HOW WELL DO we really know our best friends? For most of us, the hope would be that the answer is ‘very well indeed’. But what if your best friend has been keeping a life-changing secret from you?

That’s the premise of the fun new action-comedy Ride or Die, where the friends in question are Judith (Hannah Waddingham) and Deborah/Debbie (Octavia Spencer)… and yes, the secret truly is a massive one. If it was your best friend, you’d be pretty annoyed, yet definitely impressed by what they had been withholding.

These London-based friends of 20+ years seem to be firm pals. Judith is a forensic accountant, and Debbie the committed wife of MP David Claybourne (Jamie Parker), who’s poised to become the Prime Minister. While they’re quite different – Judith is glamorous and single, Debbie a mother who’s trying to keep her boring marriage on an even keel while also using her wiles to push her husband up the political ladder – together they know how to have craic.

Yet the viewer knows most of the real truth from the off: the opening setpiece shows Judith going rogue in order to assassinate a man at a ski resort. So she’s not quite who Debbie thinks she is, to say the least. Far from being an accountant, she’s an assassin with the code name Whiptail.

And the truth of Judith’s double life is about to be revealed. 

Reveal

Courtesy of Prime Courtesy of Prime

Both women end up separately attending a charity gala, after which Judith’s true nature is unmasked. Neither woman knows the other is there, but a violent incident involving a man called Billy Donovan (Ed Skrein) who Judith is tailing leads to them meeting and then being pursued in a van.

When Judith whips out a gun, she has to admit the truth to her friend about her real job: forget about accountancy, she’s an international assassin. Debbie, meanwhile, has discovered at the very same event that her marriage wasn’t quite what she thought it was either. So a bad night for them both, all told.

From there, the pair are thrust into a deadly adventure that sees them journeying across Europe. They’re pursued by several dodgy people, including one mysterious figure whose motivations are extremely unclear. It’s this latter figure who propels you to keep watching, as they are no holds barred when it comes to how far they will go to try and kill Judith (and, one presumes by extension, Debbie).

In the background is the Director of Judith’s agency, played by Bill Nighy, who’s clearly relishing the chance to be a diffident meanie. Calam Turner – son of Niamh Cusack – plays Sam, Judith’s contact at the agency, who teams up with agency contractor Queenie (Savannah Steyn) to help Judith and Debbie out. 

The series was created by performer and writer Tessa Coates, and mixes the thrills of a good spy series with a streak of deadpan British comedy. Flashbacks help to fill in the backstories of the women’s lives, with a particular flashback to 1981 in the fourth episode being pivotal in telling Judith’s story. (The flashbacks struggle a little in terms of de-aging the characters, though a wig does some heavy lifting for Nighy.)

It’s the emotional stakes that feel highest at times, and are where viewers will connect most with the characters. While Debbie and Judith are deeply connected, Debbie feels let down and duped, unsure of how much she can trust Judith. The show never makes us feel like Judith is a risk, though – we’re sure from the off that Judith is deeply trustworthy, despite her secret identity. But can we really be sure? We have to keep watching to find out.

Debbie is in a sense the stand-in for the viewer, making us wonder how we would feel if we were thrust into such a situation. The answer for her is: keep moving, and celebrate the small wins. 

But Debbie has been let down by her best friend and her husband, and we can resonate with her sense of feeling an anger that can’t be fully expressed. Now that she’s stuck on the run with her pal, Debbie gets to show how she is actually very resourceful and smart, having learned many tricks from crime podcasts. But emotionally she has moments of uncertainty.

Chemistry

Dušan Martinček Dušan Martinček

There’s great chemistry between Waddingham and Spencer, who feel like the kind of pals you’d dance around your handbags with on a night out. The fact that they are women in their 50s is important too, both for the series and for the wider idea of women’s lives being told on screen. Judith is told at one point by her boss that there are concerns she’s a WOCA, or ‘woman of a certain age’. It’s not too much of a leap to assume that this is something Waddingham and Spencer have encountered on their own Hollywood journeys, so it’s refreshing and enjoyable to see them getting a chance to head up a series like this.

Waddingham in particular gets to showcase her impressive physicality through copious action scenes, while Spencer brings a lovely depth to Deborah, a character who might otherwise be seen as a weakling. If anything, it’s a great showcase for established actors and makes you want to see more 50-something women and beyond in meaty action roles. (It doesn’t leave out the youngsters either – a funny scene set at a hostel midway through celebrates Gen Z gals’ technological prowess.)

Comedy wise, this never quite reaches laugh-out-loud status. The jokes are decent; witty rather than hilarious. There are some Albanian gangsters who are a little too stereotyped. But everything in Ride Or Die’s world is heightened, so while emotionally it can feel very believable, we also need to accept its more OTT elements. 

Naturally, the wider scope of Ride Or Die takes in the question of what women beyond midlife feel about their life’s trajectory. Both Debbie and Judith are forced to face up to their emotional blocks, acknowledging where they have been lying to themselves about their lives, never mind anything else. The women are also allowed to have a sexual side without being objectified, and to discuss their sexuality in a frank way. It’s these moments of honesty and reflection in Ride or Die that have most sticking power, and it doesn’t take a secret international assassin to recognise their impact. 

While Ride or Die is crammed full of action setpieces, deadly encounters and spy gadgets, it’s worth watching if you like your thrillers to not take themselves too seriously. Hopefully it will show commissioners that there’s a swathe of roles out there for women ‘of a certain age’ beyond the usual, and that action isn’t the purview of men or youngsters. 

Ride or Die is streaming on Prime Video now.