Sleuths, by and huge, aren’t given the posh of mendacity low. Worn-down beat detectives are all the time getting referred to as to the subsequent crime scene. Half-time investigators can’t resist a femme fatale’s determined pleas (or ample pocketbook). However even once you put aside their skilled obligations, puzzle-solvers normally don’t know what to do with themselves when the sport will not be but afoot. Sometimes, gumshoes crack circumstances by compulsion.
Take Rian Johnson‘s final “Knives Out” thriller: At the beginning of “Glass Onion,” Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) has grown pissed off by the pandemic’s stultifying impact on real-world brainteasers. With an excessive amount of day without work (and an excessive amount of time moping within the tub), he thinks he’s going insane. He’s tried studying books, he’s tried enjoying video games, he’s even enlisted assist from just a few similarly-minded friends (together with Angela Lansbury and “Poker Face” star Natasha Lyonne). However nothing helps. “The very last thing I want is a trip,” he says. “I want hazard, the hunt, a problem. I want… a fantastic case.”
In “Poker Face” Season 2, Johnson sees this quandary by means of the wanting glass (onion). Lyonne’s Charlie Cale has too many circumstances to unravel and too little downtime in between. Regardless of the place her child blue Plymouth Barracuda takes her, there’s one other liar, one other lifeless physique, and one other flawed ready to be righted. Her state of affairs, like her innate skill to establish a lie, is exclusive. She’s not a cop on project. She’s not a non-public eye on the lookout for work. She’s glad to make a dwelling choosing apples from an orchard or snagging foul balls within the minor leagues. And but, demise haunts Charlie wherever she goes, so it’s solely pure to marvel: Is her nostril for bullshit a blessing or a curse?
What a thriller! Resolving this dilemma offers “Poker Face” Season 2 a sturdy backbone, which is very necessary because the particular person vertebrae (aka the person episodes) aren’t fairly as compelling (save, as soon as once more, for one true gem).
Since we’ve recognized Charlie, she’s been operating. Within the first season, she seeks justice for her murdered pal and, because of doing the precise factor, has to go on the lam. Every week, she’s in a brand new city, working a brand new gig, caught up in one other suspicious story. The lone wolf life-style fits Charlie simply tremendous — for some time. Her ebullient persona helps to make associates wherever she goes, however when a few of these associates find yourself lifeless and the remainder need to be left behind when it’s time to skip city, nicely, these losses add up.
As Season 2 begins, Charlie’s traded one vengeful mob boss for one more. She out-maneuvered Sterling Frost, Sr. (Ron Perlman), however after refusing to make use of her “reward” to assist one other crime household, she now has to take care of Beatrix Hasp (Rhea Perlman). Right here we go once more: Charlie does the precise factor, and her reward is a life spent in hiding.
For a procedural, beginning over is extra of a consolation than an annoyance, and the primary episode, directed by Johnson, provides quite a few pleasures — 5 of that are all performed by Cynthia Erivo! There’s additionally a mini-montage of Charlie attempting out odd jobs (and making new associates) earlier than she’s chased off by gun-toting mobsters. There’s pretty cinematography by director of pictures Jaron Presant, and Johnson savors each odd little eccentricity out there within the wacky preliminary investigation. (His skill to disclose key particulars by means of playful but fastidiously thought of digicam actions is downright Spielbergian.)
Maybe most significantly, Episode 1 additionally makes it clear Charlie is having fun with her life as finest she will be able to; that’s, she’s having fun with her life at any time when she’s not staring demise within the face (these mobsters’ bullets come awfully shut) — a sample that persists in her subsequent circumstances. Whereas most of these aren’t as satisfying as the primary, Charlie all the time is: Beneficiant and shiny, just like the lengthy curly locks spilling out from beneath her varied trucker hats, Charlie is an unnatural charmer, her vast smile and gravelly intonation a congenial contradiction that convincingly cultivates curiosity in wherever they’re aimed. She makes probably the most out of her fleeting conversations with strangers, and solely the liars amongst them are ever upset for sharing just a few sentences with our affable star.
It’s a testomony to Lyonne’s well-honed charisma and attentive efficiency that Charlie stays the highest draw regardless of an onslaught of shiny visitor stars enjoying distinct characters. Katie Holmes is a delight as a fed-up mortician’s spouse greater than able to fly the coop. Gaby Hoffman’s fast flip from straight-laced Cop of the 12 months candidate to a feral Florida Lady is batshit enjoyable. Simon Rex settles in properly as a washed-up pitcher trying to make a bit cash off shedding. Melanie Lynskey and John Cho crackle with chemistry within the season’s finest episode (of the ten screened for critics), and Erivo brings the proper playful pitch to every of her almost half-dozen characters.
Two tweaks to the format assist distinguish Season 2’s journey from the unique run: The primary is a notable uptick in chaos — the conditions Charlie finds herself in vary from psychotic scams (“A New Lease on Demise”) to absurd send-ups (“One Final Job”), however every episode makes an attempt to ratchet up no matter quirky high quality it’s working with, together with an early entry that almost goes supernatural (“Final Appears”).
The opposite departure is less complicated: Charlie, with out crossing into spoilers, will get to return out of hiding. She’s free to determine the place to go and when, which permits the present to experience an prolonged keep in a while and serve the season’s central conceit: Season 2, by and huge, is about accepting who you might be, even when dwelling your finest life doesn’t imply dwelling a straightforward life.
Charlie yearns for sufficient time to understand “the unobserved pageant of the strange,” as she calls the knickknacks filling up random vehicles, and thus, random lives. A life on the run doesn’t permit for a lot rumination, however neither does a stationary one. Giving Charlie the time to expertise each permits her to look at what she actually desires, and what she actually wants, with out deluding herself into pondering issues could be totally different if she wasn’t being hounded by mobsters (or, on the flip-side, if she wasn’t tied all the way down to anybody place or individual).
She’s not like Benoit Blanc, all the time itching for the subsequent nice case to crack; she’d be completely glad floating in untroubled waters. She isn’t a detective, and he or she’s definitely not a cop; for all of the odd jobs she’s had, fixing mysteries isn’t one in all them. Charlie is only a individual in a singular place to assist, so in fact she’s persistently hounded by individuals who want it — and plenty of individuals want it! At a time in America when our institutional security nets are being disbanded and the burden to assist one another typically comes all the way down to particular person efforts, Charlie’s battle feels all of the extra apt. She desires to assist — she simply additionally needs there was much less want for her to take action.
And therein lies her salvation. Charlie can’t assist however love individuals. She’s a individuals individual. Even when she tries to remain out of their lives, she’s inevitably drawn in by pure or circumstantial curiosity. As a result of Charlie thrives round individuals, so does “Poker Face.” As a howcatchem procedural, it has to resolve related points as its lead: The system requires a specific amount of repetition, simply because the viewers calls for a brand new thriller every week. When episodes depend on individuals to convey them to life — be it well-known visitor stars, well-realized characters, life-affirming arcs, or the entire above — they’re that a lot simpler to take pleasure in. For probably the most half, “Poker Face” Season 2 is kind of simple to take pleasure in. In spite of everything, it is aware of serving to individuals isn’t a present or a curse; it’s a calling, and once you understand how fulfilling it may be, the one thriller left to unravel is the way to assist others see the identical factor.
Grade: B
“Poker Face” Season 2 premieres Thursday, Might 8 on Peacock. Three episodes shall be launched the primary week, then one episode weekly by means of the finale on July 10.