Warning: Spoilers ahead for PONIES
PONIES, the new Peacock series created by Susanna Fogel and David Iserson, has an enticing premise. In 1977, Bea (Emilia Clarke) and Twila (Haley Lu Richardson) live in Moscow, working at the US Embassy while their husbands work as CIA operatives. But when both of their husbands die together under mysterious circumstances, their lives are turned upside down. To get answers on what really happened to their husbands, the two former PONIES (“persons of no interest” in intelligence speak) become CIA spies.
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Though PONIES is largely a work of fiction, there are elements of real events infused into the story. That includes an Elton John concert (though in real life, it happened in 1979, two years after the events of the show) and a major incident inside the US Embassy. It’s a story that isn’t true, but it’s not so far detached from reality that it never could have happened. It just didn’t.
At the start of the finale, Bea and Twila’s nemesis Andrei Vasiliev (Arjtom Gilz), a high-level KGB agent, has finally figured out that they’re American spies. Furious that he let them get the better of him, Andrei is determined to wipe the ladies out. Knowing that Andrei is responsible for killing several Russian women in Moscow, the threat is all too real as the pair try to find safety with him hot on their trail.
In the moments leading up to the final (and most revealing) minutes, Bea, Twila, and Sasha (Petro Ninovskyi), a former KGB agent turned by the CIA, discover Andrei’s safehouse. There, they uncover incriminating evidence against the KGB, and specifically Andrei, hidden in shampoo bottles. They’re attacked by some of Andrei’s assailants, and Sasha gets stabbed. Andrei eventually catches up with them, but Twila and Bea outsmart him in a car chase. Andrei crashes, and they take him back to the US embassy to interrogate him. Sasha is extracted by the Americans, though whether he survived remains a mystery. Though that’s worrying, there are even bigger problems ahead in the PONIES finale. We spoke to Fogel and Iserson about the biggest moments from the Season 1 finale, and to get a sense of what’s in store for Season 2.
Who is the mole?
One of the biggest lingering questions in Season 1 of PONIES is the existence of a mole in the CIA. In the finale, we discover the mole is none other than Cheryl (Vic Michaelis), office manager of the embassy and wife of senior agent Ray (Nicholas Podany), the right-hand man to Dane (Adrian Lester), Bea and Twila’s boss. It’s a surprising choice, given how dedicated Cheryl has been to Ray, and how a lot of her frustrations came from his (genuinely innocent) interest in their nanny Eevi (Clare Hughes). “We created the character without thinking that she would be the Mole. As we started talking about it, we realized this is a story about people underestimating Bea and Twyla. So what if the mole was also somebody they underestimated?” Iserson says.
At the end of the penultimate episode, in a panic, Cheryl shoots Eevi when she finds her rummaging through Ray’s personal belongings, holding an important tracking device. Early in the finale, Cheryl gives that device to a CIA member, telling him to take it into the vault. Turns out this was quite the sinister move on Cheryl’s part: the device is actually an explosive, and when it explodes in the vault, it destroys a swathe of vital evidence the CIA has been collecting over the years.
“This is from a scene that was cut, but there’s an acronym in the CIA: MICE,” Iserson explains. “It highlights the four different motivations of why somebody turns, and they are money, ideology, compromise, and ego. Cheryl is an ego. She’s somebody who feels like she isn’t getting enough respect in her life and her world. She was compromised because of that, and it’s something we’re excited to explore in Season 2.”
Though killing Eevi was a shock, there may be more than meets the eye when it comes to the bubbly nanny. “We like the idea that Eevi could be a plant—or not,” says Fogel. “It could be that someone deeply suspected Cheryl was compromised and that Eevi was brought in to spy on her. Learning the truth about who Eevi was is an idea we can play with in future seasons.”
What happened to the husbands?
Before the fire caused by Cheryl’s fake tracking device begins, Twila and Bea have Andrei cornered in the interrogation room. Finally, they’re in complete control and have the upper hand. They want to turn Andrei into a double agent and use him to get vital intel on the Russians. But on a personal level, our intrepid duo can finally get the information that led them to start their spy journey, and finally find out what actually happened to their husbands.
Previously, Twila discovered devastating information: her husband, Tom (John Macmillan), was a double agent working for the Russians. But Andrei reveals something even more shocking. Twila was given false information—it wasn’t Tom who was the double agent, it was Bea’s husband, Chris. “It leaves Bea with this desperation to know more and understand more, while also feeling like she’s been punched in the face,” says Iserson.
Bea, however, barely has any time to absorb this revelation. Andrei also reveals that Galyna (Sophia Shkliaruk), one of the Russian women whose murder the ladies were investigating, wasn’t a prostitute, but a KGB agent. Not only that, but she was killed by the CIA so they could recruit Sasha, Galyna’s brother, to work for them. But Bea and Twila don’t have time to think about this, as Twila starts smelling smoke.
Cheryl’s planted bomb has gone off, setting most of the evidence room—including the shampoo bottles with the tapes inside them—on fire. Suddenly, everything that was going right for Bea and Twila goes up in (literal) smoke.
There’s one major reveal still to come, though it won’t be one Twila and Bea are privy to. In Byelorussia (now Belarus), Bea’s grandmother Manya (Harriet Walter), who was recruited by the CIA earlier in the season, and Dane are shocked to discover that Bea’s husband Chris is alive and well. All he says is hello before we return to the burning embassy, leaving all questions about Chris open until Season 2.
The situation at the embassy has evolved into a full nightmare. The KGB has infiltrated, posing as firemen, and takes all the CIA’s evidence that isn’t on fire. With nowhere to go and surrounded by the KGB, Bea and Twila appear doomed. Their cover is blown, and they’re in serious danger. If the threat of doom wasn’t enough, it’s made literal when the KGB agents point their guns at the ladies’ heads. Bea and Twila seem to accept their fate, holding hands together as the season cuts to black, leaving us on a brutal cliffhanger, and Twila and Bea’s lives are very much in the balance.
Yet not all hope is lost. We discover that in Twila’s apartment lies a single shampoo bottle, so if the CIA knows where to look, there’s at least one tape that incriminates Andrei.
There’s a lot going through Twila and Bea’s minds in this moment. “They’re thinking, ‘This victory slipped through our hands, what are we going to do now?’” says Iserson. “They’re so much better at what they do and what they set out to do than when we first met them. Yet here they are watching the KGB steal secret after secret, knowing this is going to be a huge mess that will beget endless complications. Their cover is blown with Andrei, who will be back out in the world. If this whole thing is ruined, they may have to go home.”
“They’re also wondering if they’ll even survive. How much are they willing to risk their own lives to stop what’s going on in this moment,” says Fogel. Yet she also thinks there’s an undercurrent of optimism for the pair. “There have been moments throughout the season where they feel their lives are at risk, and along the way they’ve been inching towards this powerful bond of friendship. They’ve truly achieved that, and this moment is the full manifestation of their relationship. They’re thinking, ‘If we don’t survive this, we’re glad we had this connection with each other.”
What will happen in Season 2
As you can imagine, this leaves a lot to be settled in Season 2. Thankfully, Fogel and Iserson have plenty of ideas on how to handle the next season. How the CIA will recover from this devastating betrayal is sure to be a key plot point, as will be the fates of Bea and Twila. And with the CIA still unaware of who the mole is, how will that affect them—particularly Ray, Cheryl’s doting husband? But the biggest question to answer, beyond whether Bea and Twila survive, is how they’ll deal with Chris.
“We’ve often seen the idea that any American collaborating with the Russians is bad. But that’s not the version of the story we want to tell, because we want to have these characters who are more than just the sum of their national identities,” says Fogel. “We want to understand these people apart from their allegiances, so that when we throw them into situations where they’re acting on behalf of a country, there’s a personal motivation that’s sometimes at odds with what their country wants them to do.”
“The premise of PONIES is that it’s all in service of figuring out what happened to Chris, the person who Bea thought defined her life,” she adds. “By the end of the season, her loyalties are complicated; she’s not the person she was at the beginning. Losing Chris sent her on this journey that’s made her a much stronger person. How does or doesn’t he fit into her life now? And what does it mean for Bea if he doesn’t fit?”
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