Columbo had "one more thing." Charlie Cale has "bulls—."
Natasha Lyonne plays the newfangled Columbo-type on Peacock's "Poker Face," "Knives Out" creator Rian Johnson's crackling, free-wheeling detective series which centers on Charlie Cale, who has an incredible ability to sniff a person out when they're lying. And when they do, she calls them on it. "Bulls—," she tells them, straight to their face.
Charlie is no detective. She's an ex-gambler who drinks Coors Light tallboys for breakfast who is on the run from a powerful casino magnate, and finds herself immersed in a new round of comic trouble in every episode. If "Knives Out" and its sequel "Glass Onion" didn't shore up Johnson's murder-mystery bona fides, "Poker Face" certainly does, and Lyonne is his Jessica Fletcher, or his Kojak, or his Michael Westen.
