A Review of Mr. and Mrs. Smith: Does It Always End Like This?
Will you be jazzed or will you be sad?
I spent today doing it so that you could do it too. I plopped myself down and watched Mr. and Mrs Smith on Amazon so that you could read my awesome review and be inspired to go do the same. It's good. And while it isn't exactly new territory, the things that are added to the lexicon of spy thrillers make this one worth catching.
What Were You Doing on July 10, 2005
Most likely, we were all out watching that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie film with the same title, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” In that film, you get to watch this married couple go to therapy before finding out that each one of them is an assassin. If you know anything about spies there can be only one, because Angelina and Brad go at it at the end of the film. However, the story starts in 2005 as an author from New Zealand claimed that this 2005 film plagiarized a school book he'd written called The Secret Lives of Mr. and Mrs Smith he'd put out in 1997. That sounds super weird, right? well...
What were you doing in 1996?
There was another Mr. and Mrs Smith back in 1996 starring Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap) and Maria Bello (Coyote Ugly, Thank You For Smoking). Despite its awesome talent roster including the first appearance of Timothy Oliphant (Hitman, Justified), it was a show about a duo of spies who had to pretend to be married while working for an organization called “The Factory.” That show ran for nine episodes before getting canceled. This is weird because shows used to run for more than 20 episodes back then unless you were Firefly. This is also the plot for the 2024 version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine.
Time is funny like that.
The Current Mr. and Mrs. Smith
So this time, you find two spies who give up their fingernail clippings and get matched with someone they have never met as their new "partner." While cop shows and movies plant this as a person you're platonic with, this is a show about spies and all that action they get into makes them incredibly hot.
Starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, they play a duo of spies thrown together in a haphazard way that sees them sleeping in different rooms to eventually falling for one another. Once again... All that spy action makes them so hot for each other, how could they avoid hooking up?!
Obviously, the show knows that you know you want to see these characters get together and completely gives into that emotion just like we knew it would. However, this time instead of a group of white spies, these spies are and Black male and a Half-Japanese female. With spies in love, it's never about the "why" as much as it is the "when." What made it of particular interest to me was how the producers made their situations different.
The Organization or “Mr. Hihi” on this show gives Mr. and Mrs Smith their new names and a variety of insane missions. Since they're both high-risk agents, they find themselves having to protect people, having to find people in the woods, and often they have to kill these people they run across. What will happen when they see John Turturo, an oddly “muscle mommy” Michaela Coel, or Ron Pearlman? How will they deal with being in Italy or a ski lodge? What will happen whenever they meet other members of their company? How will they deal with rival organizations? Are they being watched? Finding out is very fun.
Plus this show understands the difference that new ethnicities bring to the "spies in love" formula. If you've watched a lot of James Bond (25 films) and a lot less Undercover Brother, seeing Donald Glover do things like speak Swahili to get past people and connect with other Black men in his age bracket is absurdly interesting.
Seeing them move from uneasy friends to lovers so quickly is what makes the third part of their relationship such a mess. As this duo has been through so much “same time work and play,” they very quickly start to hate everything about one another. He buys a house and they fight about it. Their organization likes Jane more than John. Donald Glover goes rogue at one point. Then just like back in 2005, John and Jane Smith spent an entire episode in therapy. What they try to touch on is riveting, but I might be both divorced and biased. If you've ever been in a relationship that's falling apart, I think you will completely understand the rage and misery these secret agents stay under.
So more than something terrific to watch, Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a bit of a revolution regarding spy television. Hiro Murai, Donald Glover, and the rest of the producers did an excellent job putting this show together. I'd stopped being excited by spy-based television. I enjoyed the 2005 movie due to the star power of the era, but this show I sat down and checked almost all of this out today so I could write this piece about it. I was touched in a way.
It's amazing. Plus, Donald Glover's actual mother is in it. See if you can find out where and let me know. Then, whenever you watch Mr. and Mrs Smith come back and let me know what you think of the ending.