Mr. and Mrs. Smith

⭐ 10.0/10

(Originally written by Tim)

Best show of the year so far! When I heard this was in development years ago, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Donald Glover set to star, I thought it sounded like an awful idea and a waste of all the talented people involved's time. Well, Phoebe isn't associated anymore (she's great but not really this vibe) and I should have had faith in my boy Don! This show is a blast, a throw back in a lot of ways to classic TV, with almost a different adventure every week with some threads running the whole season. Donald and Maya Erskine have amazing chemistry (impossible to imagine Phoebe replacing Maya), and every episode was a delight.

I think the writing of the show is great, with lots of time spent on the relationship dynamics. I don't know much about the movie, but I have heard that is based of raw physical chemistry, two people basically falling in love in real time. This might not be that, but I think its better for it, since this relationship feels real, or as real as it can be for spies who are placed as partners.

One of my favourite aspects is this shadowy organization running the Smiths. In a different show you get flashback episodes explaining the company and its history and who pulls the strings. It is so perfectly vague, and it reminded me a bit of Severance, were I want to know so badly how all of this works. Severance will eventually get there since that's the whole idea of the show, but here it paints an intriguing backdrop for our two characters. I think its genius and I love the mystery it gives the show.

Again, they have such great chemistry. John is kind and caring and goofy, Jane is serious and stoic and robotic. They work so well together, and I love the time between episodes as their relationship evolves. Very well thought out.

No spoilers but I thought the beginning of the season was great, kind of teasing what's at stake but also teasing what a lesser version of this show might look like - two hot people doing epic spy stuff. Wait, isn't that just the movie? I am just so shocked this turned out well, reminds me of Fargo a bit, something that in concept sounds like a terrible thing to adapt but with the right vision its amazing.

One final thing, shoutout to Amazon for having unlimited money and filming everything on location. They go to so many beautiful locations and have dynamic action scenes, I can't imagine how much it costs to film there but its worth every penny. Who needs computer graphics when you have Lake Como or the Dolomites. Heck, in the finale they are running around Meatpacking District in New York, literally at one point right in front of my office! Very cool seeing movies and tv in places that are real.

This show is the promise of tech companies cashing big cheques and making shows with stars - basically one piece of stunt casting per episode and it hits every time. Feels like a show that could impart the wrong lessons, studios thinking we need more remakes (or Mattel thinking the takeaway from Barbie was more toy movies), where what we really need is talented people with vision on screen and behind the camera given blank cheques to make awesome things.