This review contains spoilers for all of Season Two.
It may seem weird to describe this show as comfort viewing, since it's about a lonely perimenopausal drifter, on the run from the mob, who constantly sees her friends and lovers murdered. But somehow, Poker Face has offered little 50-minute intervals of succor in past few difficult months.
In my early 20s, after years of not watching much TV, I got very into Buffy, then Angel, then Alias and Lost. My television coming-of-age was all about the gradual shift towards complicated, season- or series-long arcs. But while watching both the first and second season of Poker Face, I continually surprised myself by how much I liked the elegance of an episodic structure.
The season started off with a bang: "The Game Is a Foot," in which the amazing Cynthia Erivo played quintuplets, was elevated farce that perfectly skirted the line between implausible and weirdly relatable. The episode set in a school ("Sloppy Joseph") was hilarious, both for its evocation of Election and the surprise appearance of Margo Martindale as a compromised school principal. "The Sleazy Georgian" (the country, not the state) was a fun twist on the usual formula, with Charlie taking a more active role in order to give John Cho's conman character his due comeuppance.
There were little mini-arcs, which I appreciated. The resolution of the Beatrix Hasp plot was tidy and funny and twisty all at once; I liked that Hasp (and Rhea Perlman herself) returned for a quick cameo in the finale. Keeping Charlie on the run from the mob would have gotten repetitive, and I liked that she had the chance to feel free for just a while.
As for the end of the season: I'd seen a bit of theorizing online that Alex (played by Patti Harrison) might be Charlie's Moriarty: the liar so good that Charlie can't tell they're lying. (John Cho's character in "The Sleazy Georgian" mentioning that possibility was nice foreshadowing.) I was resistant to that possibility, because I preferred the idea of Charlie forming a solid friendship; it would balance out the death of her best friend back in the first season opener, and the loss of her boyfriend Bill in the heist episode "One Last Job."
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| How many clothes does she have in the car? |
I specifically wanted Charlie to have a female friendship. Charlie can get along with almost anyone worth getting along with, but she tends to get most attached to men, or most vulnerable with them. Her whole vibe, from the trucker hat and muscle car, to referring to herself as a "guy" on a few occasions, is rooted in a twenty-first-century semi-ironic update to 1970s road movies of edgy, counterculture masculinity. I like the gender fluidity; I love the vibe; I'm not complaining; and I'm not trying to pin Charlie down in my wish that she'd acquire a female friend. Rather, I'm curious about the idea of balance, how it might work, how our sense of our gendered selves ties into the genders of the people we interact with, and how we interact with them.
Alas, Alex is not the bestie I was hoping for. Alex isn't just a masterful liar, but also a terrible sociopath. And a skilled assassin. And malevolent. She isn't even allergic to cinnamon! Basically, Alex is all the bad stuff you would expect of someone who changes into leather pants for the Big Bad reveal. When it seemed, for a moment, that the episode was going to end in a Thelma and Louise crash—or even a T&L cliffhanger, I was, to put it mildly, bereft.
But Charlie will live to be an itinerant "do-gooder" (as Alex calls her) another day, although with more struggles and fewer resources. Now she's on the run from the FBI, and probably trying to evade Alex the hitwoman, too. She has no car, no clothes, and no ham radio to contact her buddy Steve Buscemi.
That's bad news for Charlie, but good news for us: although the show hasn't been renewed for a third season yet, my fingers are crossed that the Peacock network won't try any bullshit.
Four out of four Justin Therouxes as an International Assassin. (Or let me know your favorite guest-star in the comments!)
Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)
Aside from a couple of Golden State Valkyries wins and my perpetual Big Bang Theory binge, this show has been the most TV fun I've had this summer. Love how it takes one arbitrary setup, Charlie's lie detector thing, and gets so much mileage out of it.
ReplyDeleteAnything Cynthia Erivo does is great so I also enjoyed her in the opener. My two fave eps were "Sloppy Joseph" with Stephanie The Devil Child, and "One Last Job", the big box store ep and its "Lady From Shanghai" set piece with all the shot up TVs. The two part ending was very good, maybe the best in the series at working with the whole lie/lie detector motif. I think there was a brief Peter Falk photo cameo in one of the last two eps, so count him as one of the many great guest characters PK has had.
And there was a MAJOR character die off: Charlie's Baby Blue Barracuda. Cars, like pets, start to "look like" their owners after a while: Ms. Cobel's Volkswagen Golf in Severance, and Charlie's Baby Blue among others. I took the cover of Dylan's "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" as a fitting homage.
Hopefully PK won't suffer from Cliffhanger Then Cancelled Syndrome like too many shows I like (I will never forgive you "Counterpart"!). Another show on my CTCS watch list is "Will Trent", ABC's cop show with a funky Hot Lanta vibe. Hope they both make it past the bean counters.
6 out of 8 Barracuda V8 cylinders. Thank you PK writers and thank you Josie for the review.
I am enamored of your idea that cars start to look like their owners. It is, in my case, very true.
Delete(Just checking: You watched past the "To Be Continued " onscreen text, right?)