Poker Face Season 2 has lastly hit Peacock, and whereas we’ve to this point solely been handled to the primary three episodes, they function some A+ visitor stars. Proper off the bat, we’ve Cynthia Erivo enjoying a whopping 5 completely different characters, and that story is adopted by Giancarlo Esposito and Katie Holmes sharing the stage. That is Holmes’ first live-action TV present look since 2017, and oh boy, it is a bonkers one. In keeping with the showrunner, this was the intention, as he needed to indicate a facet of Katie Holmes we’ve “by no means seen from her earlier than.”
The episode stars Katie Holmes because the spouse of a funeral house proprietor/director who’s fed up together with her sheltered, conservative lifetime of making use of make-up to the deceased. Taken by the glitz and glamour of filmmaking as a film is filmed on the mortuary’s property, she begins to make amends for the social life she’s been disadvantaged of with a childlike enthusiasm – and the odd distinction makes for a efficiency in contrast to something we’ve ever seen from Holmes. I not too long ago caught up with Season 2 showrunner Tony Tost to speak all issues Poker Face, and when the topic of Katie Holmes got here up, he informed us that this was precisely the intention:
I believe all of us bought excited concerning the concept. We have not seen Katie Holmes in any such function. Natasha [Lyonne] directed that episode. I believe Natasha very a lot inspired Katie to only go for it, to strive issues. Like, it was very very like, we did not forged you to duplicate some earlier efficiency you’d finished. We would like you as a result of we predict you can deliver one thing actually fascinating and do one thing possibly you have not finished earlier than. And that was, I believe, very a lot the informing angle. I used to be like, ‘Oh, I have not seen this from her earlier than.’
Katie Holmes rose to fame on TV’s Dawson’s Creek, and on condition that it doesn’t really feel just like the fabled revival is coming anytime quickly, it’s enjoyable to see her again on the small display screen by way of streaming. As Tony Tost stated, we haven’t seen her like this earlier than, and it particularly jogged my memory of the hype surrounding Parker Posey in The White Lotus – a casting alternative that has been lauded as “good.” Tost agreed, saying,
And it is fascinating and it is surprising. There’s an odd, in one of the simplest ways, an oddness to her character or efficiency, or an unexpectedness that you do not essentially—she would not essentially come first and in thoughts for that kind of efficiency… The Parker Posey [comparison] particularly is fascinating. That sort of vitality, that sort of like, she might do something at any time. That unpredictability that she introduced.
As beforehand talked about, Katie Holmes additionally stars alongside Giancarlo Esposito within the episode, who’s magnificent as her chilly, odd husband who presses his cremated purchasers into recent vinyl information and different assorted gadgets. As if Natasha Lyonne isn’t cause sufficient to tune into Poker Face, different main names making an look this season embody John Mulaney, Sam Richardson, Rhea Perlman, Simon Rex, and Kumail Nanjiani (who has been making a variety of smaller TV present appearances nowadays, having not too long ago appeared in seven episodes of Solely Murders In The Constructing).
Visitor stars apart, Poker Face Season 2 is among the extra thrilling issues to hit the 2025 TV schedule. Critics are calling the brand new season “extra ridiculous enjoyable,” and you may watch it proper now with a Peacock subscription.