Set in the 1970s, ‘Ponies’ sees two widowed women step into their late husbands’ CIA roles after their deaths

People Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson go under cover in the first steamy, action-packed trailer for their new Peacock show Ponies.

The spy thriller sees Clarke, 39, as Bea and Richardson, 30, as Twila. The pair become fast friends when their husbands, both CIA agents under cover at the U.S. Embassy, are moved to Moscow, Russia, then the capital of the Soviet Union, in 1977. After both of their husbands are suddenly killed in a plane crash, they volunteer to take their place — and they find themselves sucked into Moscow’s underbelly as CIA operatives.

Posing as secretaries to the U.S. Ambassador to the USSR’s office, the pair work to find answers about their husbands’ deaths, and the mysteries of the USSR.

“We’re women, people only look at us if they want to have sex with us or marry us, and that’s it,” Richardson’s character says in the trailer. “No one, would ever suspect anything of us.”

Adrian Lester plays Dane, a CIA operative who introduces Bea and Twila to the CIA. “This job demands sacrifice. Most people are not cut out for it,” Lester, 57, says in the trailer, between montages of action-packed shoot outs, fights and chases.

In a humorous scene, Richardson’s character lights a bar on fire. “You could have killed someone,” Twila tells Bea, to which she replies “I didn’t know it was flammable.” Twila then says “Everything is flammable once you light it on fire.”

The trailer also sees the women navigating new relationships while widowed and working undercover, before explaining the show’s unique name.

In a scene in which Dane, Bea and Twila patrol near a KGB official, Dane tells the women “I’m a P-O-I. Person of Interest. But you two are P-O-N-I’s.”

“Ponies,” Twila replies. “Persons of no interest,” Bea says. The trailer is also full of intricate visuals, from rich Russian interiors to period-accurate 1970s wardrobe and hair styles.

Ponies hits Peacock on Jan. 15, 2026.