Director Gordon, who co-wrote the script with Brendan O’Brien, has said he was aiming to explore what might happen when spies become parents. (This was brilliantly addressed in “The Americans” on FX, but that was a whole different thing.) Now, without knowing too many spy couples, or any, I’m pretty sure what happens is NOT that the parents become SO uncool SO fast that they buy binoculars on Amazon to spy on their daughter’s social life from the car at school dropoff. Guys, at least hide so she doesn’t see you. Did CIA training teach you nothing?
Equally unartful is the way they explain their past to their kids. We join this conversation as the kids wonder why Dad was speaking Russian to the AC guy. The parents explain they picked it up during their time in the Peace Corps. But they don’t even have their story straight: Were they in Colombia, Belize, or Russia? Again, they had 15 years to get this straight.
All is peaceful in suburbia, sort of, except Emily is having trouble connecting with daughter Alice (could this be because she spies on her?) She’s also getting bored, and wonders if she and Matt can briefly skip down to South America and stop a coup somewhere — or, heck, start a coup! Either way! And then the doorbell rings with a long-lost contact, and Matt and Emily claim Wordle and Etsy, but soon they’re dragged back in, and the whole fam is on the run.
You also should know that Emily has both a past with a jealous MI6 agent (Andrew Scott) and a complicated relationship with her mother (Glenn Close, game for broad comedy), who lives on a huge estate in England, was also a spy, and has enthusiastic but terrible taste in men.