Like a Vegas cocktail waitress with a two-olive martini, Poker Face knew exactly what we wanted and served it up in style, before we’d even put our cards on the table. It’s 2023 and TV viewers are growing tired of morally ambiguous anti-heroes and their convoluted story arcs. We’re done with cinematic ambitions that seem to disdain the small screen they’re on. Give us a good old-fashioned case-of-the-week mystery any day, over yet another “prestige” TV opus.
That said, Poker Face, starring Natasha Lyonne as “human lie detector” Charlie Cale, has credentials to rival any big-ticket production. Rian Johnson, the show’s creator, is a major Hollywood director with a $1bn-grossing Star Wars movie, two Oscar nominations and three of the best Breaking Bad episodes to his name. He’s also the guy who revived the ensemble-cast, Agatha Christie-style whodunnit genre with his movies Knives Out and Glass Onion.
