Mr. & Mrs. Smith has always been upfront about the possibility of tragedy. The opening scene of the premiere episode established it right off the bat, showing the quick and merciless murder of a Mr. and Mrs. Smith who thought they’d made it out of the spy life unscathed. Still, this show frequently manages to trick me into thinking of it as a comedy, and it wasn’t until that vicious argument in the sixth episode that I realized just how serious it could feel. These last few episodes have gone to dramatic places I really wasn’t expecting, and the drama reaches its apex in this finale.
Sure, some questions remain unanswered for both the “heroes” and the viewership. We never truly get a concrete answer as to the identity of the Smiths’ employers and the company’s purpose, though John-2 and Jane-2 suggest Hihi is a sort of god they worship, always able to identify where people are and where they’re heading. (Mrs. Davis vibes.) If Sloane and Glover are interested in continuing this story, there’s plenty of material left for future seasons — but if this is the end, there’s still a lot we don’t know.There’s also a purposeful ambiguity in the episode’s final moments, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
For all the gaps in logic and plot holes — I’m sure I’m missing some — I’m mostly impressed with “A Breakup,” which makes for a moving and pretty satisfying conclusion. The show doesn’t tie up all the loose ends, but it does tie up many. For one, we finally get some good material from Hot Neighbor (his name is Harris, but I prefer the nickname), and we get some prime Parker Posey in a villainous role.
We also get an honest-to-god homage to the original movie, which I wasn’t fully expecting, even though Hihi was already starting to pit John and Jane against each other. When the episode begins, Jane is living alone at their place while John lives with his mom, whom he helped move to New York a couple months ago. One day, the separated couple is ordered to kill each other (though we only see Jane get the order), and we finally get to see them battle it out, starting at the Whitney and ending inside their brownstone.
Now, I’m not entirely sure why the company can’t just send some people in to kill Jane at home if they’re willing to expend the effort to frame John by shooting through her windows and killing her cat. (I hated that, by the way. Poor, mortal Max.) The company also leaves a trip-wire bomb that could’ve easily killed John and his mom if the toilet seat wasn’t carelessly left up. That error points to Jane, I guess (although why would she use the toilet and leave the seat up?), but the whole plan seems like more trouble than it’s worth. It’s all flimsy, relying on John and Jane attacking each other without a simple clarifying conversation.
But that they do. At the Whitney, they speak elliptically about how much they hate each other, with Jane calling John the “cruelest man [she’s] ever met.” They silently agree to take the fight outside, but Jane almost manages to kill him right away by trapping him in the revolving door with a bomb. That’s where the big chase begins.
There’s a lot of fun stuff here, especially when other bystanders get involved. There are obvious signs already that the two don’t really want each other dead, like when a few men stop Jane from strangling John, and they both end up fighting off the guys. John also gets hit by a taxi, and Jane stops to assess how bad it is before fleeing. But when she makes it back home, John’s mom is there, referring to him by his real name: Michael.
That kicks off a helpful interlude where John and Jane unintentionally take a break from the fighting to receive some wisdom. Counseling her daughter-in-law, Denise boils John’s issues down to something simple: He gets attached very easily and needs to feel completely safe to be himself. Jane, of course, is not the type of partner (or even friend) to make someone feel safe (outside of that anomaly with Toby in “Do You Want Kids?”).
While that’s happening, John cuts through Hot Neighbor’s place to reach the backdoor to his place. While he’s there, he takes the opportunity to poke around, discovering the listings and floor plans of the Smiths’ townhouse, along with some creepy photos of the two of them. At first, it seems to confirm that Hot Neighbor is a spy, maybe even the big boss, but an interrogation from John reveals the truth: He’s just a real estate analyst for an agency that badly wants to purchase the Smiths’ perplexingly expensive, unprecedentedly rule-flouting building. He even refers to it as his “Moby Dick.”
It’s a nice twist, providing some rare comic relief in a pretty dramatic episode and finally justifying Dano’s casting. It also leads to an unexpected conversation where John vents about his dislike of reading and the neighbor advises him to just suck it up and start doing it anyway. He even recommends The Prophet, which he brings over in a mood-lightening mid-credits stinger.
Back home, Jane is already onto John’s plan, luring him to the home theater and kicking off a gunfight that wastes tons of ammo and destroys almost everything in the house. Again, it’s really fun to see the show finally adapt the original movie, though the stakes feel way higher here. John ends the fight by injecting his wife and himself with truth serum, allowing them the honest conversation they’ve needed all episode (and all series) long.
The hallucinogenic, pleasant effects of the drug also make this a fun tripping scene, with Glover and Erskine’s gift for physical comedy paying dividends as John and Jane loll around the bedroom and share all the secrets they’ve kept from each other. Jane failed the psych exam for the CIA because of her sociopathic tendencies; John got kicked out of the Marines for his asthma, which makes him feel weak and emasculated. Jane’s mom died in a car accident, and her dad isn’t interested in seeing his daughter; John wants children more than anything and would love to have kids with her. It’s all very tender and sweet, including the weird Spider-Man kiss. My only complaint, really, is how long it takes for them to clear up the truth of what happened that morning. I spent most of the scene thinking, Can you please just assure your wife you didn’t kill her cat?
Before they can piece through the full implications of Hihi’s manipulations, though, John-2 and Jane-2 show up to ruin the good vibes. They patiently explain that “extremely high-risk” work refers to “finalizing” (killing) Smiths; that’s their whole job. They were the killers from the show’s opening scene, which makes so much sense in retrospect. (Re-watching, you can see a bit of Posey’s long hair on the sniper.) Even the captain whom John macheted in El Salvador was a Smith who needed finalizing. As I initially suspected, it wasn’t a coincidence that John and John-2 met that day at the farmer’s market. I’m almost surprised our Smiths weren’t terminated sooner based on how irresponsible they were that night.
In a clever moment, John and Jane take advantage of John-2’s established habit of sneezing in threes, shooting his eye out and escaping to the panic room. Jane-2 waits at the door, ready to kill them the moment they open it, and at that point, it becomes a game of chicken. There’s only one bullet in Jane’s gun, so the best option is to wait for the sun to set so Jane-2 will step away to turn on the lights. But John’s been shot in the gut and is fading fast, so that doesn’t seem like an option.
I found myself surprised at how emotionally invested I felt in the final minutes of this episode. I really, really wanted John and Jane to make it out alive, to beat the odds and fulfill those fantasies about starting a family. I was swept up in the way only a really good finale can sweep me up. It’s almost unbearable to watch Jane prepare for her final stand, David Fleming’s score swelling as Glover (who directed this episode) displays our heroes’ expressions of desperation and resilience in close-up.
From here, the door opens and Glover cuts to the outside of the house, where we hear three gunshots, accompanied by three flashes of light: two right after the other, then another a second later. Perhaps a second season will reveal that Jane pulled off some impressive gun maneuver and wrangled the weapon from Jane-2’s hands — but without that follow-up, it feels more likely that Jane-2 killed John and Jane. If this is the end of the road, the ambiguity feels like a merciful way to go out: Like John and Jane in those last moments, we can live in the fantasy.
No matter whether the future they imagine actually exists, there’s something deeply romantic about John and Jane’s final sentiments. I figured from the beginning that we’d learn their real names eventually, so it’s satisfying to learn about Michael and Alana — but the real poignancy of this exchange comes from the discarding of their old identities, not the sharing of them. “I like Jane,” John says. “I like John,” she says.
Just two episodes ago, John and Jane’s couples therapist offered an ironic reassurance: No one was forcing them to be together. If they were here in therapy, that’s because they were choosing to make it work. It wasn’t true at the time, but it is true now: These two people have chosen to build something new together, and that choice means something, even if the dream itself never comes true. If this is the end, RIP, Michael and Alana. Long live Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Flaps and Seals
• I don’t really get why John would move his mom to New York in the first place at such a dangerous time for them both, but whatever. I’m also a little unclear on how much time passed between episodes. Did Hihi hold off for a while on ordering the terminations?
• I’m not totally sure we needed the reveal that Jane didn’t actually sleep with two targets, as she said in the last episode, but it makes sense that she’d lie to hurt John.
• “You know what that does to a woman? It impacts her.”
• “I hate how your voice goes so low when you want to be charming.” I had almost this exact thought when John was charming Gavol in “First Vacation.”
• The music supervision has been great all season. “Tukuntazo” by El Cherry Scom, Haraca Kiko, and Tokischa is a fun choice for John chasing Jane, and I also appreciate the use of the Cardigans’ “Happy Meal II” during the shootout at the house.
• “I think they might be ready to sell.”
Ben Rosenstock , 2024-02-03 01:01:27
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