Cynthia Erivo as a DJ. Cynthia Erivo as a mixed-media artist living off the grid. Cynthia Erico as an…apple picker? Those are just three of the six personas she inhabits in the first episode of Season 2 of Poker Face, and it’s up to Natasha Lyonne’s character Charlie Cale to figure it all out.
Because as in every chapter of Peacock’s hit series co-created by Lyonne and Rian Johnson, there’s a murder involved, and one of the Cynthia Erivos in the episode entitled “The Game is a Foot” did it.
For those just coming into the series, Charlie is not really a detective but rather a human lie detector, which is her superpower in finding the perpetrator of a killing she encounters as she is on the run in her powder blue Plymouth Barracuda.
She’s escaping the hitmen from a Vegas casino that she angered with her ability to discern the truth.
As she goes off the grid across the country, always landing low-paying jobs in out-of-the-way places, each episode gives us a prologue introducing the guest stars and the murder before Charlie shows up on the scene.
The proceedings beg the question – is she herself the magnet for murder? She certainly has a talent for locating them, and a talent for making a lot of friends along the way.
Well into the second season, she still hasn’t figured out a good strategy for using her lie-detecting talents, often confronting dangerous suspects without a backup plan or an escape route.
And the bad guys periodically show up in unexpected places to confront her, guns in hand.
Yet Charlie somehow always escapes their murderous intentions, hitting the road in her highly identifiable car.
There is a huge roster of guest stars that appear during the 12 episodes of Season 2. They include Margo Martindale, Jason Ritter, David Alan Grier, Rhea Perlman, Richard Kind, Simon Helberg, Taylor Schilling, B.J. Novak, Awkwafina, Carol Kane, Corey Hawkins, David Krumholz, Gaby Hoffmann, Natasha Leggero, Lili Taylor, Ego Nwodim, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Rex, John Mulaney, Katie Holmes, Kumail Nanjiani, Melanie Lynskey and Haley Joel Osment.
The first three episodes premiere Thursday, May 8, with the remaining episodes dropping every Thursday after that. If you want to catch up on Charlie’s journey to day, you can stream all of Season 1 right here!
