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 1977, two secretaries working at the USA embassy in Moscow become CIA operatives after their spy husbands die under mysterious circumstances.
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.
The series premiered on January 15, 2026, on Peacock, with all eight episodes released at once.
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 96% approval rating based on 28 critic reviews. The website's critics 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 a score of 75 out of 100 based on 10 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-âÂÂ70s music to maintain the viewersâ 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".