After last week's theatrical escapade, "Poker Face" revisits a time-honored formula, blending a forgotten, dust-laden podunk town with a cluster of unassuming, serene existences, seasoned with a hint of murderous desperation. Allow this concoction to steep for roughly half an episode, then stir in the meddlesome Charlie Cale and a sprinkle of his gravelly allure.
In "The Future of the Sport," the focal whistle-stop town revolves around Peach Tree Speedway, a dirt oval where semi-professional drivers indulge their "Days of Thunder" fantasies, vying for neighborhood bragging rights rather than multimillion-dollar prizes. The victors, who jeopardize their lives with each lap, navigating endless left turns, are rewarded with tangible peaches and hearty high-fives.
The tranquil lives teetering on the edge belong to Davis McDowell, a fiery yet attractively tempestuous young racer portrayed by Charles Melton, and his anxious mother, Jean, who's too worried to even bear witnessing her son's perilous laps.
Then there's the town's legend, veteran racer Keith Owens—embodied by the perpetually downtrodden character actor Tim Blake Nelson. Despite his lack of recent victories, Keith continues to consume all the sponsorship dollars. He hails from a storied racing dynasty, yet it's not just Davis who yearns for Keith to hang up his helmet; Keith's surly 19-year-old daughter, Katie, is eager to pilot an Owens family Late Model Championship car. (Incidentally, Late Model race cars appear shockingly battered and perilous, indistinguishable from demo derby vehicles to the uninitiated eye.)
Keith cannot fathom retiring without a triumphant send-off, which he hasn't secured. During the most recent sparsely attended race, Davis managed to nudge him off the track with minimal effort. Though not a flawless victory, in the enduring words of crew chief Harry Hogge, “Rubbin’, son, is racin’.” Post-race, the sore losers engage in petty fisticuffs, followed by a heated argument between Keith and Katie over his last-minute decision to postpone his retirement. Katie isn't merely a spoiled brat; she's the fastest racer among them, proven when she soundly beats Davis on the go-kart track later that day.
Davis handles defeat with about the same grace as Keith. He shows up at the Owens' residence and livestreams his melodramatic act of uprooting their post-mounted mailbox and running roughshod over Mrs. Owens’s beloved begonias—a brazen display of poor etiquette. As ever, she stands by her husband, urging Keith to find his "groove" and decisively best Davis on the racetrack. However, as the saying goes: When the flow eludes you, resort to sabotage. In a fit of desperation, Keith breaks into Davis's garage and employs automotive trickery, using a fishhook and some gear ties in a manner so convoluted even by the episode's conclusion, it remains bewildering.
The next day at the track, Keith watches with bated breath as Davis’s car spins out of control, slams into a concrete K-rail, and bursts into flames. But to Keith's astonishment, it isn't Davis behind the wheel! Davis, having overheard Keith's clandestine activities the previous night, instead of reporting the attempted sabotage to the authorities, further compromises the car's safety harness and then taunts Keith’s ambitious daughter into taking the keys, egging her on to prove her mettle. After all, anyone can drive a go-kart, but can she handle the raw power of a late-model jalopy tinkered with by a maniac and his mother’s coworker?
Yet, despite his antics, I struggle to loathe Davis instantly. His chiseled good looks aside, he answers the question that has haunted me all season: Charlie's mysterious muscle car is a 1969 Plymouth Barracuda! The very same vehicle Charlie cruises around in, oblivious to its metaphorical significance. What is Charlie's life but a series of unplanned detours? Is she really progressing if she lacks a clear destination?
Compared to the whimsical and elaborate contrivances of past weeks, this crime and Charlie's unraveling are refreshingly straightforward. These days, Charlie works alongside Jean at the go-kart arcade, the very spot where Katie soundly beats Davis in three consecutive races. As is her wont, she promptly reveals her lie-detecting prowess to the town's most dangerous resident, who compares her to a cancer-sniffing dog. (Personally, I had envisioned her as a bomb-detecting dolphin.) Davis cunningly enlists Charlie's help in framing Keith for Katie's accident, meticulously avoiding falsehoods. When the Scooby gang discovers Keith’s fishhook in the carburetor, Davis matter-of-factly states, "Somebody put that there," devoid of any exaggeration. Similarly, when he first suggests foul play, he sticks to simple, unequivocal statements about Katie’s uncharacteristic crash: "She’s too good of a driver to make that mistake."
Nailing Keith proves surprisingly effortless. Once the astute angler senses Charlie’s suspicions, he confesses to his wife and subsequently to the broader racing community. It should have ended there. With the Owens out of the picture, Davis is poised to take his victorious laps unchallenged. But bad guys can’t resist the spotlight; they revel in the sound of their own voices. Even Davis, who in this context is technically aiding a youth overcome his (entirely justified) fear of dying in a car crash, can't help himself. He assures the youth that Katie’s faulty harness was a one-off incident, oblivious to the fact that the cancer-sniffing dog is nearby, ears perked and taking in every word. Finally, some bs!
Charlie isn't precisely a car enthusiast, you see. She lacks the concrete proof needed to accuse Davis of tampering with the safety belt. When she decides to break into his garage in search of evidence, Davis catches her red-handed and issues a chilling threat to her life. Several other serendipitous occurrences further entrench Davis's guilt in Charlie's mind, notably the disappearance of his cherished photograph of his grandfather from the car on the very day he allowed Katie to drive it. However, these pieces of evidence, while compelling, fall short of being decisive. Charlie can't just march into the police station and claim that Davis had hinted at gear ties being potentially involved in the aforementioned deceitful act, especially since Keith had already confessed to using them. It might all just be a series of unconnected events! After all, gear ties are a staple among car enthusiasts.
Justice, it seems, will have to be sought on the racetrack itself. By the episode's conclusion, Katie is awake, chatting away, and itching to get back behind the wheel. Even if the law's long reach doesn't extend to Davis, his own actions might ultimately undo him. Keith had hoped that sabotaging Davis would lift the curse of his elusive "flow," but for Davis, the act of sabotage marks the beginning of his undoing. As the episode draws to a close, Davis sits behind the wheel, his hand shaking uncontrollably. Perhaps Keith's initial motive in rigging his enemy's car was a desperate quest for a sense of control.
But, as Dr. Claire Lewicki astutely points out to the "infantile egomaniac" Cole Trickle in their climactic confrontation, control is but an illusion. "Nobody controls anything. You've had a taste of that reality now, and it terrifies you."
