Created by Rian Johnson and starring Natasha Lyonne in a role tailor-made for her, the first season of the Peacock series “Poker Face” was an undeniable triumph. Armed with a fantastic name and one of the best closets in television, the series follows Charlie Cale as she utilizes her no-nonsense bullshit detector skills to evade criminal syndicates and solve crimes in her continued efforts to stay alive and on the run. In Season 2, the series continues this chase as Charlie is now being sought after by Beatrix Hasp (Rhea Perlman), the head of the five families, and Charlie must use her survivor skills and intuition to once again stay on the move while dealing with increasingly outlandish mysteries.
While the premiere season hardly grounded itself in abject realism, “Poker Face” Season 2 eschews it entirely. Pilfering through the pages of classics like “Columbo” but with the color and cartoonish verve of a series like “Pushing Daisies,” the mystery-of-the-week style format is injected with a new sense of life. However, with that comes some pitfalls as the series adapts to a looser, sillier tone.
Armed with her Plymouth Barracuda, her relentless charisma that makes her easy to befriend, and, as a character puts it, her “rusty clarinet” vocals, Charlie hits the road for yet another journey that’s part wanderlust, part survival. Because while her life may be on the line—at least at first—she’s also realized that this lifestyle suits her. While Season 1 saw her floundering in the throes of malaise and forced isolation, Season 2 sees her embrace this spirited travel and the spectacle of character she stumbles onto.
What makes “Poker Face” such an enjoyable watch is how it tries to find the humanity in the absurdity. Because for as many ludicrous scenarios she runs into, the grief of the story is baked in because so many of the deaths and mysteries she solves relate to characters she’s grown close to or, at the very least, spent time with. Season 2 can still capture this feeling, even if it leans into larger-than-life storylines. From coked-up alligators to murder mystery quintuplets and a genuine meet-cute with the logic of a high-octane action flick, “Poker Face” swings big.
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For the most part, it works mainly due to Lyonne’s performance and the credible directors behind the scenes. Rian Johnson directs the premiere, which gives it the necessary “Knives Out” push and sets the tone for what’s to come in Season 2, though directors such as Mimi Cave, Ti West, and Lyonne herself all add their own individual flavors. While Episode 2 is a weaker narrative entry, Lyonne gives the funeral home-based mystery enough style and energy to make it worthwhile, even if Katie Holmes and Giancarlo Esposito are two of the more lackluster guest stars of the season.
And, like its first season, the second season of “Poker Face” has a lot of fun in busting out some high-profile names for bit roles. Cynthia Erivo gets to play five different characters in the season opener, “The Game is A Foot,” and has fun with various accents and styles. Meanwhile, Rhea Perlman continues to have a blast as the gun-touting Beatrix, who suspects a mole—or a rat, though the jury’s up on which is worse—to be leaking intel to the feds. Melanie Lynskey and John Cho demonstrate their considerable magnetism with incredible chemistry. Lynskey, in particular, showcases how her sweet appearance masks a more sinister, imposing, and even presence.
However, while some of the individual storylines stand independently, the series is most engaging when Charlie’s path crosses with the guest characters. Lyonne shares palpable chemistry with most of her co-stars, be it in brief interactions such as a quick rat-a-tat between her and John Mulaney (both so ideally suited to this style of old-timey jargon and turns of phrase), her passing interest in a fading baseball star played by Simon Rex, the promise of sweet beginnings between her and Corey Hawkins in Episode 7, or an unlikely friendship in Episode 10 opposite Patti Harrison. Beyond the overt style and influence, these interactions give the series a persistent spark. Heart, even.
However, not every episode shines. Some bog themselves down in clinical, episodic narratives that pull the focus too far away from our protagonist. While much of the humor adds to the series’ charm, it at times threatens to pivot the story from something, again, more “Pushing Daisies” adjacent to something more akin to, at best, “I Think You Should Leave” or, at its worst, an “SNL” skit.
This is most evident in Episode 4, “The Taste of Human Blood,” and Episode 6, “Sloppy Joseph.” The first deals with a police officer vying for an award and constantly losing out to an influential cop who rides around with a drugged alligator in tow. The latter is a schoolyard plot where Charlie begins working at an elementary school cafeteria. Both lack the human connections that make the series work despite the on-the-move pacing. The best stories are the ones where Charlie invests most in the outcome.
It’s why episodes such as the premiere work because there’s time and effort in establishing the relationships that make the subsequent, unraveling mysteries easy to invest in. As Season 2 crawls closer to being style over substance, the narrative needs to maintain any human connection it can. The overall effect works best because the week-to-week releases keep the stories fresh and unencumbered by the repetition of flow and format. It’s why, while bingeing Season 2 for review, the infrequent disruptions of narrative beats—such as Charlie picking up directly where the episode left off rather than diving into the past of a new guest star—work so well. It’s a necessary reprieve from what we’ve come to expect.
“Poker Face” Season 2 continues to demonstrate that it’s one of the most stylish series currently airing. The series offers a rich, textured world, from the lush and detailed set design to the well-curated costuming that adds layers of personality before a character has even spoken, to smartly placed needle drops. While not every mystery is tough to solve, it’s hardly the point. There’s a reason the writing makes a point of spelling the episodic mysteries out to us. It’s much more interesting to see how Charlie puts it together.
The real driving point of “Poker Face” is to see how Charlie interacts with those around her, the relationships she builds, and those threatened simply by her admittance to the plot. Lyonne and Johnson make for a formidable pair even as the series suffers something of a sophomore slump (a minor one) as it seeks to redefine its tone for something a little lighter in tone to match the manic, madcap energy of its star. [B]
“Poker Face” Season 2 premieres May 8 on Peacock.
