Poker Face Season 2 TV Review: Natasha Lyonne and Rian Johnson reunite for more mystery-of-the-week shenanigans

Plot: Poker Face is a mystery-of-the-week series following Natasha Lyonne’s Charlie, who has an extraordinary ability to determine when someone is lying. She hits the road with her Plymouth Barracuda and with every stop encounters a new cast of characters and strange crimes she can’t help but solve.

Review: While Rian Johnson revived the whodunit on the big screen with Knives Out and the Netflix sequel Glass Onion, his charmingly retro small-screen series Poker Face has truly proven its worth in the tried-and-true genre. Echoing classic shows like Columbo and The Rockford Files, Poker Face‘s first season centered on Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne), who solved mysteries while on the run from gangsters looking to kill her. The overarching narrative of the first season was engaging, but the standalone mysteries boasting famous guest stars turned Poker Face into must-watch programming. After a two-year wait, Poker Face is back with another ten mysteries, with even more recognizable actors joining Natasha Lyonne and Rian Johnson for a fun excursion into entertaining murder yarns with a quirky sense of humor. While it may not be the marquee series that other platforms bank on, Poker Face is a blast from start to finish and gives us something fun and funny to sink into rather than wallowing in stark drama or brutal reality.

The formula of Poker Face remains the same as in the first season. Charlie Cale has the uncanny ability to detect whether someone is lying with her signature catchphrase “bullshit” ringing out whenever she senses an utterance of untruth. The overarching narrative connects each standalone episode from last season with Beatrix Hasp (Rhea Perlman) replacing Sterling Frost Sr (Ron Perlman, no relation) as the person hunting down Charlie. Over the first few episodes of the season, Charlie is on the run from goons sent by Hasp, who track her through the mysteries she gets involved in, but that thread transitions after a few episodes to a different arc for the protagonist. How and why this narrative shift occurs sets up where Poker Face could head in the third season and beyond, and connects to Charlie’s new sidekick, Alex, played by Patti Harrison, who cannot lie. The chemistry between Natasha Lyonne and Harrison is great for the series. It works to change the dynamic of having Charlie interact with all-new supporting players from episode to episode.

The series harkens back to a bygone era of television when standalone episodes were the standard rather than the serialized drama that has become a staple of prestige series like The Last of Us, Fallout, and beyond. The localized cast and script afford the creative talent to try different things without worrying too much about cost by containing each episode as a one-off story. Poker Face‘s cast this season is impressive with the guests including Cynthia Ervio, Kumail Nanjiani, Giancarlo Esposito, Richard Kind, John Mulaney, John Cho, Adrienne C. Moore, Alia Shawkat, Awkwafina, Ben Marshall, B.J. Novak, Carol Kane, Cliff “Method Man” Smith, Corey Hawkins, David Alan Grier, David Krumholtz, Davionte “GaTa” Ganter, Ego Nwodim, Gaby Hoffmann, Geraldine Viswanathan, Haley Joel Osment, Jason Ritter, Justin Theroux, Kathrine Narducci, Katie Holmes, Kevin Corrigan, Lauren Tom, Lili Taylor, Margo Martindale, Melanie Lynskey, Natasha Leggero, Patti Harrison, Rhea Perlman, Sam Richardson, Sherry Cola, Simon Helberg, Simon Rex, Taylor Schilling, and Steve Buscemi as Charlie’s CB radio buddy. The pairings of these actors also give the dynamic a fun twist, with Cynthia Erivo playing multiple characters in one episode, with actors you would not otherwise see sharing the screen, like Giancarlo Esposito and Katie Holmes, offering fun scene partners.

If the season has any shortcomings, it may be that the formula does not always give the actors enough time to inhabit their roles. Some make great use of the limited screen time and have fun with their roles, but each chapter’s one-hour running time prevents us from getting too comfortable with them. It is interesting how the villain is not always the actor you expect it to be, with some of the more recognizable actors being the victim rather than the perpetrator. Poker Face is not always a whodunit, as we always know who the killer is in the first act of the episode, leaving the charm of the mystery as to how Charlie will solve it. Natasha Lyonne’s effortless charm and charisma make Charlie one of the most interesting characters on television, and this season gives the actress more freedom to be zany, wacky, and silly. The lighter approach this season may underwhelm some. Still, I liked that I did not have to wallow in sad and depressing storylines, but can have fun with the bright colors and varied destinations Charlie Cale gets to visit over these ten episodes.

While Rian Johnson returns to direct this season, he has handed over showrunner duties to Tony Tost. Tost is best known for writing the A&E series Longmire, USA’s Damnation, AMC’s The Terror, and the 2023 film Americana starring Sydney Sweeney. Tost oversees a much lighter second season, which retains the formula that Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne have partnered on, with the actress helming multiple episodes this season, including the finale. Writers this season include Laura Deeley, Alice Ju, Wyatt Cain, Kate Thulin, Taofik Kolade, Megan Amram, Tea Ho, Raphie Cantor, Andrew Sodroski, and Lyonne herself. The episodes are all unique bits of fun with twists on the formula, sometimes negating Charlie’s lie-detecting skills and forcing her to use other tactics to solve the mystery she is faced with. The charm of these complex deaths also gives the series sequences that serve as homages to everything from Michael Mann’s Heat to Johnson’s own Knives Out, and it still leaves me with hope that we may see Charlie team up with Benoit Blanc someday.

In a time when we need a series that is just fun, light, and enjoyable while still giving us excellent writing and acting, Poker Face is hard to top. Natasha Lyonne is once again a fantastic lead character that we can love to watch, and Rian Johnson proves that he was destined to relaunch the mystery genre for a new generation. While the shift in the overarching narrative may be jarring for some viewers who liked the momentum and cliffhanger ending we had at the end of season one, this sophomore run opens up the potential for Poker Face to keep itself fresh and explore more stories without the constraints of what started Charlie’s journey in the first place. These ten episodes are a fantastic and fun watch. I hope we don’t have to wait another two years for this great show’s next season.

Poker Face season two premieres with three episodes on May 8th on Peacock.

Poker Face

AMAZING

9

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