Poker Face has clear rules. Unfortunately, there are those who exploit the system and those who are exploited. Desperation and greed make people do terrible things, and humor coexists with heartbreak. Poker Face Episode 2 picks up where Episode 1 left off with a new crime to solve and Charlie in the right place at the right time to solve their murder.
Try as she might, Charlie can’t take a break or be alone, even if it puts her in danger. That’s the charm of this Colombo meets Psyche series, a frothy addition to streaming television. Creator Rian Johnson’s penchant for writing clever and witty scripts is put to perfect use in this condensed serialized form that allows main character Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) to use her considerable talents. It’s proof that this quirky actor gets her characters in such a way that we can’t tell one from the other. Whether she’s American Pie’s wise sidekick, Russian Doll’s resilient seeker, or Charlie Cale’s sassy and sarcastic traveler with a heart and a killer on her tail, we see what she wants us to see. We see credible and hugely likable people flawed by interchangeability.
In Poker Face Episode 2, Charlie is stranded on a remote stretch of road when her car breaks down. She has to dip into her savings to pay to get her fix, but as with the previous episode, that’s the least of her problems. In the cold we see a murder. We catch up with Charlie shortly before the crime and witness what led her to get involved.
It’s a formula Johnson used in the first episode, and it’s a signature style that immediately grabs your attention. You see the crime unfold before Charlie is even in the picture, making the episodes more about Charlie and how and why she solves the crime and less about the murders themselves. Damian (Brandon Michael Hall), war veteran, aspiring TikTok creator and eternal optimist, late-night subway worker Damian (Brandon Michael Hall) buys scratch cards at the gas station next door every night. A creepy auto repairman, Jed (Colton Ryan), who works across the street, lurks in the shadows and unforgiving neon light of the station, where Damian buys scratchers and flirts with the clerk.
Both men are interested in the beautiful clerk Sara (Megan Suri), but Jed is scary and his intense energy is unsettling. He’s the type of guy who thinks he owes something in life simply because he’s a man. He believes he got a raw deal and resents Damian for his positive outlook. So when Damian sees him spying from the roof of the store opposite the gas station, he decides to try to lead the strange man away from Sara. While on the roof, he scratches his night ticket and discovers that he has won $25,000. In a fit of rage, Jed pushes him off the roof and takes his ticket. He then frames a truck driver who has stopped at the restaurant next door by stuffing Damian’s body with her appetite inside.
Enters Charlie, who had arrived in town just before Damian’s death. She had to stay overnight until her car could be repaired the next day. Marge (Hong Chau), a truck driver and the unlucky person who will be charged with Damian’s murder, later finds herself trying to take care of the gunshot wound she received courtesy of Cliff in Poker Face Episode 1. She closes her wound and gives Charlie some good advice. She explains that she has been on the run from an abusive uncle whom she stole from before leaving town. She and Charlie immediately gain confidence, and Marge opens up to her about her money hustle that allows her to stay under the radar. She sells Canadian prescription drugs that she smuggles in with her other load in the truck.
This reveals why Charlie gets involved the next day when Marge is framed for Damian’s murder. Charlie didn’t think the woman was a killer and knew she wouldn’t risk putting anything in the back of her scum and jeopardizing her drug business. She also doesn’t understand why anyone would hit someone on the head if they had a gun she knew Marge had in her truck cab. Charlie does what she does best and unconventionally begins to investigate Damian’s death. That leads her to recorded footage of the garage and gas station. Both show Marge removing Damian’s body from the bed of her truck, but neither shows the murder itself.
Meanwhile, Jed buys a scratching post. He pretends to have won on the new ticket when he pretends to scribble away the winner he took from Damian. But as usual, his greed is his downfall. By now, Charlie is suspicious of Jed, and after learning that he had just won $25,000 off a scraper that Damian used to buy, she interrogates him and notices the leg wound Damian gave him during the scuffle the night before. Using Marge’s super glue, she seals his wound and questions him. She hears him lying about different things but doesn’t know what is important yet. When he offers her a beer with the same cap as that one she found in Damian’s Subway apron.
Armed with a truck full of suspicion, she takes another look at the images and realizes they have changed. Someone cut an hour out of the tape. When she checks the roof, she sees that Damian’s Hawaii quarters were used to scratch his winning ticket and fit it all together. Sara gives her the last bit of evidence she needs when she reads Charlie the serial numbers on the scratchers. Damian’s ticket had an earlier number than the ticket Jed bought and lied about. Charlie confronts him, and he repeats Cliff and Frost’s words. He says no one will believe you. You have no real proof.
Feeling frustrated, she leaves, but turns around when she remembers a detail that could serve as evidence. All truck drivers have front-facing dash cams. There was a truck next to Marge’s and his camera should have captured the murder. A hysterical game of Pictionary and impromptu musical theater later, Charlie found the truck driver and the evidence she needed to save Marge. Luckily for Charlie, the shop owner, Cheer alum John Ratzenberger, had his hearing aid turned on, heard everything Jed said earlier in the shop, and caught Jed’s handiwork with Charlie’s brake line. He fixed it and Charlie was able to escape Cliff again. Not only that, but the waitress at the restaurant pointed him in the wrong direction to help her.
Poker Face Episode 2 proves it wasn’t just a fluke. This wash, rinse, repeat cycle can and will work. Between pop culture’s eccentric townies and callbacks, there’s hardly a moment that isn’t packed with subtext, but all done so subtly; it never strains the brain. The easygoing breezy series feels urgent because of Cliff and his mission to kill Charlie, but light because of Lyonne’s fearless no-nonsense approach to crime solving. Hell, she can’t lie, but she can if you are. Find all our Poker Face coverage here.
As editor-in-chief of Signal Horizon, I enjoy watching and writing about genre entertainment. I grew up on old fashioned slashers, but my real passion is television and all weird and ambiguous stuff. My work can be found here and Travel Weird, where I am the editor-in-chief.
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