![]() These quests also create the pretext for guest appearances from a murderer’s row of character actors, including Michaela Coel, Ron Perlman, John Turturro, Sharon Horgan, and Parker Posey as a fellow-Jane. For those of us allergic to exposition dumps about why some MacGuffin needs to be retrieved or delivered or destroyed, there’s a refreshing meaninglessness to the tasks handed down by Hihi. And yet, compared with Glover’s previous series, “ Atlanta” and “ Swarm,” it’s a disarmingly straightforward show, with a case-of-the-week structure and playful takes on espionage tropes. The Prime Video remake also quickly establishes an eagerness to go somewhere edgier than a broad studio action-comedy might have dared-multiplex audiences of the mid-aughts may not have been ready for a subplot involving cannibal porn. Glover and Erskine have a convincing rapport, but their “Mr. It would’ve been near-impossible to replicate the heat between Pitt and Jolie, whose real-life extramarital affair became part of the film’s marketing. Though they have weapons and martial-arts training, there’s a civilian’s softness, too they can’t get through an at-home body-disposal job without retching. Glover and Erskine-two hot nerds with comedy roots-render their characters believably prickly, awkward, and tender by turns. But their fumblings toward genuine intimacy amid the trappings of a fake relationship make for some of the eight-part series’ best early scenes. John can be moody and insensitive Jane’s longing for adventure-and need to impress Hihi-can tip into recklessness. custom: “You draw less attention as a couple, and you’re less likely to defect if you’re reliant on a partner.”) Their aliases consign them to far too many hours alone together, and the show acknowledges that the kinds of people who sign up to lie for a living aren’t necessarily marriage material. (In what might be a nod to FX’s “ The Americans,” which centered on husband-and-wife Soviet agents, Jane notes that pairing up spies was a K.G.B. John and Jane meet for the first time after they have been “wed” by the company, inverting the premise of the original movie: the Smiths aren’t lovers who discover they’re both killers but killers who discover they’re in love. In this one, their incuriosity makes them ideal minions-and, later, easy throwaways. “The way things are in the world right now, I’m happy we have a job.” In a different world, they might have been management consultants. “Who cares? We get a plunge pool,” John says. In the wake of their first mission, Jane speculates about their employer, whose agenda remains unknown but whose indifference to collateral damage they’ve already witnessed. Their job interviews are conducted by a machine their duties are relayed through a chat box and they never meet their handler, whom they nickname Hihi, after its preferred text greeting. rejects, but the unsettling, tech-assisted impersonality of its approach leaves the pair closer to gig workers than government agents. Where Brangelina’s characters were suburbanite yuppies with his-and-hers sinks, the new John (Glover) and Jane Smith (Maya Erskine) embody their generation’s emotional and economic malaise. It’s there that the real show begins: one with dark humor and a distinctly millennial sensibility reflective of its co-creator and star. ![]() Both are immediately, unceremoniously gunned down. An absurdly good-looking couple on the run decide to take a final stand, exchanging a passionate kiss as they prepare to face down their assailants. ![]() Smith”-Donald Glover and Francesca Sloane’s minor-key remix of the 2005 film starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as married, duelling assassins-the series symbolically obliterates its source material.
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