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\u201cEven though it was this spy thriller, we thought there was an opportunity to lean into the parts that were about what marriage means,\u201d Sloane said. \u201cThe awkward in-between moments, the idea of loneliness and true vulnerability. The more we talked about it, the more it felt like we could actually be the perfect writers to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sloane, 36, joined the writing staff of \u201cAtlanta\u201d for Season 3, after working on \u201cFargo\u201d with Noah Hawley and \u201cThe First\u201d with Beau Willimon. Her first solo writing credit on \u201cAtlanta\u201d was \u201cThe Big Payback,\u201d an assignment she said she was given in part because she was \u201cthe whitest person in the room.\u201d (She is Salvadoran and Jewish.)<\/p>\n
The episode follows a mild-mannered office worker named Marshall (Justin Bartha) whose life is upended by a lawsuit seeking to hold him accountable for his ancestors\u2019 ownership of slaves. Marshall tries to ignore the suit, assuming it is without merit. But, as in a horror film, the inconceivable gradually becomes the inevitable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to write it as straight as I possibly could,\u201d Sloane said. \u201cSomething we talked about a lot is the idea that if you set a story at a 1 and let things gradually creep up, by the time you get to a 5, it will feel like a 10.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. & Mrs. Smith\u201d applies a similarly grounded approach to the spy genre. John and Jane are new recruits to a mysterious agency that assigns them to live and work together as a team of assassins. Their marriage, at first, is purely a cover. But love blossoms. Each episode is built roughly around the milestones of their relationship \u2014 their first time sleeping together, their first vacation together, their first visit to couples\u2019 therapy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As their relationship intensifies, so do their missions, which bring life-or-death stakes to every squabble and rough patch. An ill-timed argument over the semantics of infidelity allows a dangerous rival (Michaela Coel) to outmaneuver them in a high-speed subway chase.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe came up with this thing she called the \u2018spy sandwich,\u2019\u201d Glover said. \u201cEvery episode should start with the realness of the relationship, then you add a spy thing, then more realness on the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In the original movie, Jolie and Pitt present as such flawless physical specimens that watching them clash feels vaguely impersonal, like an anthropological experiment or a child\u2019s Barbie battle. But Erskine and Glover never seem anything other than mortal. Their romance feels lived-in and recognizable, which makes it all the more upsetting when it starts to sour.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe liked the idea of doing the reject version of \u2018Mr. & Mrs. Smith,\u2019\u201d Sloane said. \u201cTheir conversations aren\u2019t all stylized and coy and debonair. They say the kinds of things that you would hear in bed at the end of the day with the person that you\u2019re closest to.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the show was first announced, in 2021, the role of Jane was to be played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the creator and star of \u201cFleabag.\u201d She eventually exited because of what Sloane described as differing creative visions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n