Diksha Sundriyal
Peacock’s ‘Poker Face’ returns with a second season, pushing Natasha Lyonne’s Charlie Cale into loads of trouble as she traverses her way through the country while fleeing from the mob. The shadow of the mob refuses to leave her behind, and by the time we catch up with her, she has been trying her best to evade the men sent by Beatrix Hasp and the five families as they relentlessly chase her, no matter how far she goes. The first three episodes of the season give us a mix of cases where Charlie is challenged physically and mentally, while also giving us a serious update on her status with the mob. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Game is A Foot
Before we meet Charlie again, we are taken to a huge mansion where a woman named Amber lives with her ailing mother. For the past few years, she has been taking care of the old woman, but instead of love and gratitude, she has received nothing but scorn from her. Still, Amber believes she will be rewarded for her service, hoping that she will have a huge part to play in her mother’s will. But then, at the last moment, her mother decides to change things up. The lawyer reveals that she has thrown Amber and her three sisters out of the will, and has left everything for a woman named Felicity Price. When Amber goes looking for Felicity, she discovers that this woman looks exactly like her. It seems that their mother had given birth to quintuplets, but the fifth, Felicity, remained out of the picture because she was taken away by their father, who died a while back in a car crash.
It isn’t just that Felicity is going to get the inheritance, but also that she is a successful and revered artist. This is what Amber wanted for herself, but her mother never gave her the confidence to pursue her dreams. Refusing to let Felicity live her dream life, Amber decides to steal it from her. She kills Felicity, but makes it look like she has killed herself. This way, she can impersonate Felicity in front of the world and get the inheritance. Charlie comes into the picture through Amber’s sister, who is now resigned to working on an apple farm. It turns out that the four sisters— Amber, Bebe, Cece, and Delia- worked on a show called Kid Cop Nights, in which they all played the same role. This was their mom’s idea to keep them working, and all the money that came from it went to her. She never gave a penny of it to her daughters, and neither was she grateful for them bringing in this wealth for her.
This is why, when she dies, all four sisters believe that they deserve the inheritance. But now, everything is going to Felicity, and that changes everything. The moment Charlie meets Felicity, who is actually Amber, she can sense that something is amiss. It takes her a while to understand that the sister who died was Felicity, and another one has taken her place. Everything would have gone according to plan for Amber if it hadn’t been for Felicity’s prosthetic leg, which was a major part of her art and identity. In the end, Charlie uses the said leg to prove that the victim is Felicity and the culprit is Amber. This revelation leads the other three sisters to get their inheritance, while Amber goes to prison. Charlie, meanwhile, continues her run from the mob.
Last Looks
The second episode of the season takes Charlie to a film set. She is drawn into the picture due to her car, which is seen as a potentially great thing to be featured in a film. Charlie likes the money, so she gives up the vehicle for rent. But then, she is asked to be an extra, where she has to play dead, and because the money is good, she decides to take the job. The filming takes place in a funeral home owned by a man called Fred, who is exceptionally devoted to the place. It has been in his family for generations, and he is obsessed with the idea of keeping the sanctity of the place. He is irritated by the crew’s presence in his house, which could happen only because his wife, Greta, wanted it. She is fascinated by the idea of movies, especially because she has a talent for makeup and wants to do something better than dressing up dead people for their funeral.
She feels stunted in her life and marriage, where her husband seems more concerned with the funeral home than her. When the film crew comes to their place, she finds it refreshing to meet new people, including Charlie. She is happy to befriend them, and even happier to discover that one of them can hook her up with a job in Miami, which had always been her dream. She decides to take the chance and leave with the crew, but when she tells her husband this, he gets angry. Unable to accept the fact that his wife is going to leave him, he kills her. The fact that the film is about a murder helps him hide the evidence of his wife’s murder. The next day, the crew returns to take away their stuff. By this time, Fred has already cremated Greta and left her remains in a box, which is also taken away by the crew.
He thinks that no one will miss his wife, but then Charlie comes and asks for her. It turns out that Greta had partied with Charlie and the crew the previous night and disclosed plans to leave her husband and move to Miami. So, when she is nowhere to be found in the morning, Charlie gets worried about her. While her husband seems to be telling the truth about her leaving with the crew, Charlie is not convinced. She keeps digging into it until eventually, she finds Greta’s phone in Fred’s possession. However, before she can do something about it, he drugs her, puts her in a coffin, and is ready to cremate her. She wakes up just in time to rescue herself, but that ends up with burning down the entire building. While Charlie runs away, Fred decides to stay back and let the flames devour him.
Whack-A-Mole
When Charlie escapes Fred’s burning funeral home, she hopes for some peace and quiet. But even before she can light a cigarette for herself, let alone gather her thoughts, she finds a gun pointed at her. It seems that Beatrix Hasp has found her and she has a job for her. With the Feds on her tail, Beatrix is thinking about leaving the country, but she worries that there is a rat in her organisation who has been feeding the Feds info on her. She knows Charlie can tell when someone is lying, so she gets her to find the rat’s identity. Interestingly, Beatrix’s partner, Jeffrey, has been working with the authorities, but Charlie keeps it a secret. She immediately calls Luca, who reveals that they have been planning to arrest Beatrix for a while now, but things are complicated because there is a mole in the FBI, working for Beatrix.
Unbeknownst to Luca, the mole is his partner and friend, Danny, who is ready to go to any lengths to save himself. After a lot of effort, he finally discovers that Jeffrey is the mole, but is relieved when the man refuses to tell Luca about the identity of Beatrix’s mole. Jeffrey agrees to divulge that information when he is safely in witness protection, for which a plan is made out. A trap is laid for Beatrix and her people, where Luca will fire blanks at Jeffrey and make it look like he is dead. However, Danny swaps one of the blanks with a live round, so when the time comes, Jeffrey is killed for good.
Her partner’s death leads Beatrix to unravel, and she attacks Charlie, but at the same time, she is heartbroken to discover that Jeffrey betrayed her. With Charlie trapped in the cockpit of the plane that was supposed to be Beatrix and her men’s getaway vehicle, the Feds try to find a common ground with her. They want to arrest her, but with the ongoing hostage situation, they are not able to do anything about it. Refusing to let Charlie be harmed, Luca risks entering the plane, where he asks Beatrix to make a deal with him. If she tells him who the mole is, she can be sent to witness protection, rather than prison. He supports his argument with the fact that her mole was responsible for the live round that killed Jeffrey.
Mourning the loss of her partner, the mob queen decides to give up the life of crime for good. She outs Danny, but not before he attacks her, Charlie, and Luca. In the end, Danny is arrested while Beatrix is sent to WITSEC. Beatrix’s arrest and Danny’s revelation as a mole open the door for another promotion for Luca, all thanks to Charlie. He expresses his thanks by getting Beatrix to call off the hit on Charlie, relieving her of the fear she had been living in for the past year or so. She is glad to discover that Luca is looking out for her, and feels even better because she doesn’t have to keep looking over her shoulder now. Or at least, that’s what she thinks.
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