I wasn't too far behind the curve on Ride or Die, it was released mid-way through July, but I still ended up having to power through it to be done in time for Hannah Waddingham's next stint on Ted Lasso. The woman is keeping busy and long may it be so!

I absolutely loved Ride or Die, a female led spy series with two best friends in Waddingham and Octavia Spencer - the pair couldn't be more different but their chemistry is on display right from the start, when they bicker about book club. Waddingham is an assassin who has made some mistakes which quite soon come back to haunt her, and kick off a rollercoaster of a series. She has that same boss energy that won her legions of fans in Ted Lasso, but this time she's also a kick-ass spy. Hooray!

There's everything you want from a spy series - gorgeous locations, intense action sequences, twists and turns, double crossing, layers upon layers of who's doing what to who and when and how the hell are they going to get out of this. Our intrepid duo go on an adventure together but there's also an extended cast that do a great job and have their own stories to contend with as well. Sam and Queenie in particular hold their own in the subplots and obviously have a lot more story to tell if a second series is in the offing.

The show is obviously female focused but never feels like it's just a spy show only with women... it's got fundamental female experiences in there which are great. I liked the bit where two guys were sitting around talking exclusively about the women they were hoping to date, it felt like a reverse Bechdel test or something. The series is also really smart and fun outside of who the main cast are. It made me so happy that there were times for romance and emotion but they were never when the stakes were high. Usually I'm shouting at the screen 'you don't have time for this!' but here, they had some down time waiting for the big event the next day, why not indulge in some feelings?

The history and folklore of this spy agency felt worryingly believable too - it has all those tropes, the dusty shop front hiding an espionage world behind closed doors, a mysterious Director (played by Bill Nighy who just pops up from nowhere and is easy to love to hate) plus agonising decisions that have to be made in the moment. It's way too easy to believe that this could happen to vulnerable young people.

It's not reinventing a genre or trying to do anything outside of the box, but everything it does do is next level, and I loved it. If you want something genuinely entertaining and a little bit moving, with humour and drama going hand in hand, then this is definitely worth a watch.