“Poker Face” is a highly entertaining throwback
There are not many reasons to have Peacock. Besides Sunday Night Football and the old USA Blue Sky shows, just started my rewatch of Psych, there is nothing noteworthy in their original content library. One of those bits of gold among the muck is "Poker Face."
Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) is a woman who can tell when someone is lying. She spends her days driving across the country, doing odd jobs, and ends up solving crimes.
The show, currently in its second season, was created by Rian Johnson, the man behind "Knives Out" and "Glass Onion." That was enough to get me to watch it, and I loved it. It is highly entertaining and keeps things simple. The show has been compared to "Columbo" because we see the crime beforehand. It is less of a whodunit and more of how it will get solved. Charlie Cale only appears for the show's last half when she somehow gets dragged into the case.
Lyonne is fantastic as Charlie. She is content to get in her car and drive from town to town, finding small jobs to keep gas in her tank and food in her belly. She never wants to get involved in the lives of the people around her, but it keeps happening anyway. She is someone who, when she sees something wrong, feels the need to make it right in some way. I love that the show doesn't need to explain Charlie's ability. It's not made out to be a superpower or anything like that. When someone is talking to her, she literally calls "bullshit" and has to find out the truth.
The other thing about the show is the amazing guest stars. Each season has been stacked with some of the best actors out there. In the season two premiere, Cynthia Erivo plays four different characters. Each episode features someone relatively well-known in a role, usually the killer or victim.
"Poker Face" is great. It is a callback to the "Case of the Week" shows that used to dominate the TV landscape. It's an easy show to watch and watching Charlie solve the case is as much fun as anything else on TV and worth keeping a Peacock subscription, for at least a little while
"Poker Face" airs on Peacock on Thursdays
