Poker Face: Rian Johnson's Howdunit Delves Into Inscrutability Of Human Nature

This column was originally published as part of our newsletter The Daily Show on June 19, 2023. Subscribe here. (We're awesome about not spamming your inbox!)

***

WE have all lied and we have all been lied to. There is nothing more rudimentary and more human, inescapably so. Sometimes, it is a reassuring “I’m all right” when we aren’t. Sometimes, it bears a more sordid design. For many, it is the default mode of communication. Politicians, businessmen and criminals alike seem to have settled on the credo of “when in doubt, lie; if caught, cover it up with another.” When facts are twisted and truth distorted every day to fit self-serving agendas, how do you spot a lie?

For starters, look to the grand lie of fiction for the truth. Crime mysteries are overrun by cops, detectives, PIs and amateur sleuths searching for behavioural cues. If the suspect is avoiding eye contact, changing posture, touching the nose, or fidgeting, the suspect is likely lying and therefore guilty. But fear and stress may make an innocent person under suspicion just as prone to uncharacteristic body language. Even if you possessed, let’s say, a preternatural ability to tell apart lies from the truth, it only means you know you are being deceived, not the truth being concealed.

You May Like: Horror's Homemade Arsenal, As Deployed By The Evil Dead 

Therein, between deception and detection, lies the sublime tension of Poker Face. Natasha Lyonne is Charlie Cale, a human polygraph with a nose for trouble. On the run from mafioso, Charlie keeps stumbling onto fishy crime scenes wherever she goes and decides to put her abilities to good use. Lyonne carries a disarming patina of salty naturalism that obliges the suspects into dropping their guard in Charlie’s presence. The husky voice, dishevelled hair and unassuming nature ends up deceiving the deceivers. Just when the murderers discount her intelligence and think they might have gotten away, there’s always that nagging inconsistency, that “one more thing”, Charlie weaponises to corner them into confession. The persona and MO of Charlie in Poker Face are sure to stir up stardust memories of the OG bullshit detector: Peter Falk’s cigar-chomping, everyman detective Columbo.

Right from the opening title cards in trademark yellow typeface, there is no doubt as to what is Rian Johnson’s principal source of inspiration for his case-of-the-week mysteries. As was the case in Columbo, Poker Face too lets the audience in on the murder. We come into each episode already some steps ahead of Charlie. We see the crime, the victim and the perpetrator — meaning the murder itself is no mystery. Where the crux lies is in how Charlie will expose the suspect. Once her suspicions are set alight by mistruthing (as Benoit Blanc might say), it sets in motion a psychological cat-and-mouse game. Knowing who the perpetrator is beforehand ensures we can’t be cheated with red herrings and misdirects. Because Johnson wishes for the viewer to join Charlie in her deductive process, as she unpicks lie by lie to get to that “gotcha!” moment.

Editor's Pick: Murder On The Reorient Express 

Each episode is built on an infrastructure of character-driven puzzle boxes so gripping it is sure to leave pronounced butt imprints on the sofa cushion. With the Knives Out movies and now Poker Face, Johnson has proven himself to be quite the master at composing murder-mystery orchestras with a full house of moving parts. As Charlie hits the open road, bouncing between cities and small-town Americana, she comes across a colourful palette of characters with skeletons in their closets. Dropping by as perps and victims of the week are the starry likes of Adrien Brody, Lil Rel Howery, Chloë Sevigny, Ellen Barkin, Tim Meadows, Tim Blake Nelson, Nick Nolte, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Stephanie Hsu — all of whom turn in some delicious character work.

Murderers here come from all wakes of life: a mechanic desperate for a lottery ticket to get out of Dodge, a barbecue king desperate to hold onto his empire, an ageing racer desperate to fortify his legacy, one-hit wonders desperate to become relevant again, washed-up veteran actors desperate to make a comeback, and casino managers, Hollywood execs and insider traders desperate to cover up previous crimes. 

Sometimes, desperation is the mother of innovation. Sometimes, it is the mother of death and destruction. The problem for Charlie is wherever she goes, trouble follows. Just as soon as catches one desperado red-handed, she bumps into another one. When we first meet her, she is working as a cocktail waitress at a casino and happily living in a trailer somewhere in the Vegas desert. Until uncovering the truth about her friend and colleague’s murder puts her in the crosshairs of the baddies running the casino. From there, Charlie flees from state to state with nothing but her car and cigarettes, taking on whatever job she can find to pay for food and shelter, only to be pulled into solving the murder of another friend or colleague.

Child's Play: How Horror's Creepiest Toys Channel Human Fears 

Where Poker Face differs from Columbo is Charlie is a civilian, DIY-kind of sleuth. For she is working from outside the system in an unofficial capacity. Meaning she has to seek the truth and catch the perp without the power and resources that law enforcement officers have ready access to. Catching the guilty party on a lie is only Step 1. The challenge for Charlie is to figure out the incriminating evidence the police missed — without DNA profiling, fingerprint identification, CCTV footage, GPS, case files and vehicle registration details. But not having these tools of the trade, that we take for granted, puts the emphasis on Charlie’s artful grilling of the perps.

Even as the pieces fall into place and Charlie helps the victims get justice, there is a palpable sadness at the end of each episode. Over having to leave the tiny corner where Charlie attempts to find some connection or community. Over having to leave the broken people she meets along the way, from a nomadic trucker to a retired special-effects artist, who help her adapt to living a life on the road. Over having to leave a world which resonates far beyond the boundaries of plot. But foremost over having to leave Charlie, a woman who just wants to live her truth in a world where lying has become an artform unto itself.

Stream now.