Murders, We Wrote

In one of season one’s excellent cold opens, Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Donald Glover and Maya Erskine) engage in a kidnapping that turns into a mountain car chase, that then evolves into a run-and-gun foot pursuit, and then a boat getaway across Lake Como. It’s very thrilling. They destroy many expensive cars, and shoot an unassuming civilian wedding in a piazza to hell. After putting to bed some marital discord a few scenes later, John Smith reflects back on the day, “I think we ruined those peoples’ wedding.”

“I’m pretty sure we probably ruined their lives,” replies Jane, and they both laugh at their stressful day.

If that scene sounds cruel to you, the show means it to be. This revamped Mr. and Mrs. Smith is much more thoughtful about the work of its protagonists than Doug Liman’s glib 2005 shoot ‘em up movie was. That Pitt/Jolie jamboree was a sleek, dumb endorsement of domestic violence as an aphrodisiac. Remember Vince Vaughn as an outspoken misogynist assassin who happens to be Mr. Smith’s best friend? No? How about a violent ballroom tango that’s mostly cringe? 2024’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith–we’ll call it MaMs from here on–flips most of that mess around.

The movie featured married assassins oblivious that their spouse engages in wetwork for a living, whereas the same shadowy agency recruits the new MaMs and assigns them to each other. Glover coaxes a dumb battle of the sexes into a meditation about relationships and communication. It’s still pretty glib but it scales more to Parker Posey, who shows up here and there, than to Vince Vaughn, who is thankfully absent.

The show quickly introduces us to the Smiths via a montage of their virtual interview with an unidentified intelligence agency rep they call “hihi,” a tour of their bougie new brownstone spy lair, and a meet-cute in their new home’s elevator. John and Jane have agreed to abandon their old lives, friends and all, and commit to a highly paid espionage gig that comes with a spouse they’ve never met nor seen. (It’s no big surprise that Jane ends up spending her first night in the big house watching “Naked and Afraid.”) The show doles out what drove them to choose this life is  over the course of the season as they begin to ply their trade, try on their new married lives, and start to sour on some of the constrictions of this very unusual arrangement.

The eight episode season never wears out its welcome. Each episode has a messy impossible mission that delivers the slam bang thrills that viewers want from a spy show. After we get to know MaMS in the first one, they pretty much deliver a fun guest star every episode (John Turturro, Parker Posey, Sarah Paulson, Ron Perlman, Michaela Coel). Structurally, MaMS has a throwback episodic TV feel like the recent Natasha Lyonne whodunnit-of-the-week Poker Face. Spiritually, it’s no surprise when Hiro Murai (Atlanta, The Bear, Barry) pops up as the director of the first two episodes. For all the throwback structure, there’s a patina of hip aloofness to the whole affair. I know that can sound off putting and it honestly is at times.

Remember the whole thing about them being cruel? I believe that’s intentional, and I don’t think they do it to shame people for viewing an action show. The cruelty of the characters can thunk down in the middle of what, a minute earlier, was an action scene set to Darude’s “Sandstorm” and just shock you out of your TV coma to remind you, “Hey, what they’re doing is messed up.”

MaMS is about 40 percent character development, 40 percent espionage/spy thriller, and 20 percent lifestyle porn (The clothes, my goodness, the clothes), so it’s roughly 60 percent of all the stuff people want in a James Bond movie. The truth is that James Bond is a killer, and these people are wannabe Bonds. While Bond is a patriot, the Smiths don’t even know who their boss is and a little less than sheepishly admit that they took the job for money and thrills, but mostly money. They’re fun and funny but they’re also ruining peoples’ lives for a boss they don’t know or see. Unlike the 2005 movie, this MaMS may deliver laughs in the middle of something absolutely horrifying but they never forget that it’s actually horrifying.

Despite the charm and wit of Erskine, Glover, and the many guest stars, that can make for challenging viewing as they  cruelly dispatch people for seemingly very little reason. At the same time, I felt invested in the relationship of the MaMS as they navigated their arranged marriage and dealt with abandoning their lives (spoiler: each of them keeps at least one significant contact). Like Succession, I found myself rooting for horrible people or, at least, people who do terrible things for money. After two episodes I moved from asking myself, “Do I like this?” to “Why do I like this so much?” I don’t know if these kids are gonna make it but I hope they do. I’d definitely watch them ruin more lives for another season or two.