Once upon a time At that time, most TV poker facenew peacock play created by glass onionof Ryan Johnson and starring russian dollof Natasha LyonneIt’s a purely episodic, weekly show. Each episode sets its own story, and Lyonne’s Charlie Cale finds a way to wrap it up by the end of his hour. There are some very loose ongoing threads, but in theory you could watch all but the first episode in any order and get the same enjoyment out of each one. and the ability of Johnson and the other writers and directors to make their individual stories so interesting that you’ll want to come back for more without any real hints. to be continued.
For decades, this has been the way television works.then came with wire, breaking bad, game of thronesAnd so on, and suddenly this week’s case has become obsolete — a simple one from a time before we knew television could be better. What was the point, if not contributing to the larger story in form?
In many ways, television has benefited from this change. The best shows of the century aim higher, dig deeper, and over the years, he’s given an incredible amount of time to tell one story about one set of characters. I was able to take advantage of it. But in other respects we really lost something. Serialization is as stylized as the purely episodic storytelling it once was. Too many showrunners — whether it’s screenwriters trying to stretch the plot of films that didn’t sell, or people who’ve learned all the wrong lessons from watching. The Sopranosor I thought it would be easier just to copy breaking badThe structure of — falsely assuming that the ongoing narrative is fundamentally interesting just because it runs for an entire season or series. Complexity is treated as rewarding in and of itself, not because it adds value to the story being told. So you get these long, amorphous sludge — “This is his ten-hour movie!” — all they care about is forward momentum, so they forget how to entertain.
So thanks to Johnson, Lyon and everyone involved in making it poker faceIt deploys all the best elements of its predecessors, but in a way that makes the show feel completely modern, just like it does. knife out When glass onion Inspired by Agatha Christie’s Mysteries without feeling like a dusty period piece.
It turns out that Charlie was once an unbeatable poker player. This is thanks to their extraordinary, essentially superhuman abilities. Eventually, she clashed with her wrong people and she now works as a cocktail waitress at a casino in Nevada. But as is the case with these kinds of shows, trouble inevitably keeps finding her, always in the form of murders that only she can solve, and she knows the killer is full of it.
The format is a mix of classics colombo Open mystery The approach taken by Johnson in the Benoît Blanc films. Each episode begins with 10-15 minutes of him without Charlie, meeting the killer and his victims, and seeing how and why the killing took place. The story then rewinds to show how Charlie knew these characters before finally figuring out what happened and how to get the bad guys to see justice. , in fact, the events of the first episode make her a fugitive and have to move anonymously from town to town, thus avoiding the law. (The only element going on is that Benjamin her Brat-played casino enforcer is chasing her across the country for the events of the pilot, but even that is relatively minor and given to critics. Rarely in the same episode.)
The setting and types of guest stars vary greatly from episode to episode. In one, she works at her Lil Rel Howery-run Texas BBQ. In another, she’s a roadie for the one-hit Wonder heavy metal band. Chloe Sevigny An aging frontwoman desperate for a comeback.
Lyonne’s already had a bit of Peter Falk’s Lt. Columbo, russian doll performance, Charlie is a very different kind of character. She is friendly and curious about the people and world around her. It’s a wholly engaging and triumphant performance, and she’s just as good in herself, tasting different types of wood to identify one of Lil Rel’s lies. Hong Chau (as an anti-social long-haul truck driver) or Ellen Barkin (as an ’80s TV star currently appearing in Dinner Theater).
Like the Bran movie, it’s a show that uses every part of the buffalo. No matter how throwaway a scene seems, even if, say, Charlie has an amusing encounter with a stranger in a trash can, the plot eventually turns out to have some significance. The whole thing is very clever and underfoot, including the many ways it manages to show the limits of being a human lie detector.
Having said that, poker face It’s become very rare—or at least, something this well-executed—at the risk of wildly overestimating it. Some episodes are stronger than others. For example, Episode 5 features Judith Wright and S. Epatha Merkerson as former ’70s revolutionaries. The combination of that premise and these great veteran actors is so strong that I almost forgot I was waiting for Charlie. The second episode opens only when we see the familiar mop of strawberry-blonde hair. And even when she does show up, the flashback segments might make you impatient at times to get to the part where Charlie starts punching holes in the killer’s story.colombo Episodes tended to run between 70 and 100 minutes, so there was plenty of time for Falk and guest stars to interact. After his 67-minute debut episode in which Charlie’s backstory and premise must be established, the other episodes are all less than an hour of his, and in some cases significantly shorter. )
But damn it, what a relief and joy it is to watch a TV show that actually wants to be a TV show and knows how to do it at this high level. Johnson and Lyon said what they want to make poker face As far as possible. I hope they get their chance. This guy is great.
the first four episodes of poker face It will begin streaming on Peacock on January 26th, with additional episodes released weekly. I watched the first 6 out of 10 episodes.