Poker Face Review: Natasha Lyonne Is A Modern-Day Columbo In Rian Johnson's Delightful Mystery-Of-The-Week Show
There's something cozy about "Columbo," which is an interesting angle since it's a show about murder. But watching Peter Falk's rumpled detective get the drop on smug killers who think they've gotten away with the perfect crime is both comforting and charming; it's hard not to have fun.
"Poker Face," the new Peacock series created by Rian Johnson, is gunning to be the "Columbo" heir-apparent, resulting in a warm, funny, and cozy series that, like "Columbo," is all about murder. Johnson has become renowned for his whodunits in the forms of "Knives Out" and the more recent "Glass Onion," but like "Columbo" before it, "Poker Face" is not a whodunit. Instead, it's what is traditionally known as a "howcatchem" — we already know who committed the crime. The mystery is in how the crime ends up solved.
Like "Columbo," "Poker Face" has a rumpled, laid-back, amusing protagonist — Charlie, played with a certain Falkishness by Natasha Lyonne. Lyonne, with her very distinct way of speaking and overall cool demeanor, is always fun to watch. I don't know if I'd say she has a wide range of parts she can play, but Lyonne is very good at playing a particular type of character, and that's what she gets to do here.
Unlike Columbo, though, Charlie isn't a cop. She's not even really a detective. But she does possess a unique gift: she can always tell when people are lying, like a human lie detector. Charlie can't quite explain how her gift works. It's just a certain feeling she gets when talking to people. Whenever she's speaking with someone — even someone she just met — she can always, and I mean always, tell when they're bending the truth. As you might imagine, such an ability can come in handy when murder is involved.
Crime of the week
"Poker Face" arose from Johnson and Lyonne's shared love of detective stories — and old TV. "I'd been thinking about the types of TV that I grew up watching as a kid like 'Magnum P.I.,' or 'Murder, She Wrote,' or 'The A-Team,' or 'Quantum Leap' and how fun it could be to do a crime-of-the-week show like that with the strangeness and the style that I like to use in movies," Johnson said.
The end result definitely feels like a cozy throwback to those classic shows — while still feeling modern, but not too modern. Unlike Johnson's "Knives Out" films, "Poker Face" doesn't date itself with uber-current cultural references. Instead, it's willing to coast on both its tales of crimes — and its highly likable lead. This gives the show an overall throwback feel that makes the entire experience all the more enjoyable.
"I loved the idea of doing a series with a complete story in each episode that had a continuous character you could count on being there," Johnson said. "But the reality is, if you look at any of those shows, they're all built around a charismatic lead who can hold the screen not just as a movie star, but as a personality you want to hang out with every week and watch win."
With her gruff voice, thrift-store chic attire, and laissez-faire attitude, Lyonne's Charlie becomes our easy-to-love hero, stumbling into one murder after another. After a premiere episode that establishes who Charlie is and what she does, the character hits the road. She has a reason to be on the road — she's on the run from some shady criminals. Charlie's nomadic nature allows her to move from one town to the next, and wherever she goes, murder awaits.
In true "Columbo" fashion, each episode of "Poker Face" begins without Charlie. Instead, we're introduced to a character who will die before the prologue ends and a character who will kill them. The crimes range from genuinely disturbing to comical, and nothing is ever as it seems.
After we're introduced to the crime at hand, episodes of "Poker Face" then jump back in time to show us how it all started. And along the way we learn that Charlie was hanging out in the background all along, waiting to be drawn into the mystery via her propensity for sniffing out a lie.
Addictive, episodic TV
While the overarching story of Charlie's life on the lam hovers over the show, each episode of "Poker Face" is self-contained, and that makes the series all the more rewarding. You don't need to enter the show with baggage. You don't have to bone up on source material and do homework to make sure you understand everything going on. You just need to know the basic premise — Charlie can tell when characters are lying! — and go from there.
The crime-of-the-week format allows for plenty of guest stars (and guest criminals), including Adrien Brody, Chloë Sevigny, Ellen Barkin, Hong Chau, Jameela Jamil, Stephanie Hsu, Tim Meadows, and many more. But it's Lyonne's amateur sleuth that keeps things centered and moving. The format of each episode also grips us — we start with the murder and then have to work backward to figure out how it all really went down. The format proves addictive — I kept telling myself, "Okay, I'll stop after this episode," only to then immediately want to watch the following episode to give me my crime-of-the-week fix.
Of course, how I watch the show and how you watch the show is bound to be different since I was provided with screeners (I've seen six episodes of the 10-episode first season). The episodic nature of "Poker Face" is the antithesis of the binge-watching model, and indeed, the series will be released weekly (after the first four episodes drop at once, that is). My suggestion, dear reader, is for you to savor "Poker Face." Embrace the mystery-of-the-week nature of the show and travel along with Charlie as she gets mixed up in one murder after another. You may think you have the mystery solved, but you're not a human lie detector. There's always one more rock to overturn and one more discovery to be made.
"Poker Face" premieres January 26, 2023, on Peacock with 4 episodes at launch, followed by a new episode streaming Thursdays.