Parents' Guide to Ponies

With a pair of leads that share fizzy chemistry and a neat premise that lands them both in Cold War-era Moscow doing some highly dangerous spy work, this period piece is lots of fun. Of course, Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson have had notable roles before their pairing in Ponies: Clarke is most famously the white-wigged Daenerys Targaryen, Game of Thrones' Mother of Dragons, while Richardson is perhaps best known as Jennifer Coolidge's long-suffering personal assistant in season two of The White Lotus. But together these two actors are more than the sum of their parts—by turns funny, winsome, sad, and true-to-life, giving a solid emotional anchor to the spy antics in which they become involved.

Without them at the center, Ponies might be something of an also-ran compared with similar espionage dramas like Homeland or The Americans. After all, most spy thrillers have similar beats and offer few surprises; audiences know to look out for characters leading double lives and expect sudden twists and betrayals. But Twila and Bea are something different: They're not well-trained operatives with steely nerves, or even femme fatales luring a hero to his doom (often the only role for women in spy narratives). Instead, they're ordinary housewives in an era when women were expected to confine their ambitions to their homes. Tragedy sets them both on a different path, and they feel so real and human that the dangers they face take on a heart-stopping intensity. These are not superheroes or super spies; they're ordinary women who feel called upon to do extraordinary things. And that's perhaps Ponies' most powerful message: Even average people have hidden depths and untapped strengths. Watching Twila and Bea discover and employ theirs is an exhilarating joy.