In From the Cold
In From the Cold is an American spy thriller television series created by Adam Glass for Netflix, in which a single mother living in suburban New Jersey is exposed as a dormant Russian spy and assassin with shape-shifting abilities granted by a secret KGB experiment. The eight-episode first season premiered globally on Netflix on January 28, 2022, and the show was later canceled, leaving its cliffhanger ending unresolved.1 • 2
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Format | Drama series, 8 episodes of roughly 43 to 55 minutes, rated TV-MA1 • 3 |
| Premiere | January 28, 2022, all eight episodes released globally on Netflix2 |
| Creator | Adam Glass, showrunner and executive producer, known for Supernatural, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, and The Chi4 |
| Lead cast | Margarita Levieva as Jenny Franklin / Anya Petrova, Cillian O'Sullivan as Chauncey Lew, Lydia Fleming as Becca Franklin1 • 3 |
| Setting | Madrid, Spain, where Jenny is chaperoning her teenage daughter's figure skating competition5 |
| Viewership | 85.83 million hours viewed across its first three reported weeks on Netflix; ranked 3rd in Netflix's weekly Top 10 in its second week2 |
| Status | Canceled after one season, reported December 23, 20232 |
Spoilers
Premise
Jenny Franklin (Margarita Levieva) appears to be an ordinary single mother from New Jersey traveling to Madrid with her teenage daughter Becca for a figure skating competition. In the first minutes of the series it is revealed that she is also Anya Petrova, a dormant Russian spy and assassin code-named "the Whisper." A disgraced CIA agent, Chauncey Lew (Cillian O'Sullivan), pulls her back into espionage to help track down a mysterious terrorist, after a string of murderous incidents suggests someone with her exact abilities is targeting innocent people.4 • 5
The science-fiction element is that a top-secret serum turned Anya into a shape-shifting super-soldier who can take on the forms of people she meets and even turn invisible. Her powers first appear at the end of the first episode, when she undergoes a painful transformation in a bathroom stall; in the second episode she has disguised herself as an older man. The transformations take a clear physical toll on her body, a deliberate choice by Glass, who compared the cost of the powers to why he preferred Batman to Superman: "there's a price to pay for using these powers."5
Story and ending
The season opens with stealth attackers hitting Madrid, and Jenny's past as a Russian spy is exposed. Flashbacks to 1990s Moscow show the young Anya (Stasya Miloslavskaya) under the tutelage of Svetlana Petrova (Alyona Khmelnitskaya), a former KGB field operative turned handler obsessed with binding her protégée to the Soviet past.1 • 6
The finale reveals that Gideon, the mysterious figure Chauncey has enlisted Jenny to hunt, is actually Svetlana, Anya's former handler and, it turns out, her mother. Svetlana orchestrated the entire Gideon plot to lure Jenny back into her old life, and Jenny shoots and kills her to protect Becca. In the closing moments, Jenny digs a radio out of her New Jersey backyard and sends a top-secret transmission in Russian, leaving open whether she is a reactivated CIA asset or spying for her homeland.5
Glass had plotted three seasons before filming began and said a second season would have traveled to New York City to show the origin of "the Whisper."5
Production
Netflix announced the series regulars on March 5, 2020, describing an eight-episode, one-hour drama to be shot in Madrid, Spain, with production beginning that month and Ami Canaan Mann (Marvel's Cloak & Dagger) set to direct the first two episodes. The original logline had the FBI arresting the mother and forcing her to become an asset against Russia's underworld drug trade and its shadow war on U.S. elections.6 The announced cast at that stage included Ivanna Sakhno as Anya, alongside Levieva, O'Sullivan, Fleming, Charles Brice, and Alyona Khmelnitskaya; in the finished series the young Anya is played by Stasya Miloslavskaya.6 • 3
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the schedule. Composer Tori Letzler was hired in March 2020, days before shooting was to begin, and the production was pulled back; scoring did not begin until February 2021. The long lead time let her write themes in advance that the editors used as temp score, and her soundtrack, which pays homage to 1990s industrial music, runs through what she described as a show that is "wall-to-wall music."7 • 8
Glass said the shape-shifting serum was added during development at the request of the Netflix executives working with him. "At first I was against it," he told Netflix's Tudum, "I was like, 'Oh my God, I just want to tell a spy story.'" He came to see it as a way to ground the story. The transformation scenes were inspired by An American Werewolf in London, which Glass watched as a child.5
Reception and cancellation
Critical response was mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes the season holds a 71% Tomatometer from 7 critics and a 62% audience score; Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com called the action "sincerely, seductively good," while Joel Keller of Decider rated it 10/100 and called it "one of the worst Netflix original series we've seen in some time."9 • 10 On IMDb the series holds a 6.3/10 rating from about 11,000 users.11
Viewership started modestly and fell quickly. The show drew 24.72 million hours in its first partial week (ranked 6th), rose to 44.8 million hours and 3rd place in its second week, then dropped 64% to 16.31 million hours and 10th place in its third week before leaving the Top 10. Nielsen data placed it 7th among originals in the United States for its first two days, with 349 million minutes viewed, suggesting US viewing made up about 20% of the total in that window.2
In April 2023 Glass posted on X suggesting the show had failed to find the audience required for renewal, and in December 2023 What's on Netflix reported that the series would not return for a second season.2
Origins
Glass has said the idea came from his wife of 23 years. As their oldest child prepared to leave for college, she began questioning her place and purpose, and Glass started wondering what if his wife had been a spy with a secret past. He described the series as examining society's treatment of women and assembled a predominantly female writers' room, with female directors and mostly female heads of department.5
References
- In From the Cold, Netflix Official Site
- 'In From The Cold' Won't Return for Season 2 at Netflix, What's on Netflix (December 23, 2023)
- In from the Cold, a Titles & Air Dates Guide, epguides
- In From the Cold, Netflix Media Center
- Still Thinking About That 'In from the Cold' Ending Twist? We Have Answers, Netflix Tudum (February 14, 2022)
- Netflix Announces Series Regulars for New Female-Driven Spy Thriller "In From the Cold", About Netflix (March 5, 2020)
- In From The Cold Composer Tori Letzler On Creating The Show's Equivalent Of A Bond Theme, /Film
- Scoring A Sci-Fi Spy Thriller, Musique Fantastique
- In From the Cold: Season 1, Rotten Tomatoes
- In From The Cold Critic Reviews, Metacritic
- In from the Cold (TV Series 2022), Ratings, IMDb
Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Drama and prestige series (individual series) › Crime and thriller series › Spy and political thrillers
Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026
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