Stay Tuned #58: Poker Face

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Ticketmaster.

I grew up on procedural crime shows, Ticketholders!

I know I've said that about a lot of things over these past years: Power Rangers, Dragon Ball, R-Rated movies, Saturday morning cartoons, WWE,...; it's a sad thing to admit, but between homework and chores, my goal as a child-cum-young adult was to consume as much media as possible so that I would have things to talk about with people my own age. I didn't have stable friends; I had people I invited over to help me beat video games and be jealous of my toys. I had acquaintances and groups that I obliviously inserted myself into as "pop culture reference guy." I wasn't a child or a teenager or a college student (especially not that last part my first time around); I was a tagalong puppy desperate for scraps of attention, a know-it-all who didn't know how to do the one thing that matters in life. To this day, I give my all to whatever brings me joy until either I or the Other mean nothing by virtue of dismissive retrospection and my inability to simply be a person among people, divorced from the pressure to belong. So of course, here I am on a digital medium, psycho-doxxing myself and talking about pop culture to a faceless multitude so they will like me and talk to me and make my numbers temporarily go up. Makes total sense, right?

The fuck was I talking about again‽

Oh, right; procedural crime shows. They were perhaps the first kind of non-comedy, non-game show that I watched with my family and for myself, rather than to please my peers. Courtroom dramas like Perry Mason and Matlock, detective mysteries like Moonlighting, Murder, She Wrote, and Columbo, cop shows like Hunter and Walker, Texas Ranger, "secret organization" action stuff like Knight Rider and MacGyver; they all had that "moment" where the hero would put things together (sometimes literally) or pressure the villain in just the right way and save the day in an epic or dramatic fashion that made me feel catharsis, like the world—at least, until next week—was safe and in order.

Over the years, procedurals have shifted focus in more of a serialized, character-driven direction, evolving through "mental illness is a superpower" main characters, odd-couple leading romances, charismatic everymen, flawed geniuses, physics-defying action heroes, and rich eccentrics out for revenge, often resulting in a loss of the show's freshman magic, the series being canceled before the artificially delayed resolution of the larger narrative can be produced or ending on a forced, unsatisfying note, and a reliance on prominent guest stars and repetitive dramatic side-plots to sustain the "new hotness" at its peak.

From writer/director/producer Rian Johnson (Looper, the Knives Out mysteries—soon to be a trilogy—and that totally average Star Wars movie nobody likes but it made a billion dollars) comes a return to the classic, episodic era of procedural mysteries...that relies on weekly guest stars for hype and has a charismatic, eccentric lead with a superpower.

Poker Face stars Natasha Lyonne (Orange Is the New Black) as Charlie Cale, a blacklisted underground poker player with the ability to instantly and infallibly call "Bullshit!" on any lie. Also, she's basically just Natasha Lyonne with a sprinkling of Columbo mannerisms.

While waitressing at a Nevada casino, Charlie solves a murder, inadvertently causing the death of its manager (Adrien Brody, Predators) and incurring the wrath of his father (Hellboy and Sons Of Anarchy star Ron Perlman), who sends his fixer (Benjamin Bratt, Catwoman) to track her down and find out "how deep to dig the hole." By the second episode, the Columbo-inspired, "inverted detective narrative" formula is fully established as a recurring thing, as we see the murder from the killer's perspective first, then the story flashes back to establish Charlie's presence and perspective of events leading up to the crime and following through to her solving it and moving on so as to avoid attention and capture, or worse. The third episode solidly establishes one of the series' darkest aspects: the idea that by connecting emotionally with a given character, Charlie—by degrees, but it's most obvious here—causes their death. Despite the introduction of recurring character FBI Special Agent Luca "Fake Nephew" Clark (Simon Helberg, The Big Bang Theory) and some fun guest stars like Tim Meadows, Ellen Barkin, Lil Rel Howry, Judith Light, and Nick Nolte, things progress pretty much according to formula for the first season and more than half of the second, often blurring together in recent memory. Some episodes ("Rest In Metal," "Exit Stage Death"—despite its kill twist being pretty creative—and "The Future Of the Sport" come to mind) suffer from annoyance and pacing in Season One, but I have my favorites. Between its noticeable and brilliant departure from formula, Joseph Gordon Levitt showing that he is still the best, and the suspense-heavy writing, "Escape From Shit Mountain" is the uncontested champ. But there's something about Benjamin Bratt delivering Blues Traveler lyrics as spoken-word poetry, his character being a Burn Notice fan, and Ron Perlman's casual menace that makes the season finale, "The Hook," a fun, memorable runner-up.

Season Two starts as a case of "here we go again," with Charlie on the run from yet another vengeful mob boss (Rhea Perlman—no relation) and the guest stars skewing more contemporary. Nothing truly annoys or drags this time around, but the trade-off is that the season's narrative feels desperately disjointed.

There are still a handful of interesting episodes, like the season opener where Wicked star Cynthia Erivo plays quintuplets fighting over an inheritance, the status quo-changing "Whack-A-Mole" (which kind of feels like an early panic-pivot to throw away the season's inciting serialized story because it's just the first season again with a different Perlman on the trigger and no Benjamin Bratt to liven things up), "The Taste Of Human Blood" (where Kumail Nanjiani plays a dated, "Tiger King for alligators" parody, we get to see a different, possibly supernatural angle to Charlie's gift, and Steve Buscemi starts a recurring but ultimately unimportant voice cameo as anonymous trucker "Good Buddy"), "Sloppy Joseph" (where the killer is an overachieving child and the victim is a gerbil), and "One Last Job" (a sendup of heist movie tropes with some Shining and Pulp Fiction references and a dark return to the "everyone Charlie loves dies and it's kind of her fault" plot point from "The Stall" in Season One). "The Sleazy Georgian" does basically the same thing for long con movie tropes, but comes out as the "Shit Mountain" of Season Two for its grey morality and willingness to play with formula.

The rest of the season tries its hand at being Only Murders In the Building and introduces Patti Harrison (Raya And the Last Dragon) as Alex, Charlie's ditzy new best friend with the most annoying faux-Asian side-bangs of all time, so she's probably going to die because Poker Face tropes, except she doesn't so there's probably something shady about her.

Turns out there is, and the way she gets around Charlie's uncanny bullshit detector totally retcons and ruins any previous mention of aura, instinct, or true nature insight in the series because Charlie's just subconsciously hypersensitive to all of the known, bitch-basic tells that register to the average detective, poker player, or polygraph machine (plus a few of those biometric-enhanced federal lie detectors they invent for science fiction movies). Yeah, it's all just sweat and pupil size and heartbeat and microexpressions; nothing special to see here, folks! Bullshit!

The future of the series is currently uncertain after the obvious mystery of the season finale and the insulting walkback of Charlie and "Alex" pulling a Thelma & Louise so the main character can go on the run (again, but from the FBI now because Rhea Perlman's character got assassinated and it was Charlie's fault...again) and get picked up by a trucker (who, I'm disappointed to say, was not Good Buddy) as the credits roll on "The End Of the Road." There's no mention of a third season, but Poker Face is still listed as ongoing, so we could get more of Fake Nephew and Alex (who seems to have survived driving off the edge of a deep canyon and exploding...twice...somehow) as Charlie stumbles upon new flavors of bloodshed and bullshit while trying to stay ahead of the federal government in the mid-2020s...somehow. Well, that last part is probably easier than expected because we all know who's in charge of the federal government right now, and as far as I know, ICE isn't targeting Italian gingers at the moment. Also, if Charlie listened to more than five minutes of Donald Trump speaking, it would probably kill her.

Anyway, I'd still watch a third season, even with the series' formulaic nature and the second season's myriad of issues and general smell of desperation because like I said at the beginning, I like crime shows.

If I weren't worried about The Algorithm, I would have worked Charlie's Out Of the Blue reference into the closing call to action. But I am worried that doing so might connect me to people of repugnant character whom I do not want Holding my proverbial Tickets. Also, I think there is a Blues Traveler song which captures the spirit of Poker Face better than "The Hook."

It's a little gem I last referenced in my Midnight Run reviews, titled "Run-Around":

Oh, once upon a midnight dreary

I woke with something in my head

I couldn't escape the memory

Of a phone call and of what you said

Like a game show contestant with a parting gift

I could not believe my eyes

When I saw through the thoughts of a trusted friend

Who needs to humor me and tell me lies, yeah humor me and tell me lies

And I'll lie too and say I don't mind

And as we seek so shall we find

And when you're feeling open I'll still be here

But not without a certain degree of fear

Well, what will be with you and me

I still can see things hopefully

But you

Why you wanna give me a run-around?

Is it a sure-fire way to speed things up?

When all it does is slow me down

Cue epic harmonica solo, Stay Tuned for the end of Winter In Summer in tomorrow's GFT Retrospective, and please remember to Become A Ticketholder

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Tickemaster,
I Fold.