Spoilers forward.
By now you most likely know that Prime Video’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith is an inverted tackle the 2005 Brangelina movie: as an alternative of a husband and spouse that uncover their spouses’ secret identities, the televised model knowingly places two strangers collectively into a wedding of comfort. Donald Glover and Maya Erskine inhabit the brand new John and Jane Smith, and the collection follows their assigned missions alongside the budding—and thorny—romance between the 2 spies. Mr. & Mrs. Smith is the story of a relationship disguised as an motion thriller, and every episode cleverly facilities across the hallmarks of courting.
Glover and Erskine aren’t the one acquainted faces that you simply’ll see within the eight-episode season. The collection is suffering from visitor stars, from Alexander Skarsgard to Sarah Paulson to Glover’s actual mother. However the actors aren’t simply there as a gimmick. The present makes use of them to look at its overarching themes, with these visitor stars nudging John and Jane to appreciate issues about themselves and their relationship. Under is a information to all the well-known faces all through the primary season and the way their characters have an effect on the central marriage.
Episode 1: Alexander Skarsgård and Eiza González
The opening moments of the collection don’t showcase the 2 leads; as an alternative, the collection opens with Skarsgård and González hiding out in a secure home. It quickly turns into clear that the duo are one other iteration of the titular Mr. and Mrs. Smith, spies with plain pseudonyms who’re reaching their limits with their present set-up. When enemies descend upon their cabin, González’s Jane tells her companion that she’s uninterested in operating and the 2 open hearth in a quick-and-dirty shootout.
Whereas this model of John and Jane put up struggle, they each wind up useless, possible by the hands of the very group that employed them within the first place—a foreshadowing for what’s destined for Glover and Erskine’s characters by season’s finish.
Eiza Gonzalez and Alexander Skarsgård.
Episode 2: John Turturro and Paul Dano
John and Jane’s second mission targets actual property mogul Eric Shane, performed by John Turturro, at an artwork public sale. They’re anticipated to seize him alive and provides him a fact serum injection with no witnesses, so Jane corners Shane after John identifies him because the excessive Warhol bidder from Hihi’s directions (he casually bids $106 million on the piece) and pretends to flirt to get him alone. She means that they create one of many cater-waiters with them to a personal room beneath the guise of messing with the working class individuals within the room. (After all, she chooses John because the “random” waiter.) However as soon as they’re upstairs, Shane orders them to get on their knees and act like canines a la Succession’s boar-on-the-floor energy transfer. John and Jane each seize the identical second to manage the reality serum, by chance overdosing and killing Shane, and failing their mission.
John Turturro
Episode 2, “Second Date,” additionally introduces us to the couple’s nosy neighbor, performed by Paul Dano in a recurring function, who appears skeptical of John and Jane’s life story from the second he meets them—specifically due to the frilly Architectural Digest-worthy residence renovations that have been finished previous to their move-in.
Paul Dano
Episode 3: Sharon Horgan and Billy Campbell
The fourth episode takes our Smiths to the Italian Dolomites, a mountain vary with a picturesque ski resort frequented by the rich, together with this episode’s targets: wealthy couple Gavol and Parker Martin, performed by Horgan and Campbell. The purpose is to bug their telephones and document an vital name at 5 P.M., and John and Jane got down to forge shut relationships with every partner and efficiently append trackers to each of the Martins’ telephones. Issues go awry when Gavol is kidnapped and Parker doesn’t adjust to the kidnapper’s calls for, forcing John to spring into motion to rescue her.
Billy Campbell and Sharon Horgan
Episode 4: Parker Posey and Wagner Moura
John and Jane’s first inclination that there are different spy {couples} dwelling parallel lives with these identical pseudonyms happens within the fourth episode once they meet one other pair named John and Jane Smith (Posey and Moura) on the farmer’s market. Placing two and two collectively, our Smiths invite the opposite couple over for dinner and bond over their mutual experiences within the trade, each with Hihi and with their respective spouses.
Wagner Moura
Parker Posey
Episode 5: Ron Perlman
The subsequent worldwide mission takes John and Jane to Lake Como, Italy to apprehend the “excessive worth goal” Toby Hellinger, performed by Perlman. His irritability through the abduction, quick disdain for John, and subsequent bonding with Jane reveal the forming fractures within the Smith relationship—particularly after John publicizes he bought a home in Lake Como with out consulting Jane.
However their argument goes even deeper: John desires youngsters, buoyed by his notion of Jane’s maternal affection towards Toby, however Jane doesn’t. His emotions for her are sophisticated by the inclination that Jane takes all the credit score when corresponding with Hihi. The challenges within the mission and of their private life give manner for Hihi to sow doubt about John in Jane’s thoughts, and the mysterious overlord ultimately asks if Jane wish to substitute him altogether.
Ron Perlman
Episode 6: Sarah Paulson
In “{Couples} Remedy,” a standout episode, Paulson visitor stars because the couple’s therapist. Issues have gone downhill for John and Jane, whose bickering has devolved into outright accusations. Paulson’s therapist tries earnestly to know their relationship woes and counsel logical options that might usually work in a standard marriage (like choosing completely different work assignments, since that’s the place most of their points stem from) however she has no thought about the true nature of their jobs. The counseling is mostly profitable in permitting the couple to say what’s on their thoughts and offers the viewers deep perception to a few of their incompatibilities, however as quickly as Paulson reminds them that she’s recording each session they haven’t any selection however to burn her home down.
Sarah Paulson
Episode 7: Michaela Coel
Because the couple’s relationship turmoil worsens, infidelity comes into play subsequent, and the seventh episode introduces Michaela Coel as a rival spy whom John has gotten near. Whereas she’s technically a goal, John genuinely likes spending time along with her, however issues get blown up when Jane arrives on her doorstep to confront her. Coel’s Bev flees, taking them on a wild goose chase throughout New York Metropolis. She in the end will get away, which leaves John indignant with Jane for meddling together with his mission. In the end they notice that Hihi was accountable for revealing John’s relationship with Bev, throwing much more mistrust into the shadowy puppeteer.
Michaela Coel
Episode 8: Beverly Glover
Whereas there aren’t any new cameos within the finale exterior of Glover’s actual mother Beverly portraying John’s mother, Posey and Moura reappear to hold out their “extraordinarily excessive threat” process: eliminating John and Jane. The closing moments of the primary season trace that John is moments away from demise and that Jane will not be far behind—mirroring the destiny of Skarsgård and González who opened the collection.
Donald Glover’s actual mother, Beverly
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