Maybe the biggest crime of Peacock’s new hit Poker Face is that the show is an addictive pleasure. It’s been a while since audiences have been this enamored with a case-of-the-week drama, so Peacock’s dealing great cards here. The popular howcatchem starring Natasha Lyonne has already been picked up for season two.

In the upcoming seventh episode, we find Lyonne’s Charlie working at a go-kart complex, where she soon becomes involved in a bitter feud between an aging race car driver (Tim Blake Nelson) and a hotheaded young upstart (Riverdale’s Charles Melton), whose rivalry has dire consequences.

Guest stars galore filter in: Along with Nelson and Melton, Leslie Silva, Jasmine Aiyana Garvin, and Jack Alcott come along for the joyride this time. Viewers know Alcott from Dexter: New Blood, where he played Dexter’s son, Harrison. There was buzz around Dexter: New Blood’s second season, but in the wake of creative shuffling between Paramount+ and Showtime, the sequel got shelved with the powers that be opting for a Dexter prequel series.
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Alcott remains ever-busy, however. In the Poker Face episode dubbed “The Future of the Sport,” the actor plays Randy, Charlie’s fellow go-kart complex employee and somebody who figures prominently in the events that occur—he’s a fine ally to Charlie as she attempts to uncover the truth about an ominous event. Alcott shares more with MovieWeb.

Episode Seven’s Wild Ride

There are a lot of moving pieces in episode seven of Poker Face, all of them, Alcott says, will intrigue fans. When asked what it was like guest starring on the show, Alcott said he pretty much “busted his [expletive].”

“I was coming off of Dexter and you know, this character couldn’t be more different,” he shared. “And I was excited to do something different. You know, every day on the new set can be a little nerve-racking, but there was this scene where a [go-kart] crash happens. And we’re to run across the track. I have to leap over a concrete barrier. I used to do gymnastics when I was younger, and I stopped in college, but I was like, ‘I can do it.’ I practiced it a few times and it was great. And then as soon as we were going forward, I joked, ‘Watch me bust my ass now that we’re actually doing that.’

“So, I went for it and sure enough, I busted my ass,” he added, chuckling. “I rolled over the thing and was laying on the ground, then got up and kept running, and I was like, ‘I’m good. Keeping shooting.’ I had a really great, fantastic purple knee for about a week.”

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What’s interesting about episode seven, in general, is that by the final scene, the writers leave things open. There’s a sense viewers might run into these characters again down the road should Charlie return.

“I’d definitely be ready to play Randy again,” Alcott said. “This was a super fun story to tell.” When asked about his thoughts on how well the show has performed and its growing fan base, Alcott credits executive producer Rian Johnson (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery)

“There are thousands of reasons the show is so popular. The narrative worlds that Rian Johnson creates are really unique to him in their style and structure. Most importantly, they’re fun. It’s just really fun to watch something that he’s made,” Alcott said. “I just watched Glass Onion for the first time, and I had a goofy-[expletive] grin on my face all the time. What’s great is that there are plenty of episodes in Poker Face that are dark. Rian Johnson is able to sort of flip from funny to scary to sad, without giving the audience whiplash, which is so impressive and very difficult to do.”

On Working with Natasha Lyonne

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Now that it’s official and there will be another season of Poker Face, Lyonne, who’s also an executive producer on the show, will be busy. Adding to her long list of creative skills, Lyonne also directs episode eight of the series, airing Feb. 23.

“Natasha is a genius. And I can’t imagine being in her shoes—being in an anthology series, where it’s just people cycling in and out, and the crew too,” Alcott shared. “Maintaining a narrative throughline is crazy impressive. She’s wearing 10 hats at once as an executive producer and writer. During our episode, she was directing the episode that runs after mine, so in between takes, she would run off and sit with her DP for that episode, and they’d brainstorm, talking about what they were going to do. Then, you know, she’s able to make the entire set laugh whenever she wanted to. So, there was that.”

With his Poker Face stint wrapped, Alcott is looking at the road ahead. Does that mean a possible return as Dexter’s Harrison Morgan?

“I would love to step into that world again,” he said. “If they do bring back New Blood, I’m excited to revisit that character. Otherwise, I’m just excited about finding the next adventure to go on. I’m reading a lot of scripts. I’ve still never done a feature, so I would love to step into that world.”

Poker Face airs Thursdays on Peacock.