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Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a spy dramedy television series by Donald Glover and Francesca Sloane. It stars Glover and Maya Erskine as the titular couple, "John" and "Jane" Smith. They start as two strangers who join the same spy agency, and then work as assassins while using a fake marriage as their cover story. While they handle their weekly assignments professionally, things become more complicated once they start developing real feelings for each other.
The series is based on the 2005 film of the same name. All 8 episodes were released on Prime Video on February 2, 2024. A teaser trailer can be found here.
A second season was announced in May 2024; Glover and Erskine are not expected to reprise.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith contains examples of:
- Action Girl: The mysterious organization who hires the Smiths ensures that the "Janes" are combat-capable, as expected of undercover spies.The protagonist Jane is a crack shot with a gun, a good getaway driver, and no slouch in hand-to-hand combat.
- Age-Gap Romance: Lampshaded in John and Jane’s first mission while they’re trailing a target who happens to be an older woman. A younger man comes to sit down beside her on the park bench, talking to her. John assumes it’s her son while Jane thinks it’s probably her boyfriend. Jane is proven right when they start making out.
- All Therapists Are Muggles: Jane and John try marriage counseling, but believing they're computer programmers rather than secret agents for a mysterious and sinister company results in the counselor making a number of inaccurate conclusions. Notably she uses them choosing to remain together and seek counseling when they could just walk away as evidence of how much they care about each other, when in truth the company has a Resignations Not Accepted policy and it's ambiguous whether their offer to "replace" John was to have him reassigned or murdered.
- Anger Born of Worry: After John goes rogue during a mission, not knowing where he is or if he's okay, Jane sends a barrage of texts to his phone, going back and forth between paragraphs of angry chastising to some variation of “I’m sorry, please text me back.” Later, when she's helping him recover from almost dying, he realizes it's because she really cares about him.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: The titular characters give one of these to each other, thinking they’re about to die on a super high risk mission. Later, the trope is discussed because Jane wants to know if John actually meant it or if he was just saying it in the moment.John: Whatever happens, I love you.Jane, crying: I love you, too.
- Argentina Is Nazi Land: In episode 5, Toby tells a joke about traveling to Argentina and meeting Hitler.
- Awkward Kiss: Deliberately invoked by the writers for John and Jane's first kiss. During an undercover mission, they engage in some roleplay with a target who wants them to kiss while pretending to be dogs meeting at the park for the first time. The two of them make up for it later by kissing for real.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Jane and John are able to steal the package they were supposed to get in the first episode, they deliver it to the destination - only to find out it's a cake. As they're leaving, Jane and John wonder if it was a Secret Test of Character, which is when the house they delivered the cake to explodes, revealing it was a bomb all along.
- Big "SHUT UP!": Jane does this to a couple of poor, unsuspecting tourists trying to make vacation friends after she sees her and John's target got away.Jane: Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up, bitch. I have a gun and I will shoot you.
- Bite of Affection: While under the effects of truth serum, in a bit of cuteness aggression, John confesses to loving Jane's cheeks and wanting to eat them because they're like pancakes. In response, Jane says she loves his nose and wants to eat it before biting the ridge playfully.
- Blatant Lies: When they meet in a New York restaurant, Jane casually asks John if he's ever killed anyone. John awkwardly smiles and denies it, and then glances around to see if anyone heard her.
- Bolivian Army Ending: The first season finale ends with Jane who has only a single bullet, exhausted from her fight with John. John is mortally wounded. Jane leaves the panic room to confront the enemy Jane. Cut to an outside view and the sound of multiple gunshots. Fade to Black.
- Bring My Brown Pants: The character played by (Ron Perlman) pees himself when he’s thrown off a roof by John after refusing to voluntarily jump off.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: In one episode, John and Jane do this to each other in-between reloading their guns or reaching for new ones hidden all around the house.John: You’re gonna ruin all this expensive art you bought, babe.Jane: Yeah, well, um, I don’t think you’re supposed to hit this Italian tile with a shotgun.
- Character Tics: The other John sneezes in multiples. While initially just pointed out as an annoying trait in his introductory episode, John and Jane are later able to exploit it in the finale, as his sneezes give them an opening to attack him — Jane is able to shoot him in the eye — and briefly escape his wife.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Subverted with the neighbor, played by Paul Dano. He only gets a few appearances where he's oddly curious about John and Jane, and in the finale, John asks him at gunpoint, "Are you Hihi?" Turns out he's only a real estate agent who would really, really like to sell John and Jane's expensive, luxurious brownstone.
- Choke Holds: Jane manages to put John in one of these while trying to kill him and is only stopped by three bystanders physically hauling her off of him. The moment briefly shifts to being Played for Comedy when John turns on his rescuers after one of them insults him.John: It's okay. It's okay. She's my wife. It's okay.Man: Crazy motherfucker.John: Don't fucking say that.
- Competition Freak: Although it’s a bit more subtle than some other examples of this trope, by his own admission, this is one of John’s worse traits. He reluctantly says that he is too competitive and can’t lose an argument.
- Confidentiality Betrayal: Jane becomes even more upset when it turns out John told his target Bev about the two of them actually being spies along with some personal details about Jane and their relationship.
- Consummate Liar: Because John and Jane are both spies, the nature of their lifestyle is that they must constantly lie to other people. Out of the two, John is usually better at using charisma and misdirection to fool others while Jane is typically better at outright lying and manipulation. A few notable examples of her ability and willingness to lie include:
- Early on, Jane tells John a story about how she ditched a school trip in her early teens to get free lunch from a pedophile called Buddy Love. After Buddy paid for the check and left, she'd died laughing with a friend. But later that day, when they’ve bonded from experiencing their first mission together, she admits she had actually been terrified the entire time.
- John pushes Jane to give him answers for how she knew he'd had a month to kill Bev and she tells him she figured out his passwords. That night, she admits she hadn't done that and only found out about it because Hihi told her.
- In the middle of an argument, John asks how many times Jane has slept with a target. She looks him in the eye and says, “twice.” Later, when they’re both under the effects of truth serum, she admits that she was actually lying and just said that to hurt him, since he’d hurt her first by wanting to sleep with Bev. John then admits his was also fake.
- Control Freak: Jane can be very controlling, which causes issues for her work partnership with John but also for their personal relationship—to the point where it frequently bleeds into their sex life—even though he understands that she often does it out of anxiety.
- Cover Identity Anomaly: The first season finale has John and Jane, a pair of government assassins, having been tracked and surveilled by an agent of...Southbey's. It turns out that while their covers can fool any law enforcement agency, real estate firms know something is seriously wrong about two "software engineers" being able to afford a Manhattan brownstone with garage and pool worth at least $2.5 million. That they were able to make expansions without any records of permits or even a city inspector report was another red flag.
- Decoy Protagonist: The series starts with a couple, played by Alexander Skarsgård and Eiza González, at a remote house, about to celebrate when an alarm goes off, alerting them to someone coming. The husband gets ready for them to run, only for the wife to tell them that she's tired of running, and he agrees they should stay and fight. Then he gets killed by a gunshot, and while she puts up more of a fight, she also gets killed. Then we meet Jane and John.
- Did You Think I Can't Feel?: During a particularly bad fight with Jane, John lays into her, saying she doesn't understand feelings or what it's like to care about somebody and that she just mimics the behavior of other people. She stays quiet before finally asking who his emergency contact is. He admits that his emergency contact is his mother and Jane tells him he's hers.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?:
- The writers purposely have the Smiths' missions parallel stages in a relationship, usually made explicit in the episode title (e.g. "First Date" or "A Breakup"). Notably demonstrated in episode 5, "Do You Want Kids?", where John and Jane have to babysit a very childlike elderly man (Ron Perlman), giving them each some insight into how they would be as parents.
- In episode 2, the spies are given truth serums to inject into their target and are instructed to inject only one dosage. They inject two dosages into the target, who remarks that he feels horny. Later he starts revealing all sorts of secrets in front of the auction and eventually dies when his heart gives out. In the season finale, John inject one dosage into Jane and himself. They also both remark feeling good and horny and start revealing their feelings and secrets to each other. This is highly similar to how MDMA makes you feel. It has been called the love drug due to inducing feelings of closeness and happiness. It also has a reputation for helping couples recover their relationships by allowing them to freely communicate with each other.
- Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: John and Jane are having a hushed disagreement in front of Toby about the cottage John bought without asking her—that is, until Toby picks up something out of curiosity, and they exclaim at the same time:Both: Don't touch that!John: It's dynamite, dummy.
- Empty Promise: When John is bleeding out from a gunshot wound in the season finale, he asks Jane if it looks bad. She forces a smile and shakes her head. His only response is: "Liar."
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: In the first season finale John and Jane each assume the other is trying to kill them with a bomb for John's mom and Jane nearly killed. A huge fight has them hit by a truth serum, bonding over their real feelings. Jane finally asks why, if John loves her, he tried to kill her. A confused John says no and asks why Jane tried to kill him with her denying it. They're both confused...and then the "Smiths" they met earlier in the season show up to reveal they're the ones sent to "finalize" the duo.
- Eye Scream: In the last episode, Jane shoots the John played by Wagner Moura in the eye.
- Face Death with Dignity: Downplayed with John’s possible death while he’s bleeding out at the end of season one. He sheds a tear as Jane talks to him, but he otherwise accepts his death and tells her not to open the door so she doesn't risk dying with him.
- Family Versus Career: One of the points of contention between John and Jane. Justified since they're both spies who constantly take on high risk missions to make a lot of money. While John wants children and suggests that the two of them switch to doing low risk missions so they can start a family, Jane doesn't want children because she actually wants to go even higher risk down the road.
- Fetishes Are Weird: Played for laughs when John snoops on Jane's personal computer. She has a tab open to a cannibalism and vore pornography site. Later, it turns out she was just using it to mess with him for lurking.Woman #1: Don't put me in the oven and cook me. I don't want to go in there.Woman #2: Come here and let me season you.
- In the same episode, it turns out their mark has a thing for puppy play, which leads to John and Jane having an awkward first kiss.
- Foreshadowing:
- That the John (played by Wagner Moura)'s hip-hop knowledge seemingly begins and ends with Eminem foreshadows that he and his wife aren't as cool as the protagonist John and Jane initially thought, which they would have realized earlier if they weren't so smitten with them.
- Similarly, the other John laughs way too long to hearing about the two's initial "retirement" plan. While audiences might have already figured out that Resignations Not Accepted was in play with the company, given the opening scene, the other John's over-the-top amusement at the idea of retiring hints at the fact he's directly involved in "finalising" those who try to retire or fail.
- "Friends" Rent Control: This crosses into Cover Identity Anomaly as it turns out half the real estate groups in Manhattan are trying to figure out how two software engineers can own a brownstone worth at least $2.5 million without getting city approval.
- Given Name Reveal: The protagonists only ever go by their assigned aliases, John and Jane Smith, even to each other. In the last episode, Jane learns that her husband's real name is Michael, from his mother. When prompted by John later on, she admits her real name is Alana.
- Hates Reading: Early on in the series, John pretends that a book called The Prophet is one of his favorites out of jealousy from hearing Jane and Hot Neighbor have that in common. In actuality, he’s never even read it and doesn’t enjoy reading in general. Jane figuring out it was a lie down the road puts further strain on their marriage.[Jane] kept wanting to understand when her and John are so different, why are we paired? Maybe in some warped way, this company knew to put us together because we have the same favorite book. So the fact that it was all a lie shatters all of that.
- Ironically, while sharing life advice with John, Hot Neighbor asks him if he'd like to borrow his copy of The Prophet.John: She likes to read. I don’t like to read.Hot Neighbor: You don’t have to like it. Just start reading, man.
- Ironically, while sharing life advice with John, Hot Neighbor asks him if he'd like to borrow his copy of The Prophet.
- Happily Married: Their cover story is that they're a married couple who are software engineers.
- The "I Love You" Stigma: Discussed in the first episode. The agency asks John and Jane if they’ve ever told someone they love them. Both of them have been in previous relationships, but Jane has never said it to anyone before, despite feeling it a couple of times, and John has said it to two women and his mom.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: In the finale, John and Jane tear up the house with bullets but neither is able to land a shot on the other. Subverted — under the influence of truth serum, they admit that neither really wanted to kill the other, and so were missing on purpose.
- Improvised Bandage: John uses a scarf (and later some napkins) to keep his neck from bleeding too much while he and Jane chase after a target.
- Inconvenient Attraction: Jane starts off the series avoiding sex and romance altogether to try and protect herself emotionally, even going as far as making a "no sex" pact with John. By the start of the third episode, she is already sleeping with John and has entered a romantic relationship with him. The personality traits that made her avoid those things in the first place cause issues between them later however.
- Inevitably Broken Rule: Early on in the series, John and Jane shake on a pact to (a) never have sex with each other and (b) make a certain amount of money through their spy agency before eventually parting ways to live their own lives. They break the first rule before the episode ends and later want to break the second by escaping and having children together. Whether they succeed or not is left up in the air by season one's Ambiguous Ending.
- Instant Turn-Off: As it turns out, John is very into the idea of having kids with Jane, even if it means the two of them stop doing high risk missions for good. Jane, not so much.Jane: I want to make you come. So bad.John: I want to put a baby in you… What? I’m sorry. Was that creepy?
- Interrupted Intimacy: John already accidentally killed the mood by murmuring he wanted to make Jane pregnant, but Toby knocking on the window to say he threw up was the final nail in its coffin.
- Janitor Impersonation Infiltration: The titular Smiths' original plan was to infiltrate a black tie silent auction while posing as two guests, but when John realizes he would stand out too easily that way because of his race, he decides to sneak in as catering instead.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: At the beginning of the first episode a John and Jane are in a remote farmhouse when the bad guys come. John and Jane decide to fight. John says "I can flank—", and then he is shot through the face and killed. (Jane is killed moments later.)
- Kinky Roleplaying: One of John and Jane's targets is into puppy play. They briefly go along with it to get him alone and close enough to inject with truth serum.
- Laugh of Love: Used to indicate the state of John and Jane's relationship to the audience. When their relationship is doing well, they tend to laugh and make jokes with each other. When their relationship is more rocky, Jane doesn't react to his jokes or even gets upset that he found something she did funny. In the final episode, they reconcile while under the effects of truth serum and the laughter makes a return.
- Like a God to Me: In the finale, the "super high risk" John and Jane talk about their employer like he's a god (which Jane lampshades), because they worship their boss's apparent omniscience.
- Literally Loving Thy Neighbor: Subverted with Hot Neighbor. For most of season one, John is jealous over Jane's interactions with the neighbor, suspecting this trope is being played straight between the two... until he figures out the real reason for the latter's interest.John: You weren’t flirting with Jane because you like her. It was about our house.
- Lost Pet Grievance: Jane is devastated when her cat Max dies because someone shot him while trying to kill her. Believing John did it, she finally goes after him in earnest.
- Machete Mayhem: John and Jane have to use a machete to get out of a super high risk mission gone wrong. They look visibly disturbed by the ordeal afterwards.
- Men Can't Keep House: Averted. John always puts the toilet seat up, cooks his own meals, and keeps the kitchen tidy by cleaning his pots and pans as he’s cooking—in contrast to Jane who leaves them dirty in the sink afterwards.
- Misophonia Gag: Happens in both directions while John and Jane are operating undercover at a vacation spot. John gets annoyed that she chews loudly with her mouth open and Jane responds by loudly clinking their dishes and glasses with her utensils to mimic how he eats.
- Mistaken for Pregnant: At one point, John asks Jane if she's pregnant because he noticed she hasn't been drinking any wine, felt sick on the boat, lied to a family by saying she was pregnant so they'd be more willing to help them escape, etc.
- Momma's Boy: Shown as positive for the most part with John and his mother. She's the one thing in his past he refused to give up, even if it puts his cover story with Jane at risk, and he calls her multiple times a day, but a lot of that is because he feels like it's his responsibility to take care of her and because he loves and respects her for being a good mother. Since Jane went no contact with her own remaining parent, she tends to find this behavior weird and vice versa, but his mother later ends up giving Jane some good advice for their failing marriage.
- Mr. Smith: A spy agency puts the main characters together in a fake marriage and assigns them new identities to live under: John and Jane Smith. We don't learn their real first names (Michael and Alana) until the season finale.
- Through John #2 and Jane #2, the titular characters find out there are other Smith pairs that have been created by the agency.
- Mythology Gag: There are some subtle references to the 2005 film:
- During the first season finale, when John and Jane are trying to kill each other in their house, the two end up replicating some of choreography from the movie during the scene in that movie where that version of John and Jane try killing each other in their house. They even repeat some of the banter from the film.
- The Decoy Protagonists that appear at the beginning of the first episode look like the previous stars, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. (He's tall and handsome in a sort of Nordic way, she's dark and curvy.)
- Newhart Phone Call: John has one with his mother, Denise, in "First Vacation." After asking if she's okay because she called him three times in a row, he starts helping with her computer, at one point asking if she tried turning it off and back on.
- The Nicknamer: John does this at a silent auction while quietly pointing out strangers to Jane as they try to figure out who their unknown target is.John: Mole lady, seven million on the Warhol. Sweaty tits, ten million.Jane: Oh, Jesus, please never give me a nickname.John: American Psycho, fifty million on the Warhol.
- Nice Guy: Downplayed somewhat with John. While both of them are willing to do morally dubious things at times for the agency, out of the two, John is more likely to be nicer or take a more people-based approach to solving things than Jane is. He’s also the one who goes rogue to try and save a target, despite the risk. This characteristic can make other moments where he's cold or harsh harder to watch.Jane: You know, you’re a lot nicer than this. It’s something that I happen to look up to.
- Only-Child Syndrome: Jokingly lampshaded by John after Jane points out that he always goes back to his own bed after sex.John: [Only children] are like raptors. Where you need like 15 meters of space between.
- Only in It for the Money: As they're getting to know each other, John admits that he wanted to get married in real life but chose to take on a new life and identity for the money. Jane is pleased because she did it for the same reason.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The Smiths' mysterious employer, whom "our" John and Jane call "Hihi", and whom the other John and Jane call "supe". We never learn who — or what — they are.
- John and Jane always exclusively refer to their next door neighbor as Hot Neighbor.
- Operation: Jealousy: Downplayed example. Jane talks to Hot Neighbor because she likes it when John feels jealous of him.
- Poor Communication Kills: Happens quite literally in the case of Eric Shane as John and Jane misunderstand each other's signals and accidentally overdose him with truth serum, leading to his death.
- Priceless Ming Vase: On their couples therapy visits, John and Jane often pay compliments to the hostess about her beautiful house and decorations. The therapist usually goes on to describe the history of each item, like her grandfather’s piano that was the only thing he saved from the war, or the floor that was extracted and flown in from her childhood home, or the very last intimate art piece from an African artist that perished. After learning their sessions had been recorded, John and Jane set fire to the house, condemning all the irreplaceable treasures within to a fiery end.
- Professional Killer: Both characters are paid assassins working for the same spy agency.
- The Promise: One evening, John and Jane make a series of vows to each other, starting with more lighthearted ones like her asking him to vow he would take allergy medicine for her cat Max and ending more seriously with John vowing never to kill her. In the last episode of the season, Max does die because of someone shooting to kill Jane, leaving her heartbroken and believing John is the one responsible. He isn’t.John: I vow… never to make you feel delusional for thinking your cat’s never gonna die. And I vow never to kill you.
- In an earlier episode, Jane asks John to promise her they'll never be like Gavol and her husband, even if everything goes wrong. They both agree to it and kiss to seal the deal. Within the same episode, they've broken that promise and had their first real fight. It's later broken in a much bigger way as their marriage starts to break down and completely fall apart, until they reach a point where they are both finally completely honest with each other and reconcile once again.
- Resignations Not Accepted: The first season finale reveals practically every other "Smith couple" eventually decides to try and leave and their boss sends a special pair out to eliminate them.
- Romantic Fake–Real Turn: A big part of the story's premise. The titular pair are brought together by a spy agency to take on new identities and be in a fake marriage as part of their main cover story, although John is more interested in it becoming a real relationship from the start. Discussed a few different times because neither of them can figure out why the agency put them together or why they created multiple Smith pairs.John: Do you think the company wants us to…?Jane: To have sex?John: No. Well, yeah, part of it. To get together.
- Romantic Ribbing: John tends to do more playful ribbing to Jane than she does to him, like teasing her for how badly her farts smell.
- Sexless Marriage: When John and Jane start going to a couples therapist for their marriage problems, it's implied by John in one of the sessions that they haven't been sleeping together like they used to.
- Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: The Smiths' neighbor is seemingly too friendly with Jane, triggering John's jealousy and suspicion, though Jane thinks nothing of it. When John goes down to the neighbor's basement in the finale, he sees that the neighbor has been spying on them — though not because he's a rival spy or romantically interested in Jane. He's just a real estate agent trying to figure out how the Smiths could have afforded such a lavish home. He even gives John advice on life and romance.
- Shirtless Scene: Briefly lampshaded by Jane when John doesn't put on a shirt before coming to say goodnight to her.Jane: You lost your shirt?
- Lampshaded again shortly afterwards by John as he tries to give her different reasons to justify why he wasn't wearing a shirt: it's warmer downstairs, it's colder in her room, etc.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: When John and Jane go on a double date with another Smith pair, they’re asked by Jane #2 if they believe they would still be compatible if they hadn’t been matched together by the agency. In response, Jane says she really respects John and that he has a good heart.
- Sinister Suffocation: John starts choking to death after Bev attacks him by wrapping a bolito around his neck, cutting into his neck and giving him bloody fingers just from holding back the tightening wire. He survives by calling out for help from Jane.
- Smells Sexy: While they’re under the effects of truth serum, John admits he loves how Jane smells and asks if he can smell her neck. An episode before that, he also comments “it smells good in here” after Jane had secretly entered the apartment a few minutes earlier.
- Sociopathic Hero: Both John and Jane. For the most part, they both have natural inclinations towards good (notably, John goes rogue to save a woman's life despite their job simply being to spy on them) and are generally moral, but they also don't have too many compunctions about killing people and Jane herself admits she failed her CIA psych evaluation because of her "sociopathic tendencies".
- Spotting the Thread: In the first season finale, John confronts their nosy neighbor, finding photos of their house and figure he's an enemy agent. Turns out the guy works for Southbey's and is trying to figure out how it's possible a brownstone with a garage and pool worth over two million dollars could not only be owned by two data software engineers but be built without any city records or approval.
- Stuff Blowing Up: The teaser shows that at least part of one house explodes.
- The Swear Jar: Jane has her own version of the this: each time she does something sociopathic, she places a marble in a jar. As of the first season finale, she is up to 78.
- Talking in Bed: Since so much of the series is about the relationship between John and Jane, this trope happens several times with them.
- There Is Only One Bed: Even though they're already having sex by that point, John and Jane don't actually sleep in the same bed together until they have no other choice but to do so while undercover at a vacation spot. This is briefly discussed by the characters.Jane: You know we've never slept in the same bed?John: That's not true. Is that true?Jane: Yeah.John: Mm, one bed, one bathroom... you sure you're gonna be okay?Jane: I mean, you're the one that goes downstairs every time after we have sex.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: The teaser shows both of them in a helicopter after some kind of battle, clearly worn out after what happened.
- Truth Serum: Truth serum functions as an important plot device in two different episodes of the series.
- In the first instance, John and Jane are directed by Hihi to use truth serum on an unknown target. They identify who it is, get him alone, and then... accidentally stick him with two doses instead of one because of a miscommunication. The dose being too high ends up killing him, making them feel very guilty.
- The second time, after John manages to finally subdue Jane, he sticks her with a single dose of truth serum and then does the same to himself. This leads to them reconciling because it's the first time the two of them have ever been fully, truly honest with each other about everything, both good and bad.
- Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: Used in the season finale to highlight just how distant John and Jane have become.
- Was It All a Lie?: In the last episode, after they have been ordered to kill each other, John asks Jane over the phone whether she really loved him or it was all an act. She's still furious that her cat has died and tells him it was a lie. Later, John injects them both with truth serum, and she admits that she loves him after all.
- We Do Not Know Each Other: Undercover at a black tie event, John and Jane pretend to be strangers while posing as a waiter and guest respectively.
- Wham Line:
- "As if you could just retire. Like the Company would be so openminded." The other John's cackling response informs John and Jane they are not allowed to retire from the Company.
- The question from "Hihi", "Do you want to replace your John?", causes the Smiths' relationship to tailspin.
- The final conflict is kicked off by the line "Terminate your Smith!"
- White Shirt of Death: In the finale, John is wearing an all-white outfit (in contrast to Jane, who is wearing all black) that gets increasingly bloodied as the carnage goes on. He ends the series seemingly on the verge of death as Jane tries to save both of them.
- Women Are Wiser: Subverted. John is depicted as adaptive, smart, and having a stronger sense for people than Jane, but because of his insecurities, he feels like she thinks of him as stupid, helpless, holding her back as a spy, etc. She doesn't. Jane states multiple times, even under truth serum, that she feels like he plays dumb or acts more incompetent than he really is.
- Working Through the Cold: Jane is visibly sick for the entirety of the seventh episode, which becomes yet another argument for her and John. Despite the way their relationship has degraded by then, he tries to make her stay hydrated on the mission while she handwaves it away as just being allergies.
- You Never Did That for Me: One of the reasons Jane gets angry at John and suspects he's having an emotional affair with his target Bev is that he didn't stop wearing the cologne she asked him to until Bev herself also asks.