Earlier I said that I was hoping that Season 2 of Poker Face would start leaning away from the comedy a bit and more towards detective stories. Episode 6, “Sloppy Joseph,” isn’t really much of a detective story, but it was so well plotted and executed that it’s already become my favorite of the season.
The setting is an elite private school for young children, and the concept of pitting an adult against a horribly-driven over-achieving child seems like it’d turn into a younger version of Election. They even used an equivalent to that movie’s use of Ennio Morricone-style music to show Tracy Flick’s rage; in “Sloppy Joseph,” whenever demon child Stephanie goes on the warpath, we hear “Spitfire” by The Prodigy.
The unsettling black comedy about teenage politics in Election would be horribly tone-deaf with prepubescent children, so Poker Face wisely keeps it low-stakes. The murder here is upsetting enough to make you intensely dislike the villain, but isn’t on the same scale as, say, a man murdering his wife with a fireplace poker, or a woman murdering her sister by pushing her off a cliff.
And yet, I loved how thoroughly this episode manipulated me. I really wanted terrible, life-ruining things to happen to that child. And for Charlie to bring down her horrible boss, who was clearly enabling the villain. So when we got the reveal of who was giving Charlie insider information to help bring the murderer to justice, I had to pause the episode. Just to say out loud how much I loved how they put everything together.
My favorite moment in the episode is when Stephanie becomes outraged that Charlie’s figured out a way to use the kids’ kindness to defeat her, and she takes off to do the worst thing she can think of, “Spitfire” playing to represent her blind fury. There’s a camera cut and the music suddenly stops, just to remind us that this climactic moment is just a little girl running down a hallway. A teacher calmly and quietly says, “No running.”
I loved having the realization that I’d gotten so caught up in the story, and so caught up in the injustice of the whole situation, that I’d started to think of it in the same way as the other episodes, which deal with actual murders.
It culminated in such a sweet ending (before the final stinger!) that was a reminder of what seems to be turning into the season’s overall themes: having sympathy for and showing grace to even the seemingly irredeemable. And recognizing that “justice” doesn’t just mean punishing the guilty, but getting a resolution where everyone gets what they need and they deserve.
Stephanie Pearce looked like a cross between Wednesday Addams and Rhoda Penmark (“The Bad Seed”).