Poker Face Season 2 Fixes The Biggest Problem With Season 1

Spoilers for "Poker Face" season 2 follow.

"Poker Face" is back for season 2 (read our review here), and I couldn't be more delighted. Rian Johnson's wonderful little streaming series is what's called a "howcatchem" rather than a "whodunit": while there's a murder at the center of every episode, these aren't murder mysteries, at least not to the audience. Borrowing a page out of the "Columbo" playbook, each episode tells us who the killer is upfront. From there, it's up to the show's main sleuth, Charlie Cale, to crack the case. Unlike Columbo, Charlie, as played by Natasha Lyonne, isn't a professional detective. However, she does have the uncanny ability to know when someone is lying; she's basically a human lie detector. Because of this gift, Charlie is always able to tell when a killer is bending the truth, and she usually takes it upon herself to save the day and catch the villain — a decision that often lands her in hot water.

There's something incredibly comforting about "Poker Face," which is odd considering each episode begins with someone being violently murdered. Indeed, there's a certain bleakness to the show: the celebrity guest murderers are often greedy, opportunistic people who kill for money, self preservation, or out of pure jealousy and/or spite. And yet ... "Poker Face" is somehow warm and fuzzy (and funny). Part of that has to do with the show's throwback charms: Johnson and his team are trying to invoke well-worn TV mystery shows like the aforementioned "Columbo" and "The Rockford Files." As a result, "Poker Face" feels both nostalgic and fresh at the same time.

I was a fan of "Poker Face" season 1 (here's my review of that season) but I think I like season 2 even more. For one thing, while season 1 was solid, there were one or two episodes (I'm looking at you, "Time of the Monkey") that didn't quite land with me. With season 2, all of the episodes (or at least all of the episodes I've seen; I was given 10 out of the total 12) are a hit. On top of that, season 2 also fixes one of the biggest issues I had with season 1: it quickly wraps up a running plotline that the show simply didn't need anymore.

Since Charlie isn't a real detective, "Poker Face" needed to find a way to explain why she keeps stumbling into different murder mystery cases. I get that. And yet, the idea the show cooked up never really did much for me.

In the premiere episode, we learn that Charlie is a cocktail waitress working at a casino being run by the crooked Sterling Frost Jr., played by Adrien Brody. Frost is responsible for the murder of one of Charlie's co-workers, and Charlie eventually solves the crime — an action that causes Frost to commit suicide rather than suffer the consequences.

Unfortunately, Frost happens to be the son of a powerful gangster, played by Ron Perlman. Frost Sr. swears revenge against Charlie for driving his son to suicide, which sends Charlie on the run. The bulk of season 1 has Charlie moving from one town to the next to evade death. Season 1 eventually got around to wrapping this storyline up ... only to then reintroduce it all over again. While Charlie is able to get herself out of the situation with Frost Sr., she finds herself targeted for death yet again by a completely different gangster, Beatrix Hasp, played by Rhea Perlman. Once again, Charlie is on the run. 

Again: I get why "Poker Face" introduced the whole "Charlie is on the run" idea as a way of moving her from one town to the next so she can stumble into odd jobs that involve various murders. But I was never particularly interested in that running (pun intended? maybe?) plotline. The show worked best when it was just letting Charlie do her thing, and every time it reminded us of the plotline involving gangsters trying to kill her, "Poker Face" sagged. I was worried season 2 was going to keep making this same mistake, and sure enough, as the new season begins, we get a funny little montage where Charlie keeps changing jobs and locations as hitmen fire guns at her.

But thankfully, the writers of "Poker Face" seem to have realized they simply don't need this storyline of Charlie being constantly on the run. The third episode of season 2, titled "Whack-A-Mole," succinctly wraps things up. First, Beatrix Hasp finally catches up with Charlie and demands the human lie detector help her find a rat (or perhaps a mole?) inside her organization. The snitch turns out to be Hasp's own husband, played by Richard Kind. Unfortunately, he ends up getting killed due to the actions of a corrupt FBI agent, played by John Mulaney.

Eventually, though, things are resolved, and, with a little encouragement from Charlie's pal, FBI agent Luca Clark (Simon Helberg), Hasp agrees to lift the contract on Charlie's life. She's officially no longer on the run, "Poker Face" continues onward, and the results speak for themselves. Charlie still finds herself stumbling into murder mysteries, but at least she doesn't have to worry about contract killers on her tail anymore, and the show is all the better because of this decision.

The first three episodes of "Poker Face" season 2 are now streaming on Peacock, with new episodes arriving Thursdays.