Ponies Recap Season 1 Episode 5 ‘Turn the Beat Around’: Grandmothers Are Always Right

How did a solidly middle class (even upper middle class) daughter of immigrants like Bea end up wanting to live the life of a spy? As she realised during that frank conversation with Dane, she was not in Russia merely because she wanted to find out what happened to her husband Chris. Her decision to live an exciting, dangerous life – to do a job that mattered – went much further than her grief. Now that her grandmother Manya was in Russia at her request, we got to see the person that Bea perhaps took after the most, a brave, quick-thinking woman who saw far more than she let on. There was no doubt that she loved Bea and came to Russia at her request but, as with Bea, it was more than that. Manya buried a part of her when she moved to America to raise her son, and later her granddaughter. She has been wanting to dig it back up and allow it to breathe for decades, and now, she finally got to. And once she has extended the CIA what she rightly argued was a debt they needed to pay, she got them to give her the false papers she needed so she could go home to Belarus and see her Sofia again after fifty long years.

Manya’s mission was supposed to be simple – she was to meet with Caterpillar as Vera and get the location of the kompromat facility. Because Bea needed to be with Andrei that same night to accompany him to a KGB poker party, she could not serve as her grandmother’s backup. Instead, she needed to entrust her grandmother’s care to Twila. Bea was not at all comfortable with this.

Bea was not wrong. There was no contingency set should things go awry at the meet. Twila watched from behind the bushes, but what could she do when two KGB men just walked up and arrested Manya? It was all very well for Dane to believe in Moscow Rules – that what was done to their people, they would do to the KGB as well – but that was not going to keep their agents and assets alive, not if the KGB truly wanted them dead. It was made clear early on that the value of Bea and Twila mostly laid on the fact that they were women, and the KGB would not bother to put a tail on them, as they did to every man who worked in the US embassy. That meant that they would mostly be alone in their missions. But that did not mean there were no contingencies that could be done. Twila needed to run to Dane’s embassy flat to give him the news, then the two of them went to get Ray from his flat – then they had to steal the ambassador’s car because that was the fastest one in the lot. Was it not possible to put a few agents so Twila could signal for help, then follow where they would take Manya? Could they not have taught her some sort of code so she could call and give them the information once she has learned where Manya was taken? I’m not sure if this level of disregard for his people during missions was a character trait the writers wanted to highlight for Dane, or if this was a narrative shortcut. 

In any case, Manya ended up first in a prison cell, where a younger man was a bit kind to her, then later at a KGB safehouse. Whilst this was happening, Bea was at the poker game with Andrei, where she was tasked to photograph all the KGB officials at the table using a cigarette pack with a hidden camera. Bea and Andrei looked so good together as they walked in, so in sync as a couple; it would have been hard to guess they were on opposite sides based on their chemistry alone.

At first, Andrei relegated Bea to sit with the other girlfriends, far from the table. A woman named Aksana told Bea that she used to be her – Andrei’s girlfriend – and warned Bea about his temper. She did not at all believe Bea’s story that she was from Belarus. She gave Bea the address where she cut hair, telling her the day could come when she would need a friend with a dacha away from the city. Bea played it cool, and approached Andrei; she ended up sitting on his lap, taking photos with the cigarette camera so close to Andrei’s ear, I was worried he would hear a telltale click.

The evening was interrupted by one of his men; Bea visibly stiffened when she heard the man mention Vera. She talked Andrei into taking her with him. Once they were at the safehouse, however, Andrei walked into the interrogation room alone, whilst Bea went upstairs and found a grate she could use to spy into the same room that held her grandmother.

Andrei immediately knew that Manya was not Vera, though Manya tried for a few more minutes to hold on to her secret identity. Eventually, she told Andrei she was Maria, and that she was given money by some men to pretend to be this Vera. Andrei did not believe her. He switched to English, testing her claim that she could not understand it, and described in graphic detail the torture she would suffer once she was at the prison called Lefortovo. Vera kept her cool, and Andrei had his men haul her out onto a waiting vehicle. 

Bea ran outside to Andrei’s car and spoke into the radio where she knew the CIA was listening. Emile used codes to pass on the information to Dane, and he, Ray, and Twila went to pick up Bea, then followed the van carrying Manya and, unknown to the others, Caterpillar himself.

He introduced himself as Mikhail, and said that he has never even been to the kompromat facility since it was moved. The meeting was because he wanted to give the CIA a tape that was important to his bosses. As Dane opened the van door and tried to get Manya to jump onto the car – a moving vehicle, and she was an old woman – Mikhail handed her the tape. Manya told them the man was Caterpillar, and Dane tried to save him too, but he fell to the ground as he jumped and was soon surrounded by the KGB.

Manya got what she wanted from the CIA – false papers to travel to Belarus and attempt to reunite with her friend Sofia – and secretly, she left Bea the tape that Milkhail went through all this trouble to try to get to the CIA. When we first met Manya back in the first episode, she was skeptical over what Bea told her, that Chris would work first, then he would take a break, then she would work. Here, we found out that Manya was skeptical of Chris in general. She knew he was the love of Bea’s life, but more than once she alluded to Bea moving on. Grandmothers are always right. The tape Milkhail gave her, the tape that was important to the KGB, was a tape of Chris having sex with Sasha’s sister Galyna. Oh Bea.

Rating: B+

Strays

🐎Twila’s reaction to finding out Bea went to horseback riding camp was another small moment where the difference in their upbringing was briefly highlighted. 

🐎Twila got out of having to go with Shep to the ballet by telling him his wife Lily was having an affair. 

🐎Could Manya be right about Vera killing herself?

🐎Bea’s gift to Sasha was Lovers and Gamblers by Jackie Collins. She noticed his new necklace, and he explained that was where he kept his suicide pill. 

🐎In the first episode, Dane and Ray told Bea and Twila that every time they left the embassy, they were followed by the KGB. When Twila got the men after Manya was arrested, and they used the ambassador's car to drive out, the KGB did follow them, but Ray executed a sharp turn and immediately lost the follow car. He explained that KGB cars could not do turns like that. I love that we get to see this side of Ray; he was often the nice, soft-spoken office guy who did research and sometimes did bug sweeps, so seeing him as a CIA agent in the wild, during a car chase, was a nice change in pace.

🐎I appreciate that Ponies did not turn down the danger of Andrei when he was with Bea. He was quick to anger – he spoke harshly to her when she tried to stop him from kissing and groping her right there in the car, fully aware that Emile and the rest of the CIA team were listening. He was dismissive of her when they got to the poker game, treating her as just another woman, just another girlfriend. Andrei could be gentle with Bea, but that was only when it suited his purposes. He liked her, but he was not a changed person with her. 

🐎Manya read Twila well, and their conversation right before the meet had both characters stripped down to their pained cores. ‘It’s hard to be like Bea and lose the love of your life. But it’s also hard to lose your husband when your feelings for him are not so simple.’ Twila spoke of how, at the beginning, her relationship with Tom was exciting, but after they married, it was as though he just wanted her to be more traditional, which she never pretended to be. Twila told Manya about what Vera told her, that Tom was the mole and he got Chris killed. Manya’s advice was that if Bea needed to know, then she should tell her, but if she did not, then don’t. For her part, Twila likely understood that Manya’s bond with Sofia was deeper than a childhood friendship.

🐎Twila made such an effort to cook dinner and asked Bea to hang with her, but Bea just wanted to be alone. 

🐎Ray went to play with his son and found the bug. He immediately told Dane they had a mole.

You can view Recap Lab’s coverage of Ponies via this link. 

Episode Title: Turn the Beat Around

Episode Writers: Susanna Fogel and David Iserson

Episode Director: Susanna Fogel

Original Release Date: January 15, 2026

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