Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a play on the 2005 movie of the same name starring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. In the film, the protagonists are a middle class mundane family when the husband and wife realize that they are both spies for opposing agencies. However, in the 2024 show, the husband and wife, played by Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, are two strangers who both independently sign up to go undercover as a married couple for a mysterious spy agency.
I have loved Donald Glover from his days on Community and doing standup as well as his Childish Gambino work, so I’m usually partial to his projects. Glover and Francesca Sloane, who produced this show, also worked on Atlanta, so I was assured that the writing would be strong. Maya Erskine I had first seen in the 2017 show Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later before her fantastic voice acting turn as Mizu in Blue Eye Samurai.
Although on the surface this seems like a cookie cutter spy show that is unlikely to bring much new to the table in a TV landscape full of spy shows, it diverts those expectations to create something more unique than at first glance. Here are four points that stood out to me that made this a show worth watching.
Point 1: It’s Not A Spy Show
Whether you know the IP prior to watching this show or not, you are going to expect a spy show with action and intrigue, and everything that comes with being a spy show. Except, it’s not really a spy show. Maybe that’s a little extreme. It’s not primarily a spy show. The plate and cutlery is that of a spy show with the show taking us to beautiful locales and providing gun-toting bloody action. However, the meal itself is a dramedy about a relationship.
It’s not that this concept hasn’t been done before. In fact, an excellent, more dramatic turn with political intrigue is The Americans which follows two KGB spies posing as an American married couple in Washington D.C. That show too follows the interpersonal relationship between the married couple as a major aspect of the narrative. However, where the Americans is a political espionage thriller set at the height of the Cold War, Mr. & Mrs. Smith is more interested in following a more modern couple who are engaging in spycraft as a means to follow the relationship. The relationship itself is front and center, as shown by the episode titles that start with “First Date” and follow with other titles such as “Double Date” and “Do You Want Kids?”.
If you take the spy aspect out of the show, you still get an interesting story of two very different people finding their way into loving each other while wrestling with all the things that make them so different. Had this been more of a rehash of the movie, I think I would have been less interested, but with this angle, I was a lot more invested in seeing the interplay between the spy and relationship elements and how they would evolve that in every episode.
Point 2: It’s Approchable
Francesca Sloane has crafted a world and characters that effortlessly blend the silly with the dangerous. Everything feels so approachable despite being so out of reach. It is perfectly crafted to find the things people love to imagine for themselves and bring it to life in a way that feels doable unlike when I watch big tentpole spy movies like James Bond or Mission Impossible.
At the same time, it can be a balancing act to ensure the spy part still feels like this cool way out there job and not letting the comedy override it so that everything becomes too silly. A movie like Spy comes to mind. I like that movie but it definitely ditched believability to dive head first into being a comedy. I think the strongest part of the writing is always finding the right beats in the action, comedy, and drama so that they interlink seamlessly without ever feeling like one is hindering the other.
I’m the type of person who’s not always in the mood for a very serious show even if I like it. I’m not always in the mood for a full blown comedy either. This show really thread the needle on being a prestige breezy watch that keeps you constantly interested.
As with all 4 of the points, the show just nails subverting the audience’s expectations. My favourite scene was in the episode “Double Date” that follows John and Jane hosting another couple for dinner and then some stuff happens afterwards. In the aftermath of everything, John and Jane, like the married couple they are, just talk shit about the other couple and break down things that annoyed them or things they found stupid.
Another one of my favourite scenes is John hanging out with some other black people on a mission and he code switches. He talks differently than with Jane, he references things he’s never mentioned to Jane, and just overall has a completely different vibe and personality. Many people of colour can relate to this. Jane, although she herself is a person of colour, doesn’t understand this and sees this as performative and offensive. It’s not a straightforward situation where one person is definitely in the right, but it shows how sometimes it can be quite hard to reconcile the differences in upbringing between a couple if you don’t have proper communication and empathy.
You’d expect in a prestige spy show like this that my favourite scene would be some cool stunt at a ski lodge or the car chase in Lake Como, but I think it’s a microcosm of what the show is that I ended up just loving are these smaller moments.
Point 3: John and Jane
If I asked people to guess what the main characters of this spy show would be like, I would be shocked to hear anyone get them both right. Although it is well-established that both the characters have military or law-enforcement training which makes them well-suited for the job, they are the most normal, everyday people. The action scenes do a good job in reminding the audience that John and Jane are both trained killers. Then, it’s juxtaposed with them being in awe of great decor or enjoying making friends or just having a good time at a vacation destination somewhere.
Hollywood has led us to expect that spies will be cold and calculating. They put their job first and do what’s needed. Many of the interesting spy movies and shows are about the exceptional circumstances that make the spy lose their cool and abandon protocol. Meanwhile, Mr. & Mrs. Smith has its character constantly bothered by their pettiness in their relationship, making bad decisions emotionally, and really giving into very normal flaws that will either make you feel like “yeah I’d probably do that” or at least remind you of someone who would be like that.
The writers also nailed all the side characters who were all quirky and fun to follow in their own ways. Fun cameos by Eiza Gonzalez, Alexander Skarsgard, Paul Dano, John Tuturro, Sarah Paulson, Wagner Moura and Ron Perlman, just to name a few. Especially, loved Paul Dano and Wagner Moura!
Point 4: It’s Self-Aware
As someone who is constantly in analysis mode when watching a movie, I guess where things are going all the time. It’s not something that really hinders my experience at all, but generally a spy movie or show can feel blunted at times if things are too obvious. Now you may think I’m going to comment on whether the show does a good job of hiding its twists or not. Well, the show subverts the expectations by not really relying on reveals all that much at all. It almost makes a point of putting aside what feels like a core element to anything spy-related.
There are times in the show where it feels like you are being given pieces to something before the show just throws it out. It is self-aware in the tropes of this genre to keep leading you on and get your gears turning only to either not reveal anything at all or making the reveal so secondary that it is far from important in the narrative. This may feel unsatisfying for some, but I found it to be a real breath of fresh air while watching. Halfway through the show, I stopped caring about where things were going and was just along for the ride, which the show later then uses to its advantage as well.
Overall, I really enjoyed the show and I think anyone could enjoy it irrespective of your interests. You can check it out on Prime. Also, shout-out to both the score and soundtrack throughout the show!
