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Mr. and Mrs. Smith was one of the best TV shows of 2024, and one of my favorite things I watched on the small screen. Arriving on Prime Video back in February, it was the perfect binge-watch – mystery, action, and romance, coupled with great pacing, made for a compulsive viewing experience.
Inspired by the 2005 movie of the same name (starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie), Donald Glover and Maya Erskine played 'John' and 'Jane' Smith, two spies who join an agency that pairs up recruits and assigns them a fake spouse, along with a generic alias, to live with undercover. As the pair begin to fall for each other for real in between increasingly dangerous missions though, they realize that it doesn't pay to mix work and pleasure. And that's before the duo realize they're not the only John and Jane in town, either.
What made Mr. and Mrs. Smith so watchable was its ability to balance character development and action. Glover and Erskine gave us two compellingly flawed lead characters with excellent chemistry with John and Jane, but it wasn't all conversation and emotional revelations – there was plenty of stuff going on, too. Self-contained episodic plots were woven through with an intriguing overarching series mystery; showrunner Francesca Sloane had a cool, authoritative handle on the show's eight-episode run, which flew by with ease thanks to its slick storytelling.
Crucially, it was also the perfect limited series – until it was renewed for a second season, three months after it was released. The ambiguity of the season 1 finale was one of the show's biggest strengths, leaving the audience on a cliffhanger, and coming back for round two risks throwing all that out the window.
Season 1's conclusion tied up a lot of loose threads – but not all of them. With other shows like Bad Sisters and Big Little Lies also following up single-season runs with surprise sequels, is the limited series a lost art? It makes sense, given that these shows are all critically acclaimed and popular with audiences, but sometimes it's nice to be left wanting a little more.
It hasn't yet been confirmed whether Glover and Erskine will return for season 2 just yet, so there's a chance the series could go down the same route as The White Lotus and opt for an anthology format in future installments, with the underlying concept remaining the same but the actors, characters, and location changing on a season-by-season basis.
So, what becomes of season 2? All we have to go on so far is one piece of casting news: Anora's Mark Eydelshteyn will play another Mr. Smith in the next installment. He was excellent as the immature, petulant son of a Russian oligarch in Sean Baker's recent comedy-drama about a stripper's tumultuous shotgun marriage – and hardly the most obvious casting choice for the show, which makes me hopeful that Sloane and co. still have some tricks up their sleeves.
Of course, one of the key things that made season 1 so watchable was Glover and Erskine's chemistry, so the vibe between Eydelshteyn and whoever ends up playing his Mrs. Smith is what will make or break the second season. And, while the show's leads are its bread and butter, the caliber of guest stars in each episode was also vital to its success. In season 1, we saw appearances from Paul Dano, Parker Posey, Sarah Paulson, Wagner Moura, Ron Perlman, and more, so season 2 has a lot to top in that department too.
So, until more casting information is revealed, it's hard to know just what Mr. and Mrs. Smith will really have in store. For now, though, we'll just have to hope that the show keeps enough things close to its chest – just like any good spy – to keep us wanting more.
All episodes of Mr. and Mrs. Smith are streaming now. For more, check out our guide to the other best shows on Amazon Prime Video or our picks of the best new TV shows coming our way in 2025.
