5 out of 5

Created by: Rian Johnson

covers season 1

I kept trying to break down this review in a few different ways, but it really kept coming back around to something pretty straightforward: that Poker Face’s concept is perfect.

We like crime-of-the-week mystery shows; that’s well-established. But it can be pretty dang hard to come up with compelling crimes week after week, and even given that you can knock out a minimum amount of those, there’s still another roadblock: how do you make solving those conundrums fun, without making too many noticeable leaps in logic? While it’s pretty cool that TV detectives are all Sherlock Holmeses, I know we’ve all experienced those head-shaking moments where the jump from clue A to the conclusion is just too ridiculous, or sometimes… dumb, and not detective-y at all.

Poker Face has a brilliant solve for that: Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) can tell when you’re lying. It hits her with a kneejerk response, calling “bullshit” out loud. This isn’t a semi-accurate detector, but a 100%, unbeatable skill. It doesn’t require forensic know-how, or to know obstruse factoids, and it dances just to the left of believability – I mean, we can get a sense when someone’s lying, right? – that the added quirky style of the show helps to push it into territory where we just buy it, no problem. Charlie can tell when you’re lying. And given that, it is ridiculously easy – and entertaining! – to drop the character into any given mystery and just let her loose, calling bullshit and then giving her a reason to ask, well, why might they be lying about this or that little detail?

Affix this concept to a Columbo “howcatchem,” where we know he committed the crime and maybe even why, but the fun is in watching the hero piece it together, and Poker Face’s creator, Rian Johnson, and Lyonne, and a crazy talented stack of costars, writers, directors, have landed on this perfect concept, extensible to however many episodes and seasons they’re down with, which I hope are very many.

Er, though I suppose there’s a caveat here: Lyonne’s performance is probably an acquired taste. There’s an underplayed slacker cool to it, and you’ll immediately know if you’re fine with the offhand, bland style. If not – you’re out of luck. She’s central to how this works, though she’ll generally show up only halfway through most episodes, when we rewind after seeing the crime to show how Charlie gets involved. But if you can deal with it, or if, like me, you kinda love it, Poker Face is quite possibly the most effective vehicle for it.

Something else that I think bumps this into greatness is that it juggles being both a linear story and crime-of-the-week, without pausing one for the other. The first episode sets up events such that Charlie has to be on the run from some folk who don’t appreciate her crime-solving abilities – a force represented by an enjoyably menacing Benjamin Bratt – and thus gives her a reason to change locations along the way, staying on the move. And her bullshit ability makes it hard for her to ignore when something is clearly – to her – awry… It’s a traveling hero format that’s given a sense of progress by its frame. Just another checkmark of brilliance at work.

Johnson’s style helps set the tone, which definitely follows on his Knives Out ensemble Clue vibes, and his brother Nathan is again handling music, crafting a flexible, recognizable theme for Charlie that morphs from locale to locale. The travelings sticks to dusty settings for the most part, but the production design makes each of them feel distinct, and very lived in – and we do get changeups in central set pieces / conceits, like a gas station or a stage play or a casino, not to mention the rolling queue of the aforementioned costars, who are either absolutely having a gas playing various ne’er-do-wells, or are doing a damned good job convincing me they are.

Meanwhile, I’m doing my darndest to convince you that I had a gas watching this show. Sure, even given its cleverness, some of its bits and pieces can feel forced, but it is so overwhelmingly smart and funny and just danged solid in every other way that I can’t even sweat those totally tiny details.