Warning: Major spoilers for Amazon’s Mr. & Mrs Smith episode 7 “Infidelity”
Summary
- Amazon’s “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” pays homage to Brad Pitt’s death in 2013’s “The Counselor” with a gruesome bolito scene.
- Thankfully, the bolito wire device doesn’t really exist and was the invention of screenwriter Cormac McCarthy.
- The show ends with a cliffhanger, setting up a potential second season.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith references one of Brad Pitt’s most memorable onscreen moments. Amazon’s action-comedy may have the same title as the 2005 Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie movie, but tonally, they’re very different. Mr. and Mrs. Smith cast Maya Erskine and Donald Glover – who also co-created the show – as the titular characters, who are spies that pose as a married couple for missions. Amazon’s adaptation drops the glossiness of the Doug Liman film, and while it has action sequences, it’s more concerned with the complicated dynamics of “John” and “Jane’s” arranged marriage.
Amazon’s Mr & Mrs Smith doesn’t directly tie to the film either, so no mention is made of Pitt or Jolie’s characters. That said, it does remix elements from its namesake, including the couple going to therapy, working for an unseen, all-knowing boss or having a very destructive shootout following an argument. Unlike the movie, the series ends on a cliffhanger that sets up a potential season 2.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith Pays Homage To Brad Pitt’s Gory Counselor Death
The Counselor’s “Bolito” makes a surprise cameo in Mr & Mrs Smith
Aside from Mr & Mrs Smith, the Brad Pitt movie the show pays homage to is The Counselor, Ridley Scott’s bleak 2013 thriller. Pitt played a supporting part in the film, where his character Westray is marked for death by a Mexican cartel. This cartel is known for killing people using a “bolito,” a strangulation device where a steel wire is wrapped around someone’s neck, with a battery then constricting the wire until it decapitates the victim. In The Counselor’s most disturbing scene, Pitt’s Westray has his head cut off with the bolito in front of horrified onlookers.
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Mr & Mrs Smith’s seventh episode features a scene where John and Jane fight an assassin from a rival organization named Bev (Michaela Coel). Jane believed John was having an affair with Bev, adding some extra tension to this bout. During the fight, Bev wraps a bolito around John’s neck, which slowly starts cutting into his skin. Unlike The Counselor where the wire is too thick to cut, Jane snaps the bolito off John’s neck before it can do any real damage.
Is The Counselor’s “Bolito” A Real Device?
Out of all the Pitt movies Mr & Mrs Smith could have homaged, it’s odd the showrunners picked the one that features his gory demise. That said, it is certainly an original easter egg for a series that largely avoids blatant homages. The bolito is a truly nightmarish device, which thankfully doesn’t exist in real life and is the creation of the late, great author Cormac McCarthy. The bolito device shown in The Counselor is too small to have the power needed to cut somebody’s head off – which doesn’t make the death of Pitt’s character any less haunting.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a TV adaptation of the 2005 film starring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Donald Glover and Maya Erskine take on the lead roles for the series as spies who are placed in an arranged marriage for an undercover mission only to develop real feelings for each another.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
