Trying to Wrap Our Heads Around the Disorienting Ending of 'Ponies'

I did not have particularly high expectations for Peacock’s new series, Ponies, starring Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson, but I ended up pleasantly surprised. It is not The Americans by any stretch, but it is a solid, female-led spy series that is entertaining, occasionally nail-biting, and ultimately propelled by the strong friendship between its two leads.

And just when I thought it would end as a solid B+ series, the disorienting final five minutes threw me for a loop in a way that left me questioning everything that came before it. In a good way, mostly, but also in a legitimately frustrating way, because I was not particularly craving a second season. But now? I need it.

Set during the height of the Cold War in the mid-to-late ’70s, the series comes from Susanna Fogel (Booksmart) and former SNL writer David Iserson. Emilia Clarke plays Beatrice Grant, the wife of a CIA spy, Chris (Louis Boyer), living in Moscow with her husband. Haley Lu Richardson plays Twila, the wife of Tom (John Macmillan), Chris’s CIA partner. Early on, however, both Chris and Tom are killed under mysterious circumstances. Grief-stricken and desperate for answers, Bea and Twila volunteer as spies for the CIA’s Moscow station, reasoning that no one would suspect housewives of espionage. They accept cover jobs as secretaries and get to work under the supervision of Dane Walter (Adrian Lester), a closeted gay man whose secret leaves him vulnerable to compromise.

The early episodes are mostly mission-driven. Bea is tasked with collecting information from a Russian asset, Sasha Shevchenko (Petro Ninovskyi), who turned against the Soviet Union because he holds the government responsible for the death of his sister. Bea, naturally, develops feelings for Sasha, though she is conflicted not only because of who he is, but because she is still in love with her late husband.

Much of the mission work is bureaucratic by design. Bea and Twila blend in, gather intel by eavesdropping, relay messages, make deliveries, and help flush out leaks and moles. To the CIA, they are largely disposable, and on a show where everyone is suspicious, that is a dangerous position to occupy.

The first few episodes are entertaining enough, carried largely by the charm and chemistry between Clarke and Richardson. It feels closer to Rizzoli & Isles than The Americans. About midway through the series, when Bea recruits her mother-in-law to assist on a mission, the show begins to click into place. The missions narrow in on a single target, a KGB officer named Andrei Vasiliev (Artjom Gilz), and the stakes escalate dramatically. The danger begins to feel very real.

There are also other players in their orbit, notably Ray (Nicholas Podany), a dweeby CIA officer constantly berated by his deeply unhappy wife, Cheryl (Vic Michaelis), who resents being forced to live in Moscow. There is also Alan (Paul Chahidi), one of many gross, entitled men who treat the women as empty-headed, which, admittedly, is precisely the role the CIA wants them to play.

Because the early episodes are entertaining enough, they are ultimately worth sticking with until the back half of the season, when the series pivots from light action-adventure into something far more compelling as an espionage drama. That said, it can occasionally be difficult to keep track of the many Russian characters, with the exception of Andrei, who makes himself very memorable. )This was also a problem I sometimes had with The Americans from week to week.)

The ending (spoilers) is genuinely gripping, but instead of wrapping up the season, the final five minutes introduce so much new information that, rather than feeling neatly cliffhung, it feels overwhelming. I had to rewind and rewatch several times just to make sense of it.

Here is the short version. As part of an intelligence gathering mission, Bea has a tryst with Andrei, a KGB officer who rises through the ranks by collecting kompromat on high-ranking officials. He is also a sociopath who has murdered several sex workers and, the women believe, is responsible for the death of Sasha’s sister.

Bea and Twila discover the location of Andrei’s kompromat stash and learn that he hides the tapes inside shampoo bottles. Andrei eventually realizes they are spies and attempts to kill them, along with Sasha, at an Elton John concert in Moscow. They escape, and Twila contacts a Russian hairdresser who has been feeding information to the Americans. The hairdresser directs them to what is supposed to be a safe house.

Unfortunately, the hairdresser is a double agent who sends them instead to a cabin owned by Andrei. There, Bea and Twila discover boxes filled with kompromat, which they begin loading into their car. Before they can escape, Andrei and his men arrive. Sasha is stabbed, but Bea and Twila manage to kill the thugs and capture Andrei, thanks in no small part to some impressive driving by Twila.

Sasha is extracted by the Americans, while Bea and Twila take Andrei back to CIA headquarters in Moscow for interrogation. There, Andrei claims that Bea’s husband was working for the KGB and that he was responsible for the death of Sasha’s sister.

Meanwhile, Dane, with the help of another agent, has his own therapist killed after discovering the therapist was leaking material from their sessions to the Russians. Dane and this agent then abduct Bea’s mother-in-law and take her to a secret location, where it is revealed that Chris is still alive. Dane appears as shocked by this revelation as Chris’s mother, which is confusing, since it is unclear why Dane would have brought her there at all unless he knew Chris would be present.

Elsewhere, it is revealed that Cheryl, Ray’s resentful wife, has been working with the Russians, has a Russian lover, and murdered her own nanny. She uses the murder as a pretext to hand the CIA what turns out to be an incendiary device, which is stored at CIA headquarters.

While Bea and Twila are interrogating Andrei, that device detonates inside the CIA building. The KGB, posing as firefighters, use the fire as a pretext to storm the facility and steal its intelligence. During the chaos, Andrei breaks free, points his gun at Bea and Twila, and the season ends.

If there is a second season, Bea and Twila will obviously survive. The larger unanswered question is the status of Bea’s husband, Chris, who was presumed dead but is now revealed, according to Andrei, to be working for the KGB. Is he a double agent? A triple agent? Or something else entirely? Was he operating at such a high level that even Dane did not know the truth?

I honestly have no idea. I understand cliffhangers, especially ones that leave characters’ fates unresolved, but I am perplexed by the decision to layer so much additional uncertainty on top of that. It is not so much a twist as a narrative pileup, and it left me feeling genuinely flummoxed.