Our protagonist, Charlie, is now on the lam, dramatically transforming the ambiance of "Poker Face." In the series' inaugural episode, she was portrayed as an unfortunate cocktail waitress with an intriguing knack for reading people — a mostly latent talent that unexpectedly proved invaluable when her dear friend met an untimely demise. Hence, her initial foray into crime-solving was deeply personal, fueled primarily by emotional dedication to justice.
Yet, Charlie's modus operandi has since undergone a transformation. She now speeds across the Southwest in her unreliable clunker, evading detection and the relentless pursuit of Cliff, the enforcer sent by Sterling to avenge his son's demise. Sterling blames Charlie for his heir's suicide in the premiere, or perhaps he harbors self-blame; ultimately, it was his choice to keep Charlie close rather than exile her from his casino empire. Thus, whenever Charlie veers off the beaten path into a desolate town to unravel a mystery or rectify a heinous injustice, she places herself in grave danger. With each squeeze of the brakes, Sterling Gates Sr. and his minion close in on her. Why take such risks?
This daring behavior may very well be the series' most intricate investigation to date. Charlie is no Columbo, a homicide detective with pending cases to resolve. So, what compels her to wield her unique skill set for the greater good? In episode two, the answer is crystal clear. Marge (Hong Chau), a trucker who briefly assists Charlie on her journey, finds herself falsely accused of murder. Charlie steps in, presumably because she recognizes Marge's inherent goodness. Like Sir Galahad reincarnate, she embodies purity and noble intentions — almost chivalrous, if you embrace the notion that knights sometimes ride white horses and sometimes find themselves bleeding in truck-stop restrooms.
The "Columbo" formula remains intact here. Prior to Charlie's detective work, we bear witness to the crime, which strikes a chord of desolate bleakness, even more so than Natalie's murder. Nat's demise served a despicable man's greedy desire to maintain control over his minute domain. This week, we find ourselves wandering through a dead-end town peopled by three twenty-somethings trapped in menial jobs. There's Sara (Megan Suri), a convenience store clerk; Jed the mechanic (Colton Ryan); and Damian (Brandon Micheal Hall), an ex-Marine turned Subway sandwich artist who's amassed a TikTok following by joyfully crafting off-menu delights. Damian harbors a crush on Sara. Each night during their late shifts, they exchange sandwiches, lottery tickets, and playful banter that remains innocent yet promising nothing more. Jed, too, harbors affection for Sara. He's a creepy, incel-like figure who drinks beer on the auto shop roof and spys on Sara through binoculars. Sara favors Damian but views Jed as harmless. I find Jed eerily strange, yet I harbor no desire for any of them to kill or be killed.
Alas, this dusty, desolate way station is hardly adequate to accommodate the trio. One fateful evening, Jed extends an invitation to Sara, and, albeit reluctantly, to Damian, to observe a meteor shower atop the roof. However, it is Damian alone who graces the occasion, his presence unrelated to celestial curiosity but rather born of an urgent warning. He intends to caution Jed about his unsettling influence on Sara, a revelation that leaves Jed on the defensive. My fears escalate, fearing Damian might perish on this ill-fated mission of heroism. Yet, equipped with genuine combat training, Damian poses a formidable foe, making Jed a potential casualty in any confrontation.
Instead, a captivating turn of events unfolds. Amidst their tense exchange, a profound understanding blossoms between them. Jed, the brooding stalker who might as well hassle a fair maiden with indifference, finds solace in Damian's comprehension of monotony's perilous allure. Damian, who experienced it firsthand in military service, reaches Jed in a heartfelt, transcendent moment of camaraderie—a genuine outreach that transcends differences. Jed confides in Damian his dream of stowing away in the trunk of a car he repairs, seeking escape to anywhere. Damian, jaded by the notion of good fortune, dismisses such dreams as recipes for disappointment, even scratching off a lottery ticket to prove his indifference to fate. Ironically, it reveals a $25,000 win. Jed, swayed by贪婪, shoves Damian off the roof, though a fatal blow with a tire iron remains unfinished business. Jed pockets the winning ticket, intending to replace it and frame Damian's death as a random switch. The lotto ticket becomes Jed's passport out of town; no trunk space necessary.
The remaining dilemma: disposing of the body. Jed dumps Damian into the back of a secluded Mack truck, unbeknownst to him belonging to Marge, who parks it out of sight due to its clandestine cargo of illegally reimported Canadian pharmaceuticals. Discovering a body in her truck leaves Marge in a bind, unable to turn to the authorities. She instead deposits Damian at the nearest auto shop, adorned with a sign heralding "The Last Honest Mechanic in New Mexico." Jed, having filmed Marge's clandestine actions via the shop's security camera, feels empowered to confess the murder and frame Marge. His bumbling plot, neat in its twisted simplicity, seems almost plausible.
Yet, as fate would have it, Charlie is already entangled in this web before the crime transpires. Stranded in town due to a car breakdown, she indulges in a Damian special from Subway, savoring its deliciousness. A week has passed since her harrowing escape from the Frost Hotel, but her bullet wound still leaks life. Marge, an unexpected savior, patches her up with superglue and imparts wisdom for evading enemies: no phone, no ID, no bank accounts. Henceforth, Charlie adopts the alias she once answered to. After sharing drinks with Marge at the diner, Charlie sleeps off her revelry on a picnic table. By dawn, the police have come and gone, Damian's body carted away, Marge in handcuffs.
I am genuinely astounded by the sheer audacity exhibited in this show. An entire half of the hour-long episode is meticulously devoted to establishing the scene, leaving Charlie with merely 30 minutes of screen time to unravel the mystery, which translates to approximately four hours in "real-world" chronology. Desperate to repair her vehicle and with Marge's dire warning still echoing in her ears – that once you reveal your whereabouts digitally, you have a mere four hours before your adversaries descend upon you – Charlie finds herself at an ATM.
This week, she boasts a tad more experience in crime-solving, yet Charlie still tackles the challenge in a scatterbrained, thinking-aloud manner. Marge, admittedly eccentric, would hardly resort to bludgeoning a muscular individual to death when her preferred weapon is a gun, as we already know. Charlie's hunch that something is amiss gains credence when both Sara and Jed independently inform her that Damian had never won a scratch-off ticket in all his months of playing. Sara speaks the truth, whereas Jed spins a web of lies. This fascinating nuance underscores the constraints of Charlie's superpowers; knowing whether someone fibs about a fact doesn't necessarily unveil its authenticity.
Several clues rapidly fit together like pieces of a puzzle: the security cameras at the body shop had a blank period, the result of Jed disabling them to savor the meteor shower atop the roof without his boss, Cliff from "Cheers," finding out; Charlie discovers a beer-bottle cap, Jed's brand, tucked inside Damian's Subway apron; and she retrieves a Hawai'i state quarter, borrowed by Damian from Sara for his scratch-off, from Jed's rooftop. Like a villain overly confident in his cleverness, Jed even casually mentions Hawai'i when Charlie inquires about his plans for the $25,000 lottery prize he claimed earlier that morning.
However, merely suspecting or even knowing the truth isn't sufficient for Charlie. She lacks jurisdiction here (or anywhere else for that matter). Hence, she resorts to the same tactic employed in episode one: confronting a perilous individual about his crimes without a coherent plan for subsequent actions. With Sterling Jr. (played by Adrien Brody), her threat carried weight because she had already exposed his scheme to Kazimir. But Jed calls her bluff. Who would take seriously a random wanderer claiming that the lottery scratch-off ticket he's presenting as his winning ticket bears an out-of-order serial number? She's merely a vagrant with a blue car, now further compounded by Jed's sabotage of her brakes. (Incidentally, I suspected from the outset that the serial-number discrepancy would be his undoing, restoring my belief that I'd make a splendid TV detective!) It's not merely that Charlie isn't a cop; she's actually on the lam from individuals wealthy enough to own and manipulate the local law enforcement.
This episode plunges us into a darker realm compared to the premiere, where it was never in serious doubt that Adrien Brody's misdeeds would eventually see the light of day. Yet, as Charlie once aptly observed, knowing when someone lies isn't particularly enlightening. Humanity is riddled with deceit, often perpetrated for the most frivolous of reasons. Just as she was prepared to relinquish Marge to the unjust clutches of the law, an awakening dawned upon her. The battle wasn't solely between Charlie's suspicions and Jed's assertions—a clash between a down-and-out wanderer and a recluse, if you will. Despite this provincial town seemingly falling beneath the radar of CCTV surveillance, every semi-truck traversing its streets was equipped with a dashboard camera.
Last night, in the diner, Marge and she were not isolated figures. Even as Charlie's self-imposed four-hour countdown ticked ominously, she couldn't resist the urge to act. Leveraging her connections at the roadside diner, she embarked on a quest to track down the trucker whose footage might have captured the aftermath of the murder, potentially exonerating Marge. With the crime solved and justice within grasp, Charlie hopped into her car—a vehicle resembling a Pinto yet distinctively not (I'd love some assistance identifying it in the comments)—and sped out of town just as Cliff arrived on the scene. Perhaps Marge would still face consequences for transporting contraband Oxy across the desert, but Charlie's noble deeds were already giving her a sense of purpose. Cliff, the beloved character from "Cheers," kindly repaired the not-Pinto's brakes before returning the car keys. Lies are often told for foolish reasons, but occasionally, they serve a noble cause.
When Cliff stopped at the convenience store that housed the ATM Charlie had used to withdraw her last $400, Sara reminisced about the redhead who'd mentioned heading to Los Angeles to lose herself amidst the beach's embrace. Perhaps this feigned distraction would suffice for Charlie to regain her four-hour head start. However, revisiting Sara in the episode's closing moments added to the overall gloom. Charlie, a radiant and dazzling figure, had stormed this small town and restored its integrity. I didn't wish for Damian's demise, nor did Jed's conviction for the crime bring solace. The thought of Sara spending the rest of her life doling out lotto tickets was heart-wrenching. Charlie had fled Arizona as a hero, yet she left this town as desolate as she had found it.
