Diksha Sundriyal
After a drive around the country, solving murders and making new friends, Charlie Cale finally makes an enemy in the final of Peacock’s ‘Poker Face’ Season 2. Continuing from the events of the penultimate episode, where her new friend, Alex, is framed for the murder of Beatrix Hasp’s son, Kirby, the finale picks up Charlie and Alex on their way to the former mob boss, who is in witness protection. Meanwhile, the mysterious and deadly assassin, known only as the Iguana, is out there somewhere, and Luca believes that Charlie is walking right into their trap. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Luca Warns Charlie About Iguana’s True Intentions
When Kirby Hasp is killed and Charlie tells him that Alex is not the murderer, Luca is inclined to believe her. At the same time, he has to catch the murderer, and all evidence suggests that it is the work of the Iguana, an assassin so elusive that no one knows what they look like. While Luca might not know who the Iguana is, he does figure out what they really want. It doesn’t make sense for an assassin of such calibre and repute to come out of a year-long hiatus simply to kill a man whose biggest achievement in life is making an energy drink that tastes rather bad. All things considered, Luca believes that the Iguana killed Kirby because of his connection to Beatrix.
The FBI agent thinks that Alex was targeted as the patsy because of her connection to Charlie, who is perhaps the only person who can figure out where Beatrix is hiding. As the cops try to track Charlie and Alex, Luca calls her and tells her his theory, but she isn’t entirely convinced. He tells her that the Iguana can take anyone’s form and look like anyone so that no one knows who they are. While Charlie cuts the call rather unceremoniously, the fact that a deadly assassin is on their tail makes her think. The next morning, she and Alex stop at a diner, where they have breakfast, and Charlie considers the possibility of not going to Beatrix.
According to Luca, the Iguana wants to kill Beatrix on the order of the mob bosses who don’t want the old lady to testify against them. Because the trial is in two weeks, Charlie believes she and Alex can ride it out for a fortnight and then find Beatrix and clear Alex’s name. But then, their paranoia gets the better of them as Charlie notes that there is a guy in the diner with the same wound as the assassin who killed Kirby on his wedding day.
As she and Alex ditch the guy, Charlie becomes confident that they have shaken off the assassin and can now find Beatrix. Meanwhile, Luca reaches out to the heads of the FBI, NSA, and CIA in the hopes that the three of them will give up their keys, collectively revealing Beatrix Hasp’s location. He warns them of the Iguana’s plan and how Charlie, unknowingly, is a major part of it. Instead of being taken seriously, he is scoffed at, and once again, his career is in Charlie’s hands.
Who is the Iguana?
While Charlie believes that they have finally shaken off the Iguana, she can’t help but feel that something is off, especially as they drive into the town of Greenville. Once they spot Beatrix’s house, Charlie decides to go in first, leaving Alex in the car, but before she can find a way to enter the house, she has that feeling again. Alex honks the horn, which she was supposed to do in case of danger, and by the time Charlie comes back, she is gone. This leaves only one alternative. She must enter the house and face the Iguana.
As Charlie nears the house, she finds the dead bodies of the secret agents who were supposed to be protecting Beatrix. By this time, it is clear that the assassin has already done their job, and sure enough, Charlie finds Beatrix dead on her couch. And then, Alex calls out for help while an unseen figure holds a gun to her head. But by now, Charlie has wisened up and she knows that the Iguana is none other than Alex. The seemingly innocent friend drops the act and reveals her true colours. She admits that Luca was right and she did use Charlie to get to Beatrix, but her motives were more complex than a simple job for the mob.
Alex reveals that she honed her craft as a killer for years, and after having killed all sorts of high-profile people for all sorts of reasons, she started to feel stunted in her job. It did not challenge her anymore, and she was so disappointed with the work that came her way that she decided not to kill anymore. For a year, she waited for something that would make her feel alive again, and that’s when the case of Beatrix Hasp came to her. The challenge wasn’t finding Beatrix but duping Charlie, the human lie detector, who happened to be the only way to find the target.
Alex Found a Way to Lie to Charlie
Alex tested the waters by lying to Charlie on their first meeting when she offered her coffee. To dupe Charlie’s extraordinary senses, she had to command full control of her body not to give away any reaction, be it through her dilated pupils or elevated heartbeat or any other tells that she might subconsciously give away to the woman in front of her. When she succeeded in lying, she felt more alive than ever. The fact that she had to keep lying to Charlie until the job was done exhilarated her. She befriended Charlie, and the case at the gym helped cement their friendship.
By this time, she’d figured out that Charlie was a compulsive do-gooder, which means that if her friend fell into bad times, Charlie would do whatever it takes to help her, even if it meant finding Beatrix Hasp. So, Alex contacted the second-best assassin in the world, hired him to kill Kirby, and to blame the murder on a patsy. The other assassin didn’t know Alex was the Iguana, so he took the bait when she positioned herself as the patsy, and once she was framed for murder, she knew Alex would take it upon herself to save her, which could only be done by meeting Beatrix.
While Alex tells her story to Charlie, she doesn’t realise that before walking into the room, the latter had set a fire in the kitchen. Once the alarms go off, the local police are alerted, and so is Luca, who had been on a lookout for any sign that could tell her where Charlie and Beatrix are. As he and his team rush to Greenville, he has no doubt that Beatrix is already dead. His sole focus now is on catching the Iguana and saving Charlie in the process. Realising that she has been cornered, Alex holds Charlie at gunpoint, pushes her into the car, and drives away with her, while the cops, including Luca and his team, follow them.
Is Alex Dead or Alive?
As Charlie tells Alex to surrender and be done with it, the villain becomes even more adamant about escape. She tells Charlie that lying to her has been the most rewarding experience of her life, and she feels like, in Charlie, she has finally found the Sherlock to her Moriarty. As she keeps driving towards what looks like the edge of a canyon cliff, she decides to tell Charlie three things, where the lie detector has to find out which of the statements is a lie. Now, this is tricky because Alex has already successfully lied to Charlie for weeks.
This time, however, circumstances are much different. Before this, Alex was never driving a car while toying with the idea of driving down a cliff with it. Moreover, Charlie has also become wise to her ways, so this time, she catches the lie, which was Alex’s threat of driving down the cliff. It is clear that Alex doesn’t want to die either, but even as Charlie spots her lie and she tries to stop the car, she fails because the car’s brakes don’t work anymore. This way, Charlie and Alex get a Reichenbach Fall of their own. Charlie saves herself by jumping out of the car, but Alex doesn’t seem to have received this opportunity. As the car crashed to the bottom of the cliff and exploded, it seems that Alex has died in that explosion.
Later, however, when an FBI agent inspects the wreckage, there is no dead body, which means Alex isn’t as unlucky as we thought she was. In the middle of the car flying off the cliff and falling to the bottom, she found a way to jump out and save herself, which isn’t too far-fetched, considering that Charlie saved herself similarly. Moreover, Alex is much more capable than the protagonist, so she wouldn’t have needed someone else to pull her up the mountain. In another stretch of possibility, it is likely that Alex went down with the car, but she managed to escape before the vehicle exploded. This means that she must have sustained injuries, but nothing as fatal as to leave her pinned inside and have the authorities find her. She is alive and out there, and her obsession with Charlie suggests that she is not going to stay away from her nemesis for too long.
Why does the FBI Want to Arrest Charlie? Why does Luca Let Her Go?
When Luca warned Charlie that she was leading the Iguana to Beatrix Hasp, he also told her that if the assassin succeeded, Charlie would be considered an accessory to murder for helping the assassin do their job. Eventually, what he said comes to pass. Beatrix is dead, and the FBI, the CIA and the NSA are pissed at Charlie, as well as Luca, who tried to vouch for her all this time. When the car chase happens, Luca is genuinely worried about Charlie’s safety, while his colleagues want to arrest her because they believe she aided and abetted the Iguana.
When the car goes off the cliff and Charlie jumps out, she is helped by Luca, who helps her get back up rather than have her fall to her death. He saves her and consoles her, especially as she confesses that she was wrong not to trust him and for believing that Alex was her friend. Luca is surprised that Alex found a way to lie to Charlie, but at the same time, it also reveals just how dangerous and cunning the woman is. In any case, Alex is gone, but that doesn’t mean the authorities won’t look for a patsy to blame the whole thing on. Charlie is the most likely suspect in this case, which is why Luca tells her she cannot go back home.
Had it been some other agent, they wouldn’t have skipped a beat before putting her in handcuffs and throwing her into prison for the rest of her life. Luca, however, knows her, which is why he knows that she is entirely innocent. More importantly, she is his friend, and he cannot let her be arrested, so he tells her to leave. This is a tragic moment for Charlie because she had finally started to put down roots again. After spending months on the run from the mob, she was finally free. But now, it is not the criminals, but the cops who are after her, which puts her in an even worse situation.
Stripped of her freedom and forced to go on the run yet again, Charlie bids a teary goodbye to her friend. However, Luca clarifies that the next time he sees her, he will arrest her. She acknowledges his predicament, thanks him nonetheless, and walks away. In the final scene, she finds a stray dog on the road whom she picks up, and then she gets a lift from a trucker who reveals he is going to Wichita, so she decides to go there too. Now that she is untethered again, she is back to square one, but this time, she has to evade the cops as well as the deadly assassin who seems to have taken a fancy to her.
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