Poker Face Episode 5 opens with a retirement home and the hilariously irreverent Irene (Judith Light), who’s over Euphoria (amen sister), and freethinker Joyce (S. Epatha Merkerson) bicker as only tried friends can. To say they are not popular is an understatement. All their hilarious banter and taunting stops when they see a new guy move in.
Paraplegic Irene is wheeled to the toilet, where she then shuffles out the window and pulls herself up the trellis to his room. She switches the health monitor with the man and injects him with something before climbing back down the trellis to the toilet and her seat. Later at the zoo, she has Joyce make her the bracelet she wears assigned to the man to alert staff that there is an emergency. When the group returns from the trip, Joyce and Irene switch the bracelets back, thinking they got away with murder.
Enter Charlie, who now works at Mossy Oaks. Personality aside, this might be the funniest name of a retirement facility I’ve ever heard. In case you were wondering, there’s a real assisted living home from Mossy Oak in Georgia. Proving that horny men don’t get better with age, Pervy Pete verbally attacks her. She is warned away from Irene and Joyce, but of course they are just her cup of tea. They have been together since college when they met a man named Gabriel who led a group that wanted to make the world a better place. The group was planning a big event when they were ambushed and Irene was shot. This was when she became paralyzed. Almost everything about this story is oblique.
Table of Contents
How did Charlie get involved?
As usual, Charlie has come to the right place to help someone find justice and, in this case, pick up a valuable contact. Now that you know how Ben died, why and how Charlie found out can be revealed. The electric combination of dumb luck, keen observation and her internal lie detector gets Charlie into trouble, but it’s fun to watch. Here’s how it all exploded in Poker Face Episode 5.
Joyce and Irene initially present themselves as women Charlie can identify with. At first they seem like independent women who won’t be persuaded by the Bettys and Karens of the world. They have great stories from their troubled past, but it’s all a bit too glossy. So when they tell Charlie about their group leader and friend, Gabriel, and his band, Charlie looks for a band T-shirt that begins the process of unraveling all of their lies.
Who was Ben and why did Irene and Joyce kill him?
At Ben’s funeral, Charlie talks to Luca, who is not his cousin, as originally advertised, but his attendant. Ben was once Gabriel and under witness protection. Charlie recognizes the generously endowed former hippie leader as the one Irene and Joyce were involved with from their story and her T-shirt. But what would have been a nice coincidence unfortunately turns deadly when she discovers that Irene and Joyce were not rebellious college students who wanted to stage a sit-in to protest animal rights. Instead, it was domestic terrorists who planned to kill children in a bombing attempt designed to notify those entitled.
The night before Ben/Gabriel’s death, he confessed everything to the ladies. Up until then, they thought he somehow escaped, but when he told them he was an informant, they snapped. When we heard them say, “Do you think what I think?” that was later that night when they learned he was a rat. They kill him because he was instrumental in their years in prison and Irene’s injury.
How did Charlie find out in Poker Face Episode 5?
Charlie suspects Irene and Joyce were involved and confronts them. She still thinks they’re hippie rebels who wouldn’t hurt anyone, but she knows better as soon as they lie. The pair give Charlie an angry look and try to scare her. They also can’t help but admit that they targeted the kids in prep school because it was the only way to hurt their elitist parents. It’s a chilling moment played to perfection by Light and Merkersen. It also makes Charlie very vulnerable because they know she knows everything. She knows they did it, but she doesn’t know how yet. The rest of the information comes from the Fletchers, the gardener, Billy and Betty.
The ending of Poker Face Episode 5 explained
The Viking-loving Fletchers give her all the poison options that can kill without going unnoticed. Sodium nitrate becomes the top contender because it is commonly used by gardeners and is undetectable as a naturally occurring element. The Gardner confirmed he has a few, and Joyce used it in her closet pot garden. He went on to say that she asked for extra a few days later. Charlie now knew that poison had been injected into Ben, but did not know how they did it when they were at the zoo at the time of Ben’s death.
Timing is everything, and when Billy shows Charlie the health tracker data, she has all the information she needs to solve the crime. The data on the bracelet betrayed the ladies. Betty told Charlie that she saw Irene and Joyce sexually zap each other at 2:23 p.m., right when Ben was arrested. Charlie noted that the data showed a strange change in the heart pattern, as if a different heart was introduced at 11:10 a.m. This was because Irene had put the bracelet on her own arm, so it was a new heartbeat.
At this point, Charlie calls Luca, but he doesn’t have enough evidence to arrest the ladies. Talking to Betty will give her all the information she needs. The data never showed the life-saving shocks the facility gave Ben when he tried to save his life. It would have shown those shocks if he had worn his bracelet. However, since Irene was wearing it when they tried to save Ben’s life, those shocks went unrecorded. For example, Charlie confirms that the ladies killed Ben/Gabriel. Soon after, Betty is blown up by an Instant Pot bomb.
Charlie goes to Irene and Joyce’s villa to gather more evidence, and a highly entertaining scuffle ensues. The couple is not prepared to go down without a fight. Fortunately, Charlie is smart and daring enough to use the taser the women had to shock themselves, causing everyone to come to her aid. She wore a health tracker just like the residents, and they used the tracker as an emergency symbol. Just before Joyce injects her sodium nitrate, the cavalry arrive and arrest the pair.
At the end of Poker Face Episode 5, Luca gives Charlie his card and tells her to call him if she needs him. She asked him if they had the proof she emailed in Episode 1, which of course he doesn’t know about. However, Charlie has made a valuable friend who can come in handy when Cliff gets closer. Charlie tries to drive away in a golf cart, but narrowly escapes when a bomb goes off. The facility better be swept for extra bombs. Irene and Joyce are a dangerous duo.
Poker Face gets better with time. Each episode plays on the brilliance of Natasha Lyonne and her diverse episode stars. This is a hot series that just keeps getting hotter. Find all our Poker Face coverage here while we wait for next week’s episode.
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.
Support us on Patreon for members-only content!
