Ponies Recap Season 1 Episode 1 ‘Second Hand News’: Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson star in a charming spy thriller buddy adventure

On Christmas Eve 1976, two women living in Moscow were told that they had lost their husbands. Beatrice ‘Bea’ Grant (Emilia Clarke) was an ambitious, college-educated, Russian-speaking woman temporarily working as secretary to the US Cultural Attache as part of her deal with her husband Chris that she would support him whilst he worked, then he would take a break and she would work. Twila Hasbeck (Haley Lu Richardson) had a working class background and had spent the last few years not working, simply traveling the world because of her husband Tom’s job; their relationship looked nowhere near as solid or as sweet as Bea and Chris’s marriage. Chris and Tom were spies and when they died, their wives were sent back to the United States without being allowed to properly pack. The two men were given stars on the memorial wall, and Bea and Twila knew nothing else outside of a small plane crash that supposedly killed the men they loved.

I’m pausing right here, because that quick summary could give the impression that this is a downer of a show, which it most definitely is not. It is its very ability to combine a lightness of touch with the expected tension of an espionage show that lifts it above other spy thrillers. It is a smooth, fun watch that instinctively knows when to shift gears, to show a woman mourning her husband, to illustrate the danger of the work and the world. I am writing this after having seen just the first episode, and I am completely charmed by it.

Bea and Twila got together following their husbands’ star ceremony, and they decided they both wanted to return to Russia. For Bea, she was at a crossroads of her life. She wanted to work. She wanted her life to matter. She also wanted answers for what happened to her beloved Chris. For Twila, she didn’t really have any place else to go. Her well stamped passport did not come with a home, and though she disliked Moscow, at least there, the government paid for her apartment. They went to the head of the Moscow Station, Dane Walter (Adrian Lester), and when he said no to sending them back as basic embassy staff, Bea proposed (and Twila agreed) that they be sent back as spies. 

It was a novel concept, sending two women to be case agents, and Walter took it to George H.W. Bush, then the director of the CIA. Bush was not exactly happy about it, and he made clear to Walter that he would not take the blame should the women die, but he agreed, on the condition that they would only be allowed to pass and retrieve intel, but they would never see the intel itself. 

Unknown to them, Bea and Twila had already seen intel, sort of. On that quick return to the United States following their husbands’ deaths, one of the few things Bea was able to take with her was Chris’s jacket. In it, she found a card with someone else’s handwriting, in Russian: ‘Winged horse over the entire world’. Neither Bee nor Twila knew about this, but mere hours before their deaths, Tom and Chris were involved in a car chase with a Russian asset named Sergei, code named Snowshoe. Worried that the car was bugged, as the KGB chased them, Chris asked Sergei to write down the location of the meet with a contact that was supposed to happen that night. It was Sergei who wrote down those cryptic words.

Back in Moscow in freezing January 1977, Walter and Ray (he seemed to head a bug sweeping unit) met with Bea and Twila at the Bubble, the only room in the embassy where they could be certain they were not being watched or listened to. Bea would resume her previous position as secretary to the US Cultural Attache. Twila, who had no secretarial skills whatsoever, needed to pick some up quickly, because she would be working for the special assistant to the Ambassador. 

That night, Walter and Ray had Bea and Twila in a car, where they were given further briefing. It would have been safer to do this inside the Bubble, no? Walter explained the difference between the POIs (Persons of Interest – these were under surveillance by foreign governments) and PONIs (Persons of No Interest); Bea and Twila were PONIs to the KGB. He emphasised that the KGB was always following. All KGB cars would have a triangle of dirt on them, an issue with their car wash that was never fixed. 

Bea and Twila’s first assignment was CK Solar, a highly placed source working with important Russian intelligence. Since she spoke Russian, Bea would interact with him; Twila would watch her back. They were given a folder with details and instructions that they were to read, then destroy, along with a book that Bea was supposed to pass on to CK Solar. A lipstick mark on their door meant that it was time to meet.

Then, Walter told Twila she would be her dinner companion that night. They were met by two KGB operatives, one of them was Andrei Vasiliev, as they strolled out of the restaurant. Andrei tried to bait Walter by mentioning his two men who died, but Walter kept his cool. Walter later explained to Twila that she was for certain going to be noticed by the KGB. If he tried to hide her, they would still know she was in the country, and it would look like someone was trying to hide her. He took Twila to the restaurant specifically so the KGB would see her and dismiss her. If Andrei suspected her, he would kill her.

The next day, a restless Twila took some of her husband’s clothes and electronics to the market to sell. The girl was interested in a speaker until she examined it and told Twila it was not a speaker. It was a recording of someone playing the piano, and was broadcasting Morse code. 

Twila headed to Bea’s apartment, but she could not quite share yet what she found out about her husband. Twila was just leaving when she saw the lipstick mark on the door. 

Bea and Twila were a good team; Twila matched Bea’s school smarts with her own street smarts. Outside the pub that was the location of the meet, Twila advised Bea to remove her wedding rings; men were more likely to be helpful toward women who were single. Bea looked like her heart was breaking all over again as she removed her rings.

The first man Bea tried to talk to was not the asset, but CK Solar later approached her, and she passed him the book along with the instructions. Outside, an old man kept hassling Twila. As she tried to move away from him, she saw an illustration of a winged horse outside the window. Then, she spotted a car with that telltale triangle of dust. She pounded on the glass window of the pub, but it was too late. Alexei had walked in and spotted Bea. She took out her knife, and when forced to introduce herself, she gave the name Nadiya Melnikova, schoolteacher. Alexei remarked that she sounded American, immediately giving her job after her name. That was how the episode left us, with tiny, vulnerable Bea face to face with a dangerous KGB officer. 

Rating: A-

Strays

🐎Tom and Chris met with Sergei because they thought there was a leak, and told him they were prepared to exfiltrate him and his family to Finland. 

🐎Tom and Twila’s argument showed how Tom took operational security seriously (he burned the page where he wrote down his warning to Twila to never say CIA) whilst Twila was far more lax about it. Later, upon her return to Moscow, she saw the piece of paper where she wrote down her response (she cursed her husband) and burned it too.

🐎Bea’s story about how she and Chris met was very upper middle class kids meet cute via Shakespeare. 

🐎Could Bea's Russian fluency have come from her grandmother?

🐎It seemed that not even the CIA was certain if Tom and Chris were killed by the KGB.

🐎Whilst her Moscow apartment was being swept for bugs, Bea begged Ray to allow her to keep one small photo of Chris. Ray did, but he warned her if anyone found out, they would both be in trouble.

🐎A British agent working for Andrei told him that Dane Walter was trying a different approach following the death of his men, but he had no other details. This agent was getting sent back to London because his bosses found heroin in his desk. It was heavily implied that Andrei killed him. 

Episode Title: Second Hand News

Episode Writers: Susanna Fogel and David Iserson

Episode Director: Susanna Fogel

Original Release Date: January 15, 2026

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