Emilia Clarke's 2026 Spy Thriller Series With A 96% Rotten Tomatoes Score Is A Must-Watch

"Game of Thrones" veteran Emilia Clarke is starring in a buzzy, fun new series on Peacock with a surprisingly serious premise — which is to say that you should check out her show "Ponies," a show that earned an incredible 96% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, at your earliest possible convenience.

Created by Susanna Fogel (known for co-writing Olivia Wilde's directorial debut "Booksmart" as well as the comedy "The Spy Who Dumped Me") and David Iserson (who worked on shows like "Mad Men," "New Girl," and "Saturday Night Live"), "Ponies" is about two women who find themselves living in Moscow alongside their husbands, both of whom work for the CIA. Before long, the women find themselves swept up in some serious and even dangerous intrigue of their own, and as Twila Hasbeck (Haley Lu Richardson) and Beatrice "Bea" Grant (Clarke) try to navigate their surprising new careers, they end up forming a partnership to keep each other safe ... and an intense friendship comes naturally.

Buddy comedies starring two women aren't common enough for my liking, and "Ponies" isn't just a great way to right that industry wrong; it's a fun, engaging, and dynamic series bolstered by Clarke and Richardson's strengths as performers. Filmed in Budapest (as a stand-in for Moscow), "Ponies" requires some seriously deft balance when it comes to tone and performance, and Iserson (the sole credited showrunner) and his stars manage to pull this off beautifully. So what is "Ponies" about in a larger sense, and where have you seen Clarke, Richardson, and their fellow cast members before?

When "Ponies" begins, we meet Bea, trying to live life in Moscow and learn Russian, and even see her first encounter with the bolder, brasher Twila. Once the two women realize that they're both married to America ex-patriots, they become friends, and we, the viewers, are introduced to their CIA-employed spouses: Twila's husband, Tom Hasbeck (John MacMillan), with whom she's at odds, and Bea's adoring husband, Chris Grant (Louis Boyer).

Twila and Bea decide to accompany each other to a work party that their husbands are also set to attend, but before the festivities properly begin, they're told that their husbands died during a mission on behalf of the United States. Stricken with shock and grief, both women are sent back to the United States, but then Twila has a brilliant idea: what if they continue the work their husbands left behind?

As they bargain with the Moscow station chief, Dane Walter (Adrian Lester), he points out that while their husbands were POIs, or "persons of interest," the two women are "PONIs," or "persons of no interest." That actually makes them the perfect spies, even though they cross paths with a KGB agent in their very first mission ... and as the series progresses and Twila and Bea find themselves playing bigger roles in the Cold War between Russia and the United States, they find themselves in increasingly scary situations. Thanks to Bea's sharp instincts and Twila's bold approach, though, they prove to be a pretty valuable team.

So, where have you seen the talented cast of "Ponies" before? Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson are both known for huge HBO shows, but the bench on this show is deeper than you might realize.

Obviously, Emilia Clarke spent nearly a decade and eight seasons playing the mother of dragons herself, Daenerys Targaryen, on "Game of Thrones" — and after that series came to a lackluster conclusion, Clarke showed up in a number of projects. Though she worked on films like "Solo: A Star Wars Story" and "Me Before You" during her reign as Daenerys, in the years since "Game of Thrones" wrapped up, she joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe for "Secret Invasion" and starred in projects like "The Pod Generation." Haley Lu Richardson also made a name for herself on HBO in season 2 of "The White Lotus" as Portia, the long-suffering assistant to the spoiled, wealthy heiress Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge), and she's also shown up in movies like "Split," "Edge of Seventeen," and "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die."

There are a lot of great performers elsewhere in the cast of "Ponies," though. Chief among them is Vic Michaelis, a stealthy comedic powerhouse known for their work on Dropout — including their own show, "Very Important People" — who plays Cheryl, the wife of another CIA agent in Moscow. (If you haven't already, don't miss my colleague BJ Colangelo's phenomenal interview with Michaelis here at /Film, because you'll want to get acquainted with them before they become an even bigger star.) Alongside Michaelis, there's theatrical legend Adrian Lester, whom I already noted plays Twila and Bea's boss Dane ... and hilariously, John MacMillan appeared on the HBO series "House of the Dragon," a prequel about Daenerys's Targaryen ancestors.

"Ponies," which is a phenomenal show that you should definitely check out (and which hopefully gets a second season), is streaming on Peacock now.