Ride or Die, Prime’s new buddy action comedy series, came out of nowhere for me! I no sooner saw the preview for the first time, then saw that it was going to be released a week later!
I suppose that is part of Amazon’s strategy, where they spam your homepage with advertisements for things they have going on. If they did it too early, I imagine a lot of people would have totally forgotten about it, despite its stars, Octavia Spencer and Hannah Waddingham. The latter plays Judith, a forensic accountant by cover, but is actually a pretty legendary assassin. She keeps this deadly side of herself hidden from her best friend of twenty years, Debbie, who happens to be the American wife of a member of the British Parliment.
Things start to take a turn when it’s suggested that Judith retire from action soon. She’s loathe to do so, but recently she’s been acting out of turn, making jobs risky for both herself and the organization she works for. The threat is that if she can’t complete the next job, she’s out. As she attempts to get this job done, she learns that someone has a hit out on her, and that her target is somehow entangled with both the Albanian mob and Debbie’s scumbag husband. Much to Judith’s dismay, Debbie becomes involved when missing money and her missing husband makes things really muddy with the Albanian mob.
It’s never quite clear why her target, Billy Donovan, needs to die, but she fails to take him out for a number of reasons. He actually seems quite nice, wants to help Debbie, and actually isn’t that wise to all that’s going on. Plus it’s clear that there is some capital “C” chemistry between the two of them. once Debbie learns of Judith’s secret life, she is furious and wants nothing to do with her. Of course, for things to work out they need to work together, and while there is a general forgiveness for most of the series, it’s clear that Debbie has lost a lot of trust in Judith.
The action is plentiful, but the show is a hoot! Spencer and Waddingham have real chemistry as best friends, and Ed Skrein taps into a comedic roll I’ve never really seen from him before. The rest of the cast does well to support the plot and the laughs, as well. The person who has a hit out on Judith is the real tension for most of the season, but it’s nice that there are layers to the complex mess they are involved in. When the final episode rolled around, I was surprised with how much was set up for the possibility of a second season. That’s never a promise, but I think it’d be foolish to not at least give it one more go. A fun ride!