Ponies is an American spy thriller television series created by Susanna Fogel and David Iserson for Peacock, and starring Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson. The series premiered on January 15, 2026, and received positive reviews from critics. In June 2026, the series was canceled after one season.
Contents
Premise
In 1977, two secretaries working at the United States embassy in Moscow become CIA operatives after their spy husbands die under mysterious circumstances.
Cast and characters
Main
Emilia Clarke as Beatrice "Bea" Grant
Haley Lu Richardson as Twila Hasbeck
Adrian Lester as Dane Walter
Artjom Gilz as Andrei Vasiliev
Vic Michaelis as Cheryl Szymanski
Nicholas Podany as Ray Szymanski
Petro Ninovskyi as Sasha Shevchenko
Recurring
Harriet Walter as Manya Caplan
Louis Boyer as Chris Grant
John Macmillan as Tom Hasbeck
Lili Walters as Ivanna
Andrew Richardson as Shep
Paul Chahidi as Alan Salek
Maxim Gall as Trent
Tanya Ivanova as Vera
Pál Mácsai as Emile
Tom Stourton as George Tallman
Ana Neborac as Tatiana
Sophia Shkliaruk as Galyna
Clare Hughes as Eevi
Diana Gardner as Aksana
Nikita Kukushkin as Yuri
Guest
Patrick Fabian as George H. W. Bush
Eddie Toll as Mikhail
Rob Delaney as Stanley
Simon Haines as Sgt. Davis Carter
Filipp Avdeev as Lev
Sofia Kyrychenko as Katya
Ivan Doan as Nikolai
Natascha Bondar as Sofia
Elisabeth Snegir as Young Sofia
Robert Jackson as Malcolm Toon
Alistair Mumford as Elton John
Production
The series is created by Susanna Fogel and David Iserson. Fogel directs the series, with Iserson as showrunner. Jessica Rhoades executive produces for Pacesetter Productions and Alison Mo Massey co-executive produces along with Katherine Bridle. Universal Television are producers. In August 2024, Emilia Clarke became attached to star and be an executive producer on the series.
Haley Lu Richardson joined the cast in November 2024. On February 4, 2025, Adrian Lester and Nicholas Podany were among those added to the cast.
Filming began in Budapest, Hungary in February 2025.
On June 23, 2026, Peacock canceled the series after one season, with Variety noting that while the series was critically acclaimed, the specific viewing ratings for the series were not available, beyond the fact that it had never appeared on the Nielsen streaming top 10 charts.
Release
The series premiered on January 15, 2026, on Peacock, with all eight episodes released at once.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 94% of 33 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "As much a buddy adventure as it is an espionage caper, Ponies' likable trot of a story gradually achieves full gallop thanks to Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson's tag-team charisma." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the series a score of 76 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Vulture praised Clarke and Richardson's on-screen chemistry and how the series allows them to "put a spin on the types you may already associate with them" such as Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones and Portia in The White Lotus. Likewise, Variety calls Clarke and Richardson's chemistry the "glue that binds the whole enterprise together".
In a more mixed review, Rendy Jones of RogerEbert.com noted that the series is overly reliant on late-’70s music to maintain the viewers’ attention, its spy narrative is overfamiliar, and 1970s pastiche does not always work. Angie Han of The Hollywood Reporter concluded that while Ponies "throws everything it can at the wall in search of excitement and sweetness and humor and tragedy" to have "moments of dazzle", ultimately the show's lack of depth, imprecise writing and consequently, unconvincing performances, make it a "forgettable distraction".
