One Thing I Love About Poker Face: “The Game is a Foot”

I absolutely loved the first season of Poker Face and was already excited to see where it would go in the next season, even before the next season was confirmed.

One of the many, many things I liked about it was that it was straddling multiple eras. It’s a celebration of classic television — not just in art direction, but in the anthology format, the prominent placement of guest stars, and most obviously, all the references to Columbo. But at the same time, it’s defiantly not a period piece, with many of the plots making use of ubiquitous smart phones, and an undercurrent of 21st century social media-driven culture running through everything.

I’d expected the second season to follow roughly the same format, starting with an episode setting up the season-long premise of Charlie being on the run yet again, this time from a different unseen crime boss. So I was delighted to see that the first episode had almost no interest in being an “anchor” for very serious world- and lore-building, but instead just wanted to have fun being cleverly goofy.

My favorite thing in the episode was the first act. The entire first season was an extended example of gathering some of the smartest screenwriters and giving them free rein to experiment with all the different ways you can use Columbo‘s reveal-the-killer-in-the-first-act formula. It always results in brilliant cases of seeing things in a new context: oh, here’s where we’re seeing the same events from Charlie’s perspective, or this thing actually happened because of that other thing, or this character was actually motivated by that. For anybody who’s ever spent any time breaking down a story, it made each episode feel like a masterfully elaborate magic trick.

This episode piled so many layers of ideas on top of each other, with one complication on top of another, that you couldn’t help but feel sympathy for its villain, and feel her stress for the moment when everything would hopelessly fall apart. Even while the tone of everything was so deliberately wacky — ending the episode with TMBG’s “I Palindrome I” and “Someday mother will die and we’ll get the money” was a perfect, chef’s-kiss flourish — that I was laughing out loud more often than I have since watching The Good Place.

When they first announced the season, it was with a huge focus on the guest stars, and Cynthia Erivo in particular. I assumed it was to piggy-back off of the huge press push for Wicked — not in any way intended to be dismissive of her work, but simply because I’m not familiar with her work but am extremely familiar with how network marketing works. And I was mistaken. This is absolutely a showcase for her, and she gives an outstanding, backwards-and-in-high-heels performance.

I worry that it won’t be recognized as such, because it’s comedic. But the fact that it’s in such a broadly comedic episode is exactly why it’s so impressive. She has to play five different characters. All ranging in tone from completely grounded, to over-the-top caricatures. One of whom is a mild parody of her off-screen persona. Another who’s explicitly described as a bad actress. And is frequently having to play one of the other characters but still be immediately recognized to the audience as someone else. And who’s a bad actress afraid of being caught in a lie, but genuinely moved by hearing people being sympathetic to her real identity. It seems like something that’s made more challenging because the episode is so unapologetically silly.

Jasmine Guy is also excellent at selling a performance that doesn’t allow for any trace of nuance but still has to feel real enough for you to sympathize with a murderer.

And just like the first act kept piling on complications for Amber, the rest of the episode is just layers on layers of brilliant, dumb jokes. I want to see a full episode of Kid Cop Nights now as much as I want to see Spooky and the Cop. Especially the one where she’s on the hunt for the Zodiac killer. I love the idea of television producers (and a stage mom) so crass that they have a series starring a child set primarily at night, and they get around child labor issues by casting quadruplets. I love that ever since childhood, Amber has been so completely committed to making “butt-munch” a catchphrase. And I love the fact that the way Charlie finally figures out what happened (after initially assuming sixtuplets) is by making a connection through Kevin Bacon.

Few things make me happier than seeing smart people having fun being silly and stupid. I love that the makers of Poker Face weren’t afraid of starting the season that went all-in on comedy, worried that it’d be too frivolous and would be better saved for later in the season, and they still came out with a kind of mission statement for the series. Even when they’re not making intricately-crafted murder mysteries, they’re making intricately-crafted, virtuosic television.