What Does the Acronym PONIES Stand for in the Peacock Spy Show?
The new spy thriller is now steaming in full on Peacock. Find out what its title means!
With PONIES now streaming in full on Peacock, excitement around the series — which stars Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) and Haley Lu Richardson (The White Lotus) — is at an all-time high.
But what's up with the Cold-War era series' all-capitalized name that sounds like its about a bunch of baby horses? Does it have a hidden meaning?
Here's everything you should know about the meaning of those letters.
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What does PONIES stand for in the Peacock show?
"PONIES" is an acronym, and no, it has nothing to do with horses. The meaning of the show's title is immediately explained to viewers in the series' opening scene, which shows the following words being typed out onto a 1970s-era computer screen: "In intelligence: PERSONS OF INTEREST (POIs) are individuals under surveillance by foreign governments – valuable because of their power, their access, their secrets. PERSONS OF NO INTEREST: (PONIs) are … everyone else."
Still confused? Keep reading, below.
What is Peacock's PONIES about?
The synopsis for PONIES, which is set in 1977 Moscow, reads: "Two 'PONIES' ('persons of no interest' in intelligence speak) work anonymously as secretaries in the American Embassy. That is, until their husbands are killed under mysterious circumstances in the USSR, and the pair become CIA operatives. Bea (Clarke) is an over-educated, Russian-speaking child of Soviet immigrants. Her cohort, Twila (Richardson), is a small-town girl who is as abrasive as she is fearless. Together, they work to uncover a vast Cold War conspiracy and solve the mystery that made them widows in the first place."
In other words, Clarke and Richardson's characters are two "Persons of No Interest" who quickly discover that they have quite a knack for international espionage. They're hoping to stay "Persons of No Interest" and not let the KGB on to what they're doing.
Emilia Clarke learned to speak Russian for her PONIES role
During Clarke's January 12 appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, she revealed that learning to speak perfect Russian for her role on PONIES was easier said than done — tears were involved!
"I had one teacher and she made me cry," Clarke confessed to Seth Meyers. "And I sucked and she just kept saying the same words over and over again. And I kept repeating them and I felt like I had a good ear and I felt like I knew what I was saying. And then she would say them back and I'd be like, ‘That's what I'm saying.' And she's like, ‘No, you're not!' And then it would be very upsetting.”
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Meyers offered, "That doesn't sound good at all," leading Clarke to admit, "No, it was horrible. That was not good."
The 39-year-old explained that one of the showrunners offered her the chance to change teachers, but Clarke told him she'd just see the lessons through with her original instructor. But she got a pleasant surprise.
"And then he gave me a new teacher and then everything was better," she confessed.
"So, this isn't that you're bad at Russian, it's that you had a terrible teacher," Meyers theorized.
"That's my story," Clarke said. "That's what we're sticking with."
