If you’re a longtime lover of TV thrillers, you may have been jonesing for a show to fill “The Americans”-sized hole in your heart. It’s been nearly eight years, after all, since that Russian spy show aired its final episode.
The good news is that “Ponies,” a show not about small horses but about two women (two so-called Persons of No Interest) who become CIA operatives in Moscow in 1977, does a valiant job filling that hole. It’s suspenseful, sexy and hypnotizing. And the even better news for Jewish TV lovers? It features a badass Jewish spy played by the Mother of Dragons herself, Emilia Clarke of “Game of Thrones.”
Clarke plays the prim and proper Beatrice “Bea” Grant, whose husband, Chris, is killed on a mission while stationed in Moscow. She joins forces with the free-spirited Twila (Haley Lu Richardson), whose husband, Tom, was also killed under the same mysterious circumstances, and the two volunteer for the CIA in an effort to get to the bottom of their spouses’ deaths.
Bea’s Judaism is established early in the show. We discover that her maiden name is Kaplan and that her baba, grandma, Manya Caplan (Dame Harriet Mary Walter), is a Holocaust survivor from Belarus, who escaped Europe with her son, Bea’s father, and settled in America.
Bea doesn’t hide her Judaism at work. She works as a secretary in Moscow’s government offices during the day with Twila. When her office manager, played by Vic Michaelis — who also starred in Hallmark’s best Hanukkah romance, “Round and Round” — takes umbrage at Twila cursing out the copier and using Jesus’ name, Michaelis’ Cheryl asks Bea if she is offended.
“I’m Jewish,” Bea responds with a smile. It’s a wonderfully simple clapback, with Bea cementing herself as an outsider like Twila but also as a Jewish woman who isn’t coy about it. So many of the big and small Jewish moments in this show feel authentic and human. Bea reminiscing about the mandelbrot in her parents’ bakery, Manya’s Yiddishisms and her sharing coffee candy with everyone in the room. (OK, that last one just feels very Jewish to me.)
Manya finds her way across the ocean to help her granddaughter in a covert mission where her identity as a Holocaust survivor ultimately gives her away. In the (twist-filled, gasp-inducing, cliffhanger-ridden) finale of the show, Manya finds herself back in her hometown, reuniting with her (non-Jewish) best friend. When she asks Manya why she left Russia, Manya replies, “I didn’t decide. My neighbors put me on the train and sent me to a death camp.”
The deeply felt Jewish representation in “Ponies” can be credited to its Jewish creators, Susanna Fogel and David Iserson, who also worked together on the 2018 “The Spy Who Dumped Me.” Iserson has been a writer and producer on “SNL,” “United States of Tara,” “Mad Men,” and other shows. Fogel was the co-writer of the excellent movie “Booksmart” and a director on “A Small Light,” the show about Miep Gies, Otto Frank’s secretary, who helped shelter Anne Frank and her family.
Here, Fogel gives us a very different Holocaust story: that of a fierce and fearless Jewish grandmother and survivor who does all she can for her family, yet is also a delightful character in her own right. (We all wish Manya was our baba.) At a time when Holocaust remembrance feels more important than ever, this is one way to remember it in a natural, story-driven way.
“Ponies” is an addictive spy show with wonderful, feminist Jewish characters. It had better get renewed for a second season. (No, seriously, I need to know what happens next!)
The first season of “Ponies” is now streaming on Peacock.
