10 Biggest Twists in 'Ponies' Season 1, Ranked

Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for Ponies Season 1.It's never a dull day at the office in Ponies. In Moscow, December 1976, Bea Grant (Emilia Clarke) and Twila Hasbeck (Haley Lu Richardson) spend their days working at the American embassy, while their CIA agent husbands risk their lives in the field. However, after learning that their husbands have been killed, the two refuse to accept the truth.

The Cold War has its own secrets, and along with it are shocking revelations about both the CIA and the KGB. Stuck between them are Bea and Twila, who demand that they find what actually happened to their loved ones. Now working as amateur covert agents, Bea and Twila quickly realize that espionage is all smoke and mirrors. Without further ado, here are the biggest twists of Ponies Season 1, ranked.

10 Andrei Vasiliev Strangles a Sex Worker

The KGB works with a lot of people, sex workers included. High-status Americans like George Tallman (Tom Stourton) are sometimes sent to their hotel rooms, usually as a prank by their peers. However, George's one night with a sex worker takes a dangerous turn. Unbeknownst to him, the encounter is secretly recorded by the KGB.

The tape is stored in a KGB facility to be used as kompromat, or blackmail. But the situation becomes even darker. After the sex worker finishes her job and approaches Andrei Vasiliev (Artjom Gilz) to collect her payment, she is strangled to death. And she isn't the only sex worker murdered in Moscow, hinting at a bigger conspiracy that the CIA has yet to check out.

9 Andrei Vasiliev Blackmails the KGB

In every agency, there's always that one person trying to stay a step ahead. Andrei knows how to play the espionage game to his advantage. On paper, he works for the KGB, but in reality, he is loyal only to himself. When his superiors refuse to give him a promotion after a mission blunder, he decides to use his secret leverage.

Meeting his boss at a Russian spa, Andrei threatens him with a scandalous tape showing the man with a sex worker. Sleeping with a sex worker is one thing, but when a national leader is "emasculated" by having his genitals stepped on, his reputation would immediately be destroyed. Andrei gets the promotion he wants, but in doing so, he has surely made an enemy out of his own home base.

8 Dane Walter Is Gay

Serving during the Cold War may be one of the most patriotic things an American could do. However, the last thing anyone wanted was to be stationed in the cold, isolated terrain of Russia. While Moscow isn't quite as harsh as the media portrays, these Americans can't help but feel homesick being so far from their families.

Given Dane Walter's (Adrian Lester) espionage skills, it makes sense that he was chosen to lead the CIA's Russian department. But there's another, more personal reason: Dane is revealed to be gay. The CIA is aware of Dane's sexuality, and in the mid-1970s, when same-sex relationships were far less accepted, he was transferred to one of the most remote posts from the United States.

7 Bea Has Sex With Andrei Vasiliev

At some point in Ponies, Bea is bound to have Andrei wrapped around her finger. One of her main tasks is to seduce him so he will take her to his house, allowing her to plant listening devices. But after her husband's death, Bea is uncomfortable being intimate with other men, especially a KGB agent.

Everything changes after a shocking revelation about her husband. Bea begins to lose her inhibitions. After smoking a joint, Andrei visits her at her "fake" apartment, and in a hazy moment, she tends to his bruises. The intimacy escalates, and Bea ends up having sex with Andrei. While all she technically needed to do was patch things up with him, the sex ultimately seals the deal.

6 Sasha Is Impaled Through His Chest

After Bea's cover is blown at an Elton John concert, she quickly pulls Twila out of the venue and makes a run for it. Before heading to a safe house she secured through an acquaintance, Bea also grabs Sasha Shevchenko (Petro Ninovskyi), whose cover has been compromised as well. But when they arrive, Bea realizes they've been set up — it's actually Andrei's safe house.

Throughout the season, Sasha has kept a cyanide pill on hand, prepared to die on his own terms rather than at the hands of the KGB. When two of Andrei's associates break into the safe house, instead of giving up, Sasha fights with everything he has. Sadly, he was impaled from behind. Whether he survives or succumbs to his injuries remains a mystery.

5 Twila Hasbeck Kills Vera

While Bea is busy with Andrei, Twila is assigned to make contact with Vera (Tanya Ivanova), a third-party informant who's neither part of the CIA nor the KGB. Twila goes back and forth between negotiations. The CIA wants the whereabouts of the KGB's new facility, which Vera is willing to give. However, she wants an American passport in return.

When Twila learns that Vera might have information about the deaths of Bea's husband, Chris Grant (Louis Boyer), and her husband, Tom Hasbeck (John Macmillan), she asks to meet with her. But Vera reveals an uncomfortable truth: Tom is a CIA mole. Shocked and in denial, Twila confronts Vera, who steps back, falls off the bridge where they are meeting, and drowns — accidentally killed by Twila.

4 Chris Grant Slept With a Sex Worker

Before and after Chris' death, Bea was always loyal to her husband. She was willing to put her post-college life on hold to join him in Moscow, where she applied her university education to work as an insignificant secretary in the embassy. Though she wasn't a fan of Chris' CIA work, he promised that once they returned to the States, she would have the chance to pursue her own ambitions.

Chris was a promising romantic of the mid-1970s, but being a CIA agent required compromises — including a sexual encounter with a Russian sex worker, secretly recorded by the KGB. The worst part comes when Bea discovers the tape under her late husband's pillow and watches it in horror.

3 Chris Grant Is Still Alive

Chris and Tom's fate is the reason Bea and Twila returned to Moscow in the first place. The CIA claims they died in a plane crash, but the two wives aren't convinced. They believe that by working for the CIA, they might uncover the truth about what really happened.

After Vera's revelation, Bea and Twila are pulled back and forth, unsure what to believe. It isn't until near the end, when Dane, Emile, and Bea's grandmother, Manya Caplan (Harriet Walter), are all in Belarus for different reasons, that the pieces come together. There, Dane finally reveals the truth to Manya: Chris is very much alive.

2 The CIA Office is Destroyed

After Bea and Twila nearly kill Andrei in a car chase, they take him to the Bubble at the CIA for a long-overdue interrogation. While they're uncovering a shocking truth from Andrei, they fail to notice that the CIA vault has been rigged with a small explosive device. Though initially inconspicuous, the flames quickly engulf everything.

Not only is all the evidence Bea and Twila had collected destroyed, but literally all CIA records are wiped out. Bea and Twila can't even escape. The firefighters who arrive to help turn out to be KGB agents, and instead of putting out the fire, they steal every piece of information in the office and hold Bea and Twila at gunpoint.

1 Cheryl is the CIA Mole

The point of Ponies is the idea of persons of no interest. The story comes full circle when the show reveals the true CIA mole: Cheryl (Vic Michaelis). Throughout the series, Cheryl presents herself as an uptight office manager at the embassy, constantly irritated by the free-spirited, devil-may-care Twila.

Married to CIA agent Ray (Nicholas Podany), the two frequently clash. But it turns out much of this was a facade. Cheryl knows about the underground tunnels in their home, which she uses for secret rendezvous with a KGB agent. She's also responsible for detonating the CIA office. Considering she's long seemed like the most insignificant person in the office, she's one dangerously effective PONI.