For those who assumed Poker Face season two would get the same 10 episodes as the first season, the additional two episodes must feel like an unexpected gift. Who could complain about getting to spend more time with Charlie Cale? Alas, I’ve been aware of the episode count from the beginning, and it’s also my job to break down the highs and lows of the series, so complain I must. It’s not like there isn’t fun to be had in “Day of the Iguana,” the penultimate episode of the season, but on a show that’s made a name for itself with its throwback case-of-the-week format, the reveal that this installment is just set up for the finale is more than a little deflating. What is Poker Face if Charlie doesn’t solve a crime?

We get off to a promising start, at least. While getting ready for a wedding, a teacher named Todd (Mr. T to his students) is strangled to death by a supposed chauffeur, who assumes his identity with the help of facial prosthetics and a fake glass eye to match Todd’s real one. As we learn at the end of the episode, the character played by Justin Theroux is the Iguana, an assassin posing as Todd for access to the wedding — I’ll call him by his reptile name throughout to avoid confusion. Director Ti West, the man behind the X trilogy, leans nicely into horror in the opening scene, including the particularly gruesome detail of the Iguana flattening and liquefying Todd’s body to dispose of it. (Shades of Kevin Bacon’s demise in MaXXXine.) There’s also a lot of tension here that’s unfortunately lacking from the rest of the episode, since any confrontation between Charlie and the Iguana will have to wait till next week. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The wedding is a predictably tacky affair given that the groom is Kirby Kowalczyk (Haley Joel Osment), the creator of the BALLZilla energy drink and its associated MLM scheme. (He’s also responsible for the real Todd losing his eye. “You remember that eye jelly all over your classroom floor?” he prods the man he thinks is his former teacher. Gross!) When the Iguana spots an FBI agent monitoring the festivities — it’s our old friend Luca Clark — he tries to call off the job, but his mysterious employer pays him double to stick to the plan and find a patsy to take the fall. That patsy turns out to be Alex, who is working the wedding as part of her new oyster shucking side hustle, Yippie Ki-Yay Oyster Shucker (I laughed). And the job, as you might have guessed, is killing Kirby. The Iguana ambushes him in the bathroom and injects him with a sedative, then stabs him in the eye with one of Alex’s oyster knives. When she stumbles on the body in the boathouse, he comes up from behind and drugs her, too. As the Iguana preemptively sets off fireworks, bride Victoria angrily rushes outside, only to find Kirby dead in a boat. Next to him, Alex comes to covered in blood. “I didn’t do it!” she yells, but it’s hard to argue with the knife in her hand, Kirby’s eyeball still attached.

Naturally, Charlie is also at the wedding, as we learn when we pick up with her perspective. Alex has talked her into joining the oyster shucking operation with the promise of $7,000 for easy work, aside from the old-timey outfits Alex forces them to wear. (The vibe is French mime to me, but Alex is later described as being “dressed like Steamboat Willie.”) Also at the wedding: the FBI, including Special Agent in Charge Danville (Lili Taylor), Agent Milligan (Taylor Schilling), and the aforementioned Luca. When Charlie bumps into Luca in the kitchen, he tries to pretend he’s there to bring down the BALLZilla scam, forgetting he can’t lie to her. He’s then forced to admit the truth: Kirby is the secret son of Beatrix Hasp. While mother and child have been estranged his whole life, Hasp is feeling sentimental and has made it a condition of her testimony that she’s able to watch a livestream of the wedding. Luca has also brought Kirby a framed photo from Hasp, which he does not receive graciously. On the dock outside, Charlie tries to comfort the spoiled scammer, who is mostly upset about his mom’s abandonment because he can’t use her criminal connections to help fund his BALLZilla empire. Charlie explains that everyone close to Hasp ends up dead or in prison. “When you’re that kind of person, the most loving thing you can do for someone is to stay as far away from them as possible, no matter how painful,” she says. When you consider Charlie’s track record, you have to wonder if she’s talking about herself. Is this a preview of where her friendship with Alex is headed?

For the time being, at least, that friendship is a great help to Alex. Later that night, Charlie sees the same thing the bride does: Kirby’s dead body and a bloody Alex clutching the murder weapon. But when she hears Alex say “I didn’t do it,” she knows her friend is telling the truth. The FBI is less convinced, though Luca trusts Charlie and her human lie detector power enough to believe her about Alex’s innocence. That’s sort of beside the point, however — Hasp has powerful connections even in WITSEC, and as soon as she hears about her son’s murder, she’s going to send her goons after the suspected killer. It’s true that Alex has a better shot at survival if the FBI finds her before the mob does, but when Luca says he can protect her, Charlie knows he’s lying. She ends up finding Alex herself, hiding in the break room. They decide to make a run for it until they can sort this mess out, so they don disguises (a BALLZilla gorilla costume for Charlie and an oversized BALLZilla can for Alex) and head to the boathouse. There, they find the Iguana’s fake glass eye at the bottom of the boat — Alex realizes the killer must be Todd, the wedding guest she’s been flirting with, but Charlie deduces it’s someone pretending to be him. A plan this elaborate suggests a professional hit man, and that’s even worse news for Alex. Running remains the only option, even as Luca catches up to them and warns that the Five Families are out for blood.

Charlie and Alex are able to escape the wedding — Luca is astoundingly bad at his job, huh? — but they’re stuck on the next step. Alex now has to evade the FBI, the mob, and the assassin who presumably considers her a loose end. The only person Charlie can think of with the skills to handle that onslaught of threats is, of course, Beatrix Hasp herself. As risky a proposition as that is, Alex doesn’t have any better ideas, so Charlie uses Hasp’s baking Finsta to track down an address in Greenville, Indiana. As they set off on the long drive, Luca regroups with his team at the wedding. Agent Milligan has been poking around, and the chatter about the Kirby hit keeps circling around one word: “iguana.” Darville can’t believe it. Iguana is a code name for the deadliest assassin in the world, but she’s always assumed he was just an FBI boogeyman made up to scare new recruits. If the Iguana is real, Luca reasons, this was all a plan for Charlie and Alex to lead him directly to Hasp. Even for Poker Face, that is an awfully convoluted plot, and I have about a million follow-up questions that I guess will have to wait till next week. We’re left without any real resolution — just Luca promising a “bloodbath” and a shot of Hasp at her kitchen window, blissfully unaware that her off-the-grid life is about to be turned upside-down.

Just One More Thing

Look, I can’t not mention in this section named after Columbo’s most famous catchphrase that we get a literal Columbo impression, with the Iguana delivering a pitch-perfect “there’s just one more thing” as a party trick. Peter Falk, of course, also had a glass eye.

So, who do we think hired the Iguana? Given that the voice is disguised, I’m going to put my money on Good Buddy. That would be a great excuse for a Steve Buscemi appearance in the finale, and while it feels a little far-fetched, we’re already straining credulity quite a bit here.

I’ve been reading your comments and thought the theory of Alex as the Big Bad was pretty compelling. It seems less likely after this episode, though that might just be my fondness for Patti Harrison and the character. I want to hear more about her Estonian dance class!

I loved everything about Beatrix Hasp’s Finsta: the username (@AlwaysBeaBaking), the bio (“Hi Charlie, I’m bored as fuck. Here’s some stuff I baked”), Charlie’s refusal to follow it because it would fuck up her algo. “Look at this, half of my feed is already baking videos,” she laments after she’s forced to do a deep dive to find Hasp’s location.

Would Hasp really be sloppy enough to post a photo with her address on it when she’s in witness protection? How could the person who hired the Iguana possibly have known that Charlie would be able to lead the killer there? (I suppose Alex’s involvement would at least explain how Charlie ended up at the wedding, but shh.)

Taylor Schilling has some funny moments as an FBI agent acting out because her wife filed for divorce the week prior. She’s also, of course, another Orange Is the New Black alum.

Did everyone catch the date on the wedding invitation? February 7, 2026. Finally, confirmation of a completely non-existent fan theory: Poker Face takes place in the future.

 Now it’s Alex’s turn to go on the run, thanks to an assassin played by Justin Theroux.