Human lie detector Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) returns to solve more murders in the second season of Poker Face, beginning with a case where Cynthia Erivo (the first of many A-list guest stars) plays multiple roles in a family of former child actresses squabbling over an inheritance.
Lyonne, who first saw Erivo in The Color Purple, told us how meticulous series creator Rian Johnson was in terms of getting the complicated shots of the actress playing distinctive roles. “Rian had at least five to 20 screens at all times in order to keep track of monitoring them all to make sure that they would all work in the edit. Rian is one of those great architects who kind of sees the whole movie before he goes. Even in the writers’ room, he’ll just sit there and he’ll turn up a little treasure map of the entire episode and it’s one of my great, great, great loves that Rian does. Seeing the two of them together was a real treat.”
Erivo didn’t sing in the episode, but she was generous with sharing musical recommendations between takes. “I updated my phone with a bunch of music she suggested, and we were kind of singing back and forth,” Johnson told us. Then he deadpanned, “I feel like it was up to her level.”
Just as in the first season, Charlie job hops across the US. One scene that was written for the premiere but that fans won’t see depicted the job Lyonne would like to have if she weren’t an actress. She revealed, “In the first episode, there was a cut bit where she was on roller skates as a waitress. Never shot it. But that’s definitely what I would do is I would be a waitress like in American Graffiti.”
Future episodes include an homage to David Mamet‘s conman film House of Games; a gothic mystery; and Charlie’s decisive comic/violent showdown with casino queen pin Beatrix Hasp (Rhea Perlman). Watch the video above for Lyonne’s take on how Charlie Cale is different this year, as well as the song Lyonne and Johnson can’t stop singing on set.
Poker Face, Thursdays, Peacock
