Two Things I Like About Poker Face Season 2

My take on the first episode of season 2 of Poker Face was that I appreciated that they committed to being unapologetically goofy, instead of launching into a long story arc and saving the silly episodes for mid-season. As it turns out, that does seem to be less of a fun and clever misdirection, and more a like a genuine mission statement for the season.

All of the new episodes have been leaning hard into the idea that this is a comedy show first, a detective show a distant second.

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since there’s been some really good stuff in every episode. It’s still a very clever and funny series, and it’s doing stuff unlike any other series in recent memory. But as someone who really enjoys over-thinking popular entertainment, it doesn’t give me a whole lot to work with.

A lot of the funniest and most satisfying moments in season one came from the format: seeing all of these weird connections forming as we go back in time and re-contextualize everything knowing Charlie was somewhere in the background, making pieces fall into place for later. Unfortunately, some of the clunkiest moments in season one came from trying to do straightforward comedy. Charlie running around wearing a horse’s head and doing slapstick being the prime example. I love it when smart, clever people let themselves be goofy and silly, but there’s a very fine line between silly and corny.

Anyway, my favorite bit in episode 3, “Whack-a-Mole,” was when the mole was using an FBI lipreader to dictate a conversation through binoculars. Hearing tense dialog delivered in a flat monotone: always hilarious. Especially when the conversation diverged into musical theater.

My favorite bit in episode 4, “The Taste of Human Blood,” was when the Flopa Cops award was being announced for Best Undercover Operation. As the winner “Diego” “Verbinski” “the Third” is announced, we see a nondescript janitor hiding behind a curtain at the back of the theater silently give himself a fist pump. Solid gold.1

Even though the jokes are broad — and Kumail Nanjiani’s Florida Panhandle accent is horrible, even taking into account it’s trying to be over the top — the episodes still fit squarely into the “voice” of Poker Face. The guest stars are John Mulaney and Richard Kind, Gaby Hoffmann (who, like Natasha Lyonne, is a New Yorker who acted as a child and teenager and had a career resurgence as an adult) and John Sayles as a cop trying to put an end to the “Florida Man” stereotype. And the transcendent moments when a character looks into the eyes of Daisy the alligator are the kind of surreal touch you don’t expect in a detective series.

But more than that, there’s a strong sense of good-hearted morality to both of these episodes.2 The first season had a recurring idea of Charlie being driven by a sense of justice, and we always had to see the bad guys get what was coming to them.

So far in season two, there’s more a sense of sympathy for the villains. Even with the mostly irredeemable character that Giancarlo Esposito played, there was an attempt to get him out alive. A lot of the time in season one, I was yelling at the screen to try and get Charlie to stop walking into danger; with episode 4 of season 2, I was yelling at Fran the cop to stop before she went too far. And even mob boss Beatrix Hasp was given more sympathy than John Mulaney’s character. Maybe it’s because killing both Richard Kind and Rhea Perlman in the same episode would’ve gone way too far, but I was happy to see her get the promise of a life in witness protection.

And that’s the last thing that makes Poker Face feel so unique: it’s eager to change up its formula and experiment with new things. The season one finale clearly set up the next season to have the same overall structure, which was abruptly wrapped up in episode 3. I’m not sure whether they planned it to be a curveball from the start, or whether they got partway into plotting the second season and realized they were bored of repeating themselves. Either way, I haven’t seen a series so willing to change its episodic TV structure and go off in new directions since The Good Place.

I’d be lying (and everyone would be able to tell I was lying) if I said I weren’t a little apprehensive about where the rest of the season is going. I’d like it to lean back into the murder mystery side of things, and hit more of a balance between comedy and detective story. But I’d be even more disappointed if it settled into boring predictability and stopped trying to do weird, new things.

1
Yes, I’m aware that they had him show up later on, remove his fake beard, and announce that he’s a cop. I’m choosing to ignore that because the joke was perfect without it.

2
And the second episode, for that matter, although I didn’t have anything of interest to say about it.

1 Yes, I’m aware that they had him show up later on, remove his fake beard, and announce that he’s a cop. I’m choosing to ignore that because the joke was perfect without it.

2 And the second episode, for that matter, although I didn’t have anything of interest to say about it.