Premiering in 2023 with a 10-episode first season, Poker Face rapidly established itself as certainly one of my favourite unique streaming reveals. The setup is terrific (Natasha Lyonne’s Charlie Cale has a pure expertise for immediately sniffing out bullshit). the serialized plot is thrilling (Charlie pressured to dwell a life on the street fleeing from gangsters), and the construction of the episodic mysteries is exclusive and tremendous enjoyable (replete with quite a lot of nice one-off appearances from terrific actors). This opinion was solely bolstered throughout a current rewatch of the collection, and my anticipation is extraordinarily excessive for Poker Face Season 2 – set to make its premiere on Peacock in Might.
All the pieces we’ve seen from the brand new run suggests it’s going to be one other great journey stuffed with reverse mysteries and colourful characters, and I’m excited to see Charlie make use of her distinctive present in new methods to seek out justice. Due to the present’s capability to shock, it will in all probability be silly to anticipate all the pieces that’s taking place within the subsequent 12 episodes, however I do have a particular hope for Poker Face Season 2: much less homicide.
Poker Face Season 1 Has A Homicide Magnet Downside
I’ve personally by no means witnessed a homicide, nor ever been embroiled in a circumstance involving homicide. The identical is true for all of my shut associates and quick household, and I’ve to think about it’s true for the overwhelming majority of people that make up Poker Face’s viewers. I’ll cede the truth that all of us don’t dwell nomadic lives and journey in the identical sorts of circles as Charlie Cale, however whenever you have a look at Season 1 from a macro perspective, it’s insane what number of homicides the lady stumbles into.
It might’t be mentioned that each episode of the seminal run options homicide… however that’s simply because “The Future Of The Sport” solely options two circumstances of tried homicide. Whereas touring across the nation for a 12 months, Charlie’s adventures concerned a man getting pushed off a roof and crushed, a staged suicide, an electrocution, a number of poisonings, an explosion, a lure door dying, a faked automotive accident and a pair staged shootings. That’s so much!
The murders within the first and final episodes play actually as a result of they’re catalyst occasions that put Charlie on the street operating from hazard, however the truth that she always finds folks killing one another in each cease she makes across the nation is ridiculous. It renders the protagonist right into a homicide magnet, which is to say that there’s a risk that she’s going to grow to be much less of a personality and extra a plot machine. Until there’s some massive behind-the-scenes recreation plan that finally sees Charlie’s common proximity to dying grow to be a narrative unto itself, one thing ought to change.
I can already hear lots of you in my head responding to this saying, “It’s a TV present! What concerning the suspension of disbelief?” To you, I’ll say that I respect your perspective, and it’s one that allow me very a lot take pleasure in Poker Face Season 1, however what I believe is extra necessary going into the way forward for the present is larger creativity within the writing.
There Are Loads Of Different Crimes That Charlie Can Use Her Expertise To Attempt And Resolve
This isn’t a novel concern within the historical past of tv. Reveals like Homicide, She Wrote and Psych, as two examples, turned the cities of Cabot Cove, Maine and Santa Barbara, California into unlikely hotspots of murder. It’s not a phenomenon that’s onerous to clarify, both: tales want battle, and homicide is each an excessive and universally understood consequence that immediately units excessive stakes for the killer, the bereaved and the investigators (to not point out that creating an imaginary homicide is a enjoyable artistic train). However going to the identical properly time and again is on the coronary heart of lazy writing, and Poker Face has the chance to not be lumped in with that individual legacy of small display mysteries by altering issues up – and hopefully it’s executed sooner moderately than later.
There aren’t precisely a restricted variety of different choices. Theft/grand larceny is an apparent candidate for exploration. Possibly Charlie makes associates with some people who find themselves robbed of a valuable household heirloom. Or perhaps somebody retains jacking the register at a spot she works and she or he has to seek out the individual/folks accountable earlier than her asshole boss places the blame on her.
Fraud could possibly be a hell of lots of enjoyable. Imagining the right arch villain for Charlie Cale – the Professor Moriarty to her Sherlock Holmes – my thoughts conjures not a vicious assassin, however a con artist who can lie so impeccably that they don’t set off her bullshit detector. A hero determining how one can work with out their biggest skillset is a staple in fiction for a motive.
However what about assault? Abduction? Arson? Animal cruelty? These are simply crimes that begin with the letter “A,” and all of them might make for excellent fodder in the way forward for Poker Face.
Naturally I don’t count on the present to desert homicide completely, and the gunfire, explosions and extra within the Poker Face Season 2 teaser don’t make me assume that it’ll.
Nonetheless, mixing issues up a bit past simply numerous strategies of dying will hopefully find yourself being part of the brand new run, because it might very a lot profit the present long run when it comes to verisimilitude and maintaining issues recent.
With a stellar forged lined up together with Katie Holmes, Giancarlo Esposito, Cynthia Erivo, Kumail Nanjiani, John Mulaney, Awkwafina, Cliff “Technique Man” Smith, Justin Theroux, Taylor Schilling and Melanie Lynskey, Poker Face is making its long-awaited return very quickly, and Season 2 is stacked with 12 new Charlie Cale mysteries. The primary three episodes (the primary directed by collection creator Rian Johnson and the second by Natasha Lyonne) will premiere on Peacock on Might 8, and there’ll then be a weekly rollout that may see the finale debut on July 10.