Audiences around the world have been raving about it, and our own Clarisse Loughrey certainly wasn’t skimping on praise in her review. So no doubt you’ve been champing at the bit to get your eyes on Poker Face. Well, you’re in luck: the show is streaming on NOW in the UK right, well, now.
Created by Rian Johnson (who directed the only interesting Star Wars movie since 1980), Poker Face is a cozy case-of-the-week mystery series set firmly in the Columbo mould. Our heroine is groovy, laid-back drifter Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne in the role she’ll be remembered for), who has one quasi-supernatural ability: she can always tell when somebody is lying.
This ability leads her to uncovering a murder at the casino where she works, rather annoying the mob scion who runs it (Adrien Brody). He sics the ruthless Cliff LeGrand (Benjamin Bratt), which is plenty of motivation for Charlie to hit the road, where every town holds a new mystery for her to dig into. As in Columbo, the audience always knows who the bad guy is; the fun comes in seeing how Charlie winnows out the truth.
In effect, this means we get a pretty self-contained and adroitly plotted little morality play every episode (there are 10 in total this first season) each with a jaw-dropping cast. It seems everyone wants to play at Rian’s house after the success of Knives Out and Glass Onion, and one of the show’s chief joys is seeing who shows up in each instalment—Nick Nolte? Tim Meadows? Judith Light? Hong Chau? Chloe Sevigny? Barely scratching the surface.
Marrying the charms of classic mystery shows with the dextrous writing and arch sensibilities of modern prestige television, Poker Face is beyond the shadow of a doubt one the best series to debut in the past year, anchored by Lyonne’s self-effacing, snarky turn as the down-at-heel but morally righteous Charlie. It’s near-perfect TV—so deal yourself in.
