[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for Poker Face Season 2.]

Summary

Season 2 of the Peacock series ‘Poker Face’ takes bold swings with different tones and styles in each episode.

Natasha Lyonne enjoys making strong choices and finding fun moments, like with the ridiculously long straw.

Patti Harrison has a stand-out role, as Season 2 explores what a sidekick to Charlie might look like.

In Season 2 of the Peacock howcatchem series Poker Face, created by writer, director and executive producer Rian Johnson, Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) finds herself on the road in her Plymouth Barracuda, moving through towns and characters while solving strange crimes along the way. Her extraordinary ability to know when someone is lying leads to memorable interactions with the slew of guest stars she encounters from episode to episode, all while approaching each mystery with wit and empathy. During this interview with Collider, Lyonne and Johnson talked about what they love most about Season 2, taking bold swings and making strong choices, how that ridiculously long straw ended up in an episode, what a sidekick for Charlie might look like, and what it was like to watch Cynthia Erivo play so many characters in her episode.
‘Poker Face’ Creator Rian Johnson Wanted to Switch Up the Tone and Style for Season 2

“I feel like they all take vastly different swings.”

Collider: What do you guys love most about this collection of episodes? What did you find most fun and most memorable about Season 2? RIAN JOHNSON: I really love that they’re all so different. I think that was true of the first season, but I think we tried to push it even further this second season. Tonally and in terms of the ambitions of each episode and the style, I feel like they all take vastly different swings. The episode that Lucky McKee directed, which is the Gator Joe episode, is nearly a Simpsons episode. It’s full-on ridiculous comedy. That’s the same show as “The Sleazy Georgian” episode that Mimi Cave directed, that feels like a House of Games, Mamet-esque, con man drama. The fact that the show can veer between tones like that, and then take a wild conceptual swing, like Adam Arkin’s episode “Sloppy Joseph,” that’s set in the grade school, I feel like is where I’m most excited about this season. The audience is never going to know what they’re in for every time they hit play on the next episode, and that makes me happy.

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‘Poker Face’ Season 2 premieres May 8 on Peacock.

Natasha, I love that this is a show that can have a moment like the one with you and the ridiculously long straw. Do you enjoy finding those moments that seem like they don’t actually fit in, but they’re just so much fun? NATASHA LYONNE: Seven months in and things happen. You take bold swings and make strong choices. I’ll be honest, I often don’t fully notice that they’re happening in real time. Maybe it’s the school of acting that I came up in. I’m a self-taught person that was looking to certain guides. I do steal liberally from Peter Falk. When I see [Jack] Nicholson’s choices, in anything from Five Easy Pieces to the fact that he’s the only guy in The Departed not doing a Boston accent. It’s like when Dennis Hopper popped up in Apocalypse Now and was in his own movie. It somehow just works. As I was watching and teaching myself what actors felt really fun, someone like [Al] Pacino is always doing something so zany. I have a theory that he was just forgetting his lines and banging a table to self-correct and bring his brain to attention. I remember doing an Off-Broadway play for some time, and the character was a drunk on the sofa who would sleep a lot in the play, and I’d say, “Wake me up when it’s my turn.” I went to see Pacino doing some Shakespeare on Broadway, came back from the matinee, and did the night show as Pacino. Committing to that worked. You could shift things ever so slightly, just by keeping yourself alert. With something small, like a straw, I’m not even necessarily looking for it to make it in. I’m just trying to look alive and surprise myself. That’s fun to do.

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“10-4, Good Buddy.”

I love the relationship between Charlie, as someone that nobody can lie to, and the woman that doesn’t believe in lying. What was it like to find that dynamic? JOHNSON: Patti [Harrison]’s character is someone that we introduced thinking, “Okay, what would a sidekick look like in this show? What would a Watson to her Holmes look like?” First of all, it starts with casting somebody like Patti, who is just so appealing to watch and could click with Natasha, but also just trying to figure out the dynamic between the two of them.
Cynthia Erivo Is at the Peak of Her Powers in Season 2 of ‘Poker Face’

“Both of us really appreciated watching her work.”

Image via Peacock

What impressed both of you guys about what Cynthia Erivo did in her episode with all her characters? LYONNE: When she goes to DJ, Rian had a song that was prerecorded and it was just her up there, spinning. That was maybe the funniest thing I’d seen in decades. JOHNSON: Besides what she’s giving when you see the episode, both of us really appreciated watching her work because we shot that episode in 10 days. For the length and complexity of that episode, that was pretty crazy. We had it all mapped out. We had three cameras and had to get three angles at the same time. And then, we would leave them to set up while she would go and change and then come back and do the other half of the conversation. And then, we’d piggyback to the third character and switch to another camera. To be able to play five or six characters, keep that all in her head and roll with it, while we were also shooting 50 pages in 10 days, for both of us, we were just like, ‘Thank God, we have her in this episode,” for so many reasons. LYONNE: It was silly. Her and Rian were very fun together because they’re artists at the peak of their powers who are just really enjoying that. It’s not a feature film, so it doesn’t hold that same pressure. For me, seeing my friend Rian and my new friend Cynthia, getting to work without that high-stakes thing, it was like a playground for these two geniuses that are just getting to be the most buoyant versions of themselves. It’s just so fun and so cool.

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We’re not “bull shooting” you.

Poker Face

Release Date

January 26, 2023

Network

Peacock

Showrunner

Lilla Zuckerman

Writers

Wyatt Cain, Alice Ju

Poker Face is available to stream on Peacock. Check out the Season 2 trailer: