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.
Michael Westen? Yes, the "Burn Notice" character gets a name drop (and a laugh line) in "Poker Face's" introductory episode, which sets up the story of Charlie Cale. She's working as a cocktail waitress in a Vegas casino, placed there by the casino's owner, who ended her career as a gambler when he discovered her ability to read any player in any card game.
Charlie, a self-described "dumbass," is happy with her station in life, living in a trailer, wearing cozy looking wool sweaters that look handed down from the Big Lebowski and just getting by. But the casino owner's son, played by a magnificently smarmy Adrien Brody, puts her to work for him, using her truth-telling abilities to take down a high roller in his casino.
At the same time, Charlie's friend Natalie (Dascha Polanco) turns up dead, and Charlie puts all the pieces together like she's playing a real life game of "Clue." For her troubles, she ends up on the road, a drifter whom trouble seems to find at every stop, which she deftly sifts through before moving on to the next town. That's all while the casino's head of security, played by Benjamin Bratt, is hot on her tail.
Lyonne, whose sandpaper voice and wise-beyond-her-years persona (she's 43 going on 68) makes her perfectly suited to a mystery-of-the-week case solver, is a crackerjack in the role, approaching each new case with a mixture of street smarts, been-there-seen-that experience and wide-eyed optimism. She's Encyclopedia Brown with a hangover.
The series' structure makes room for all sorts of splashy guest stars — Hong Chau and John Ratzenberger in Episode 2, Lil Rel Howery in Episode 3 and Tim Meadows, Ellen Barkin, Chloe Sevigny, Stephanie Hsu, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Nick Nolte in subsequent episodes — and Johnson takes the reins on several of the entries himself, including the whip-smart pilot.
"Pulp Fiction" is seen playing on a screen in that first episode, and "Poker Face" similarly plays with elements of time, allowing for events to be revisited and reexamined from multiple perspectives. The show also knows what it is and acknowledges the unlikelihood of trouble popping up everywhere Charlie goes without getting too wink-wink, nudge-nudge about it. "Poker Face" pays homage to the shows that came before it by following in their tradition and honoring their path. And it's done in the right spirit, so that it never has to call bulls— on itself.
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'POKER FACE'
Grade: B+
Rating: TV-MA
How to watch: On Peacock Thursday
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