Rian Johnson directs the hell out of Poker Face‘s atmospheric penultimate episode
An excellent Poker Face traps Natasha Lyonne in a blizzard with Stephanie Hsu, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and David Castañeda
TV Reviews Rian Johnson
“This year has eroded me.” Natasha Lyonne’s Charlie Cale emotionally confesses in Poker Face’s ninth episode. It’s a crackling moment of vulnerability, and Lyonne aces every second. Charlie’s been sincerely sentimental about other people she’s met throughout the show. Her attachment to a new friend or stranger motivates her to solve the murders in each installment, even if she’s inadvertently caused quite a few of them. But what about confronting her trauma of losing her best friend, witnessing a man jump to his death, getting shot, and going on the run, all within the premiere? In episode eight, she briefly opened up to Nick Nolte’s Arthur before he was killed.
The show has slowly been building up to Charlie dealing with the emotional damage of, you know, the many crimes she’s witnessed along the way. She rightfully calls herself a “death magnet” in this episode (where’s the lie?). For a penultimate hour, I’m thrilled we finally see a more profound payoff for her year (!) on the road and a glimpse of her backstory. Johnson is saving more details about Charlie’s history for season two, but we forgive him because he helms a fantastic episode this week with “Escape From Shit Mountain.” It features Lyonne’s best Poker Face performance to date, answers some burning questions, and, of course, welcomes some exciting guest stars–a PF trademark at this point, much like its inspiration, Columbo.
As “Escape From Shit Mountain” begins, Charlie finds herself falling into a love bubble at a national park. She bumps into the most rugged-looking dude who goes shirtless while showing her around. A montage shows how they eventually become a couple, the kind who has sex outdoors and go camping and fishing together. It’s a little unexpected to see Charlie this happy, but that’s why we know it won’t last. As soon as it’s snowy February, she’s by herself working (sort of) as a car window cleaner. (The relationship fizzled as soon as the summer sun disappeared, huh?) She bumps into Stephanie Hsu’s kleptomaniac Mortimer Bernstein—not her real name, don’t worry—and sparks a friendship. What’s new?
Oscar nominee (and, in my mind, the rightful winner of her category) Hsu makes a formidable impression. She’s unkempt and wild as “Morty,” but goes toe-to-toe with Lyonne as the two women find themselves in a horrible situation. After being stranded in a snowstorm, Charlie is struck by a car and badly injured while looking for Morty. The car’s driver is Trey (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a wealthy man six months into his house arrest for insider trading. When his ankle monitor malfunctions one night, he does the stupidest thing to seek respite from his boredom: Take his Lamborgini out for a fast-speed drive during a blizzard. He also says stuff like, “The last thing I need is another chick going crazy on me” multiple times. A walking, talking red flag if there ever was one.
After Trey smacks Charlie, he assumes she’s dead and contacts an old friend, Jimmy (David Castañeda), who runs a motel. They bury her in “the spot” in the woods, immediately alerting us that they’ve probably done this before. But Charlie doesn’t go down that easy—as we’ll find out by the end of the episode, too—so she crawls out of the icy ground in a scene straight out of Yellowjackets and finds her way to the motel. She’s pretty out of sorts, but at least she’s alive. Morty arrives in Charlie’s stolen car. The four of them are stuck inside as the storm keeps cutting the power on and off. Johnson’s expert direction, aided by the cinematography and set design, stages the scenes perfectly, from snow-capped mountains to the rustic motel lobby. You can’t help but feel immersed in the episode.
This could’ve been a very different type of Poker Face where four hot people are trapped together in a tight space. Alas, it’s not as sexy as expected because Trey and Jimmy are hiding a dark secret. Ten years ago, Trey killed their mutual friend Chloe Jones, whose missing posters with a $75k reward are still stuck all over town. Jimmy helped bury the body, blindly believing his friend when he said it was an accident. (He internally must know Trey is lying, right?)
It doesn’t take our human lie detector too long to figure out there’s something amiss or that Trey is the one who ran over her. [Her skills will never fail, no matter how badly she’s hurt, bleeding, or in mental anguish. The bullshit meter survives it all]. It helps that Charlie crawled out of the spot where they dumped her using what she assumed was a wooden stick. It was, in fact, one of Chloe’s bones. That discovery turns the tables for Charlie and Morty, who realize they need to get the hell away from this motel. The former can’t run due to her broken leg, but Morty ventures out to find Chloe’s body as proof.
Unfortunately, Trey finds her there. He tricks her by making a deal for his Lamborgini in exchange for her silence. I wanted to scream at Morty for buying into it because it obviously wasn’t a real offer. Just as she’s about to get away (and leave Charlie behind!), Trey smacks her head into the wheel, killing her instantly, and then dumps the car. (So long, Stephanie Hsu!)
Meanwhile, a battered Charlie tries to bond with Jimmy and reveals her fragile state. “It’s been pretty dark; it’s hard to feel safe,” she tells him broadly about her experiences over the last year. We also learn that when she was eight, her family would spend their days at a beach club. It’s the most we’ve gotten about her personal background, and it’s an intriguing tidbit that makes me wonder if she comes from an affluent home. Did she leave her wealth behind to pursue a vagabond existence, relying on small jobs and her bullshit meter at poker games? Anyway, her raw emotions get through to Jimmy at least.
It’s vital because when Trey returns and tries to kill Charlie, Jimmy steps up to defend her. He finally sees through his old pal’s lies and is about to fight him. But boom, Trey has a gun and doesn’t hesitate for a split second before putting a bullet through Jimmy’s head. I was momentarily shocked but not surprised. Poker Face has done an excellent job writing villainous characters who are often black-and-white, not just lying in a gray area, waiting to gain our sympathy.
Trey and Charlie get into a physical fight because he’s out of bullets. He stabs her in the chest with a knife—reader, for a second, I gasped, wondering if Poker Face season two will be built around a new character. Trey falsely believes for the second time in one night that he’s killed her. Over a few hours, he’s murdered two people and gleefully accepted that a third one’s down too. But Charlie sure isn’t gone. She snagged his ankle monitor just in time, so when it activates the following day, we’re left to assume the police rescued her and caught Trey even though he reached home on time.
The news story Charlie sees on TV from her hospital bed claims that Morty’s dead body is hers, so she’s relieved that everyone will assume she’s out of the picture, including Cliff and Sterling Sr. Not so fast because the former is waiting outside, ready to capture his mark. How did he find out she survived? Has he been on her trail for a while, or is his gut feeling just that strong? We’ll find out in the finale next week.
Stray observations
- I love the bit from Charlie about how she avoids going to a second location with anyone to avoid getting Zodiac’d. Is it true, though, that she avoids it? I don’t think so. She does look for danger wherever she goes.
- For someone who went to
StanfordHarvard, Trey refers to Orthopedics as “Bone-ologists.” - I know I praised Hsu already, but shout out to Gordon-Levitt for successfully executing the tech bro douche vibe. Maybe working on Super Pumped had at least one benefit?
- Oh, he also refers to amnesia as, “She’s got a case of CRS: Can’t Remember Shit.” This guy.
- Next week’s finale, directed by Janicza Bravo (!), brings Benjamin Bratt’s Cliff back into the fold. We’ll probably also meet Ron Perlman’s Sterling Sr. What else are we expecting—big answers or big cliffhangers? I think it’s going to be a mix of both.
43 Comments
While Hsu’s character was an idiot, they set her up as someone with no impulse control so it was keeping with her character, and at least it’s another death that isn’t directly Charlie’s fault—that lady was heading towards a bad end regardless. I’m mostly happy we finally got back to the overarching story. Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving the renaissance of more episodic series, but this episode drove home the fact that there stopped really feeling like any jeopardy or concern she was being trailed, let alone a sense of time passing after the first two episodes. A happier middle ground, or at least an episode in the middle that kept the stakes more foregrounded, would have been nice.
Morty may not have even left Charlie behind. She could have gone to the police, told them Trey killed Chloe Jones, then gotten the reward money. Trey, anticipating this, kills her.
Speaking of Hsu, and then Hong Chau in Episode 2, Lyonne found a way to include 40% of this year’s Best Supporting Actress nominees this season!
Since Rian Johnson has worked with Jamie Lee Curtis before, perhaps she’ll be in the finale and make it 60%!
Tbh I sort of suspected from the first episode that Charlie might come from an affluent background. Something about the way her face reacted when Sterling was talking about being born into money and assuming she wouldn’t understand Quite likely maybe that the level of bullshit circulating at those lofty heights were just unbearable so she split.
Her vocabulary is very sophisticated too (“manifold” for example). Which is not to say you can’t be a wordsmith unless you’re affluent but it is a clue of sorts.
In real life she describes herself as a little bit Flatbush and a little bit Auschwitz because of her parents.
FWIW, she’s also familiar with Proust.
She outright tells Adrien Brody that she’s been rich, though he doesn’t believe her
Just more evidence that this part was tailor-made around Lyonne’s own personality
Almost disappointed that they got into the whole trauma thing. Yeah, obviously, it’s a realistic thing to have, but we’ve already got dozens of movies and TV shows unpacking Trauma, I kinda just wanted episodic vibes.Regardless, this is a helluva episode.
Will say it again, and I don’t care what some of the follow-up comments say, Johnson should have been in charge of the sequel triogy from the beginning and directed/wrote all three films. REALLY hope his future Star Wars stories are in play and his recent hits accelerate that.
If I was Rian Johnson, I’d keep palling around with my fun famous friends making cool shit in fun places like Glass Onion and Poker Face instead of being beholden to the Mouse and having to interact with the toxic SW fandom. But, I also imagine $$$ plays a big role in decisions like that.
Will say it again and I don’t care what some of the follow-up comments say The Last Jedi looks great but it is a slow pretentious movie.
I believe he wanted to capture the feeling you get in a western where the bad guys are chasing the good guys. You know why that works in a western but not in the Last Jedi? Its called a horizon.
You can build tension. The bad guys see a fire that is still smoldering, they are closing in and look ahead at the horizon. The good guys can look back at the horizon and worry that the bad guys will appear.Try that in a space movie and you get The Last Jedi. One ship slowly following another ship. It’s basically two senior citizens on rascals, one slowly chasing the other.I am glad he is out of Star Wars because I am enjoying Poker Face.
I’d love to be trapped in a blizzard with those three.
Just as she’s about to get away (and leave Charlie behind!), Trey smacks her head into the wheel, killing her instantly, and then dumps the car. (So long, Stephanie Hsu!) I’m not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou. I think he knocked her out, and then pushed the car over the cliff with her in it to kill her, making it look like she stole the car and died in an accident. I recall him saying something to that effect as part of his planned cover story. If the smack had killed her, he probably would’ve just dumped her in “the spot” too and not junked his $300k Lamborghini.
I mean, it’s not like it would have been hard to finish her off and dump her in the spot once she was knocked out. Maybe he was worried about having too many people go ‘missing’ at once, so figured it was less risky making it look like she stole his car and drove off a cliff? Either way I agree with you that she wasn’t necessarily dead yet, I feel like the camera pulling back to show the huge cliff was telling us ‘yep, she’s 100% dead now’.
Except there’s a woman at the motel who knows where “the spot” is. It wasn’t clear yet that he had planned on killing her, but he certainly had no problem with that.
He’s the kind of douchey douche, that until this moment, could and would just buy another one because he had the financial ability to. As it already looked like, she ‘stole’ his car, ah fuck crashed off cliff and died. Insurance payback plus couch change equals hey, I got another one.
Don’t know how he didn’t know the ankle monitor was gone.
Of all Charlie’s movie’s references throughout the season, my favorite was in this episode. When she wakes up from her injury in the motel, very out of it, she mutters “I have always been the caretaker.”Morty wasn’t a klepto, as Charlie kept calling her—more like a thief and a pickpocket, but I guess Charlie calling her that meant she liked her. Very glad to see Hsu, who gave an objectively better performance than Jamie Lee Curtis in EEAAO, though I wouldn’t begrudge JLC for winning in effect for a lifetime’s body of work.Maybe a plot hole: when Charlie and Morty crash in the former’s car and it gets stuck in the snow, couldn’t they have just pushed it out? Forgive me if a stupid question; I don’t live in a part of the country that has snow. I could suspend my disbelief, barely, that a car hitting her and she getting stabbed through the chest didn’t kill her. Probably that moose she saw gave her mystical survival powers.
she was a Kleptomaniac. She kept stealing.
In snow like that, pushing requires two or three people plue one to control the gas as soon as any traction can be reached.
Yes and no with pushing the car. Depends how packed/wet the snow is and how deep the tires went. Surprised they didn’t at least try putting it in neutral and pushing, though. Although I noticed Charlie didn’t have gloves?
Even weirder is that Charlie asked “Should we put the chains on the tires?” just minutes earlier, meaning that they had them in the trunk and could’ve used them to get the car out of the snowbank.Even weirder still is it is unexplained how “Morty” got the car out by herself later on, esp since the guys at the motel did NOT have a tow truck.
Also, the sudden cut to “FEBRUARY” with the big title card and the snow felt very reminiscent of another shocking cut in that same movie.
ok so how did she survives a knife to to chest? (on top of being hit by a car at high speed)? Am I the only one who thinks they introduced a surnatural element where she can’t die? (that would be familiar). There’s no reasonable explanation otherwise.
Does she wake up naked in the Hudson each time?God I miss Forever
She wakes up on her birthday in her friend’s bathroom. Thursday, what a concept.
I don’t know why I missed the obvious Russian Doll connection
So do I, rezzyk.So do I.
just speculating as i have no medical expertise whatsoever, but they show that the knife’s blade is actually pretty short right before she gets stabbed and then with her in a big neckbrace when she wakes up i think the idea is that knife just hit like her collar bone area and didnt pierce any organs?
As I’ve heard people note: the hardest part about going to Harvard is getting in to Harvard. If you have the connections that can get you through that part, you can likely coast through the actual “education” part of it.
Certain degrees are that way everywhere because colleges care about the stats looking good – graduation rates, job placements, etc. It lets them keep their prestigous status.I went to a top business school and the lowest grade you could get in a class was a B unless you just plain didn’t show up the entire semester.
You mean like ::cough!:: America’s Second Worst President, George W. Bush? ::cough!::
Friend of mine went to both grad and undergrad in the Ivy leagues, at 2 different ones, and as he put it simply: “There’s a lot of fucking idiots in the Ivy Leagues”. Don’t ever let anyone tell you someone is smarter or superior because they have an Ivy League education. At this point it just means you have more money.
Love this show. Always so wonderfully cast, too.JGL was super greasy in this one.
I was under the impression that her wallet deflected most of the knife. I thought she put her wallet near her chest the last time she got it back from Morty.
Her wallet was on Morty in the wrecked car. She had stolen it again.
Which is why Morty’s death takes her off the map. Which is weird because it should’ve given her some respite from her pursuers. Next thing you know, the hitman’s outside closing in. Last minute inserts I’d wager. “Big ass B” as Mulaney would say.
Nah. I thought it was ridiculous that Charlie thought that it was really going to work out. The police were going to know immediately that Morty – an Asian woman – was not Charlie – very much not an Asian woman.
To be fair, lots of police officers are very stupid and/or bad at their jobs.
The minorest of minor quibbles from an excellent episode of a series I adore, and can’t even let myself think about being only one episode from the end of – Charlie said that when she flashed back to the resort her mom had put her in a Smurfette monokini (which is just an amazing series of words), but then when she had her Proust moment with the coconut rum, it was just a plain coral suit.
Man, monokinis were the coolest.