes to an end, a fire breaks out in the US embassy, causing Bea and Twila to watch in horror as the evidence gets destroyed, while Soviet firefighters take away the rest of the surviving material. Andrei frees himself, and revealing the office to be the CIA’s workspace, manages to have Bea and Twila arrested by Russian cops who are under the KGB’s payroll. What does the future hold for the friend duo, and whether they will be able to learn the whole truth—remains unanswered as of now, which will probably be addressed in the next season of Ponies.
