Let me pitch you a television show. Donald Glover (good) and Phoebe Waller-Bridge (also good) team up for a spy comedy thriller, an adaptation of 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith (a film most notable for launching Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s romance, but good fun nonetheless). That sounds nice, doesn’t it? Glover would do his sensitive, quietly hilarious thing while Waller-Bridge would crusade in with a knowing wink. Their chemistry would burn as brightly as the explosions around them. Well, how does half that show sound to you?
Amazon’s long-gestating Mr. & Mrs. Smith series is here! With Glover. Without Waller-Bridge. She dropped out, as multiple sources told Variety, because of “creative differences”. Not a particularly good sign for the show. Instead, we have Maya Erskine – best known for high school comedy PEN15 – to fill Fleabag’s shoes, who was filling Jolie’s shoes. I wouldn’t want to follow in either of those footsteps, but Erskine seems relatively sanguine about her substitution, telling the Guardian: “You look at Angelina Jolie in the film and she’s a total goddess, and I was thinking: ‘Well, I can’t be her.’.” Quite.
Anyway, the show. It is hard to discuss the intricacies without revealing several plot points which the PR department at Amazon Prime would like me not to. But this time around, we have John (played by Glover) and Jane (Erskine), two new sign-ups to a spy agency (not any of the ones you’re thinking of) who pose as a married couple in New York and carry out weekly missions, which usually involves taking out targets or delivering those targets from point A to B. Will these strangers fall in love while shooting their way through exotic locales? You would not bet against it.
It doesn’t take a genius to identify where this arc is heading even without knowing each episode’s supposed spoilers. The kisses and the double crossing are par for the high-octane course. But what is surprising is how unpredictably it unfolds, largely thanks to the showrunners, Glover and Francesca Sloane. Sloane was a producer and writer on the final season of Glover’s Atlanta and Fargo. The co-creators are clearly more interested in relationships than espionage – in fact, John and Jane are often pretty lousy spies (an explanation for that is provided in the first episode, but again, spoilers apparently) – and all the better for it.
Each episode brings the spies to new locations: ski slopes, Lake Como, beautiful New York ballrooms (Amazon’s budget flexes throughout). Along the way, you meet an impressive list of cameos, including Parker Posey, Sharon Horgan, Alexander Skarsgård, Ron Perlman, Paul Dano (again a budget flex, and no doubt the appeal of working with prestigey Glover). As the series progresses, you learn more about the company that employs these two but thankfully, Sloane keeps the details light. This is a romantic drama with spying on the side, though the action set-pieces are remarkably fresh.
John and Jane’s missions align loosely with dating milestones: moving in, the first holiday together, meeting couple friends. That framework is inspired: I was not aware how overplayed both the romantic comedy and spy genre were until watching this show unfold. The overarching theme seems to be: trust is necessary for espionage, and it’s necessary for relationships. Not exactly ground-breaking – though do we always need ground-breaking insights into relationships? – but the structure keeps the observations and dialogue unexpected. And while Glover and Erskine do not have the same quality as Brangelina – they are not A-list movie stars, after all – their hesitant, confrontational energy suits the show’s main point of difference: these are two strangers falling in love while working together, not an unhappily married couple reconciling while working against each other.
And yes, even though it is hard to watch the first episode without thinking about what Waller-Bridge would have added to the mix, two episodes in, I was thankful for Erskine’s stony, sensitive presence. For this is a show that lives and dies by its leading couple’s chemistry, and these actors have a surprising slow-burn appeal, often leading to moments of genuine delight.
At the end of the second episode, while watching “Tom and Jerry” after a mission, Jane explains that the character of Mammy Two Shoes had to be redubbed because it was deemed so racist. John asks her what the original voice sounded like. Jane can’t do that! She’s not Black! But after a few seconds of goading, she yields. As Jane imitates the offending accent (and John, in due course, pretends to be offended), it struck me as the sort of lived-in, daring joke we need more of in television: not quippy, not a Succession-style insult, just funny. That it emerged from the remake of a 2000s rom-com action thriller is strange, but Hollywood does indeed move in mysterious ways.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video from 2 February
Henry Wong is a senior culture writer at Esquire, working across digital and print. He covers film, television, books, and art for the magazine, and also writes profiles.
