38: Poker Face

Poker Face is a mystery-of-the-week TV show with a thin sketch of a motivation keeping its main character on the move from place to place. There's no lore, no dark secret at the heart of the protagonist, no deep mystery to unravel about her past. Charlie Cade (Natasha Lyonne) crossed some bad people, so now she's living on the run, road tripping across the United States as she tries to stay a few steps ahead of her pursuers. The conceit means that every episode truly is self-contained; after the pilot, it's possible to watch the next three episodes in any order. The show's rhythm is truly episodic: one murder mystery per week, each episode featuring an all-new setting and cast of characters, besides the amateur detective who serves as the series' glue–and its moral compass.

Charlie can tell when someone else is lying. She can't tell what, precisely, they're lying about, but she knows when it isn't the truth. Poker Face plays with this ability on a structural level–it's not a whodunnit, like most traditional detective stories, but a howcatchem, like Columbo. The show spends its time introducing us to the characters in each episode, allowing us to get a feel for their work, their dreams, and their disappointments, until eventually the narrative takes a turn south for the victim of the week. Then the narrative turns from murder to investigation; part of the pleasure of the show is seeing how Charlie is connected to the cast of the week, then watching her solve the logic puzzle of tangled motivations for herself.

Where the show shines is in its guest casting–another element borrowed from Columbo–and its setting and formal flourishes. The universe of Poker Face is believably adjacent to our own. The characters Charlie encounters skim the edges of society: casino hospitality staff, a truck driver who hasn't spoken to anyone else in the better part of a year, a gas station attendant stuck with the night shift, a barbeque chef working the pit, a washed-up metal singer. Many of them work dead-end jobs just trying to scrape by, but the show never looks down on their circumstances. Its sun-washed colorful palette betrays the show's optimism: work might suck, but these characters are so much more than just their work or where they live, even if they're tied down to a place they'd rather not be.

That optimism extends to the ways the show enthusiastically depicts the experience of being alive through its technical work. When Charlie tastes something as part of a hunt for clues, the music kicks in, piping notes that communicate different levels of tang and spice as she tries to identify evidence. When another character hears something potentially life-changing, the lighting scheme shifts dramatically so a spotlight washes out her face. We get these characters, because we've been there, and we get it because the show shows us something we recognize in unexpected ways. Poker Face isn't interested in gritty motivations or melancholy tone; it's not going to hand us familiar mysteries with a common formula. Its strength is in its emotional honesty, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it takes me next.

Poker Face is available to stream on Peacock, with new episodes on Thursdays.

What I wrote:

For paying subscribers, I wrote up a few thoughts about the 2023 Oscar nominations.

What I talked about:

For the latest episode of Seeing and Believing, I paired our review of Jafar Panahi's excellent No Bears with a Watchlist review of Bob Fosse's All That Jazz. I like programming double features of movies that have common themes, but that go about those themes in ways that are tonally and stylistically very different. No Bears and All That Jazz approach the problem of making art about real people by lightly fictionalizing versions of their own directors. The conclusions these movies draw are very different, but they have final shots that rhyme in bleak conclusion.

What I listened to:

The supergroup boygenius is back and I couldn't be more thrilled about it. I've been celebrating the news by listening to all three of the band's lead singles on repeat, then chasing them with Lucy Dacus's record Home Video.