Poker Face: Natasha Lyonne’s severely humorous whydunnit caper is again with a cracking A-list solid

The very best factor about Poker Face is that it doesn’t trouble looking to shore up what it is aware of is a flimsy premise. Fans of the primary season will recall that Charlie Cale, Natasha Lyonne’s wisecracking 70s detective homage, has an inbuilt talent to locate a lie once any individual tells it. Instead of attempting to give an explanation for this reward away as the results of a gamma typhoon or spider chunk or covert executive experiment, it now accepts that, yeah, she has a “freaky little lie detector trick”, that’s the level of the theory, were given an issue with that? These days, Charlie waves away any queries about it with an “Eh”, a shrug and a cheeky nudge of the baseball cap and aviator sun shades.

After the usage of her ability to paintings her manner thru a sequence of more and more preposterous case-of-the-week murders final time, then finishing up with the mafia hanging out successful on her, Charlie starts the second one season (beginning 8 May, 9pm, Sky Max) at the lam over again, handiest now goons with weapons stay doping up and capturing at her. For what will have been a high-concept display, Poker Face is strangely fuss-free about all of this, and infrequently shall we a violent mob-based subplot get in the way in which of what Charlie does very best. That is, wandering round small-town America, understanding who’s a killer and the way/why they did it, then exposing them for his or her horrible crimes. She has to dodge bullets sometimes, certain, however she at all times assists in keeping her eyes at the prize: coughing out the phrase “bullshit” and cracking the case.

Poker Face is created by way of Knives Out director Rian Johnson and, just like that franchise, it has change into a spot for A-listers to chop free and be daft. The first episode options Cynthia Erivo, and to get its cash’s definitely worth the display has her enjoying quintuplets, former kid stars contesting the need in their just lately deceased evil momager. Later, Katie Holmes pops up because the annoyed spouse of a morbid funeral director, performed by way of Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito, and Kumail Nanjiani is going all-in as an award-winning Florida cop who additionally occurs to be so much just like the Tiger King, Joe Exotic. Best of all, Rhea Perlman returns as mob boss Beatrix Hasp, and he or she works so smartly with Lyonne that it’s a disgrace they couldn’t have performed the entire season in combination.

There is a long-standing debate about whether or not comedy ever will get the reward it merits. Funny motion pictures hardly win Oscars; humorous displays incessantly get driven out of very best comedy classes by way of “comedy” sequence that aren’t in truth very humorous in any respect (cough, The Bear). So it’s immensely stress-free to observe one thing like Poker Face, which is tv of significant high quality and precision that opts for comedy, wordplay and slapstick over the arid depression of significant drama. And whilst maximum TV loves to assume it’s in regards to the underdog, Poker Face in truth walks the stroll. Charlie’s existence at the run hardly takes her to special towns. She excursions cities and rural spaces, operating her manner throughout the gig financial system, getting by way of as an apple-picker, a carpark attendant, even a corpse for rent. The handiest drawback to season two is that it’s long gone a little business: there are a few meta episodes about movie units and TV stars, however even if it is going there, it no less than makes the tale in regards to the workforce and the folks doing the gruntwork.

Much just like the displays it can pay tribute to – Columbo and Murder, She Wrote – every episode of Poker Face works as a standalone tale, with its personal homicide to resolve, although it does take 3 episodes to wrap up final season’s cliffhanger and push off in its personal course. When it does, the tale will get even sillier. It’s a unprecedented display that makes you scribble down notes reminiscent of “meth alligator”, “shrimp-flavoured Vienna sausage” and “explosive vape”. The love of puzzles that fuelled the Knives Out whodunnits seems right here, nevertheless it inverts the idea. It displays us who did it firstly, so there’s no thriller in that appreciate. The excitement is in operating backwards, and filling within the Charlie-based gaps, so we will be able to determine how she figures it out.

Lyonne and her swagger make Poker Face cool however, basically, it’s Jonathan Creek with a love of 70s cinema – and I imply that as a praise. Stylish and nerdy, witty and suave, it’s rock-solid, hard-working leisure.