INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

"Black Doves," on Netflix.

- INKOO KANG

Helen Webb's gift for spycraft has its consequences in the domestic sphere.

In the new mystery thriller "Black Doves," the purview of secret agents can include school plays, bedtime stories, and holiday decorations. By day, Helen Webb (Keira Knightley) is a model wife to the U.K.'s Defense Secretary (Andrew Buchan) and a doting mother to their two young kids; by night, she relays intelligence to her handler, Mrs. Reed (Sarah Lancashire), who sells information gathered by "black doves" like Helen to the highest bidder. That's when things go right. In the second episode, things go wrong: an assassin breaks into Helen's kitchen, where she and the intruder tussle in the dark, their knockdown-drag-out brawl lit by the glow of a Christmas tree. Upon gaining the upper hand, Helen threatens him in the manner of a wrathful domestic goddess. "I have a cheese grater in the dishwasher," she says. "I have a peeler. I have skewers. I have a kettle." With vicious emphasis, she adds, "I have a NutriBullet." By the next morning, she has a dead body in her garden shed and is left fretting about the dried blood under her fingernails.