So far, each of John and Jane’s missions has offered a fitting backdrop for the respective steps in their relationship. A simple intercept-and-deliver mission allowed them a pleasant first-date walk around lower Manhattan. A more expensive night out at an auction for the one percent didn’t go so hot as a second date, but it brought them closer together. Now, a trip to collect some intel in the Italian Dolomites offers the ideal opportunity for their first vacation as a couple — and provides an entertaining setting for the most fun, most thoughtful episode so far.
John and Jane stay in the hotel room next door to their targets: billionaire girlboss Gavol Martin (Sharon Horgan) and her ex-pro-surfer husband Parker (Billy Campbell). They’re tasked with bugging the Martins’ phones and recording a call the next day, which shouldn’t be too difficult — it’ll be easy to split up and bug them individually since the couple is spending so much time apart. Their marriage is clearly in a pretty bad place, to the point that it’s affecting their son.
The last episode used its “target of the week†character to offer some subtle parallels to our main characters. Here, the parallels are much more explicit. When Parker and Gavol snap at each other, John and Jane immediately and predictably take sides, with the more romance-minded John defending Parker’s desire to sleep next to his wife and the work-minded Jane defending Gavol’s need to sleep without the distraction of her husband’s snoring. The Smiths’ promise to never end up like the Martins feels like a bad omen — and sure enough, they break that promise very quickly, just like they broke their pact in the last episode.
Going on vacation together can be a big step for a new couple, and that’s true even in John and Jane’s unique circumstances. For one, sharing so much time in the same space can highlight unforeseen annoying qualities about your traveling companion — like when John notices Jane’s habit of speaking with her mouth full or when she picks up on the loud drum-set-esque clanging of his silverware. But depending on timing, a trip like this one can also serve as a test run for a more serious commitment to the relationship.
And John and Jane are certainly tested. The already present tension between them festers when she learns that he speaks to his mom — with whom he was supposed to stop all contact — three times a day. Sure, she doesn’t know the full truth about what her son does for a living, but she knows he’s married, and she still calls him by his old name. Jane judges John for those unsevered ties to his old life, and John judges her back for completely cutting ties with her dad. He’s also shocked by Jane using “What if he molested me?†as her comeback without actually sharing that experience herself, but she has a point. Plenty of people have fraught relationships with their fathers.
Even setting aside John’s dangerous rule-flouting, there’s plenty of the usual dumbassery on display from our two novice spies in this episode, which extends to John’s complete inability to ski. But they finally find their openings after Gavol and Parker get into another serious fight, with Parker suggesting he’s really not sure he wants to be married anymore. John and Jane’s own tension escalates alongside the other couple’s, with Jane calling out John for being cold and distant when things get too intense. Never mind that Jane is just as icy and emotionally withholding as John, if not more.
Still, it’s John who makes the immature move of un-sharing his location when it’s most necessary for them to be communicating. He follows Gavol to her “meeting,†which turns out to be a trip to the sauna at an exclusive club overlooking the slopes, and flirts with her pretty hard. It’s sometimes hard for me to take Donald Glover’s sultry looks and “sexy†voice seriously, but the episode doesn’t overstate the power of his charm. Gavol isn’t truly prepared for an affair; she’s only comfortable lying to her husband about small things, like business meetings. Still, John manages to get close enough to plant the bug under the guise of helping her — the moisture in the air was messing with her phone, so he orders a bowl of uncooked rice to help dry it out.
Jane does a good job with her own task, bugging Parker’s phone after grabbing it to download the app his son is obsessed with. Parker genuinely wants to connect with the kid but doesn’t know how to get through to him. But we see a very dark side of Parker not long after, once John listens in on Gavol and realizes she’s being kidnapped. John tracks her to the top of a slope, where armed men are shoving her into a truck. But when the kidnappers call Parker to demand a ransom — the relinquishment of all his shares — Parker makes a shocking decision. Faced with the almost certain death of his wife if he says no, he rejects the deal.
It’s not exactly an easy decision; he vomits as soon as the call is over. But maybe the way selfish Parker sees it, the future could still be bright without Gavol in the picture. Their marriage was on its last legs anyway, and he still has his son, along with some new father-son bonding ideas. Luckily, John and Jane are on the phone when this all goes down, and they manage to record the call. Mission accomplished.
As far as we know, the company doesn’t really care whether Gavol lives or dies; they just need the audio from that call. But John is always one to go above and beyond. The sequence when he saves her is pretty fun, especially the camera pan from inside the truck as John takes out the guys surrounding it. Mid-shoot-out, he shares his location with Jane again, and not a moment too soon — he takes care of the men but ends up almost passing out in the snow. Jane takes him back to their room and treats his hypothermia with a cool-temp bath, slowly reviving his contracted, shivering body.
From there, both of this episode’s couples open up about their feelings and move past their issues. That’s a particularly amazing feat for Gavol, who just heard her husband choose his shares over her life. Even if they had some agreement for how they’d respond in a scenario like this one, it’s gotta feel pretty bad to actually hear it happen. But Gavol actually buys Parker’s change of heart, so maybe these two crazy kids can stick it out a little longer. She might need to download Skate City first, though.
The original Mr. & Mrs. Smith movie followed two people who could only resuscitate their mundane marriage once they’d tried to kill each other. This new take is much different, but it’s still about weirdos who can only connect through weirdo means. “First Vacation†shows John and Jane go through their first real fight, but it’s a fight that could only happen between two people who care deeply about each other. They admit that to each other while he’s lying there vulnerable in the bath, and it feels surprisingly believable for a relationship that only really began an episode ago.
So John and Jane head back home with a newfound honesty about what they want from their relationship — including sharing a bedroom. John even assures his wife that she doesn’t need to make an excuse and leave the room to pass gas. Intimacy can come in many forms, whether it’s rubbing heat into your spy husband’s frostbitten penis or just comfortably farting around him. Mr. & Mrs. Smith definitely hasn’t reached peak form yet, but the more it leans into the emotional truths of its goofy premise, the closer it gets.
Flaps and Seals
• John and Jane do start to make another pair of vacation friends, but Jane cuts that off early by interrupting them when she’s too busy pursuing the Martins: “Shut the fuck up, bitch. I have a gun and I will shoot you.†Again, these spies really have a talent for drawing attention to themselves, don’t they?
• I loved Gavol and Parker’s argument about how much family time she promised the night before. “You said that you weren’t going to work the whole day.†“No, I didn’t. I said I wasn’t going to work the whole day.†Now that I’m listening to the clip again, Horgan kind of pitches the line right down the middle.
• It’s also pretty funny to play back the initial fart moment with the knowledge that John was just playing along. He really jumps out of bed, hisses, “checks outside,†and cocks his gun. I respect the dedication. Maybe that’s the most romantic part of the episode.