The back half of Poker Face season two is already shaping up to be much more interesting than the first — and I say that as someone who mostly quite enjoyed the earlier six episodes! After last week’s exceptional heist-movie rom-com, I was expecting something a bit more middle-of-the-road this week. Instead, we got another all-timer: a con-man story that smartly subverts the show’s typical formula and delivers one delicious twist after another. Ditching the threat of Beatrix Hasp has given the writers and Charlie room to stretch their wings, and at least for the time being, Poker Face is firing on all cylinders.
We open with a sort-of meet-cute between Melanie Lynskey’s Reggie and John Cho’s Alec. (How cute can any meeting be when it’s 8:30 a.m. at a hotel bar?) She’s a do-gooder who works for the National Orphan Fund and is killing time while waiting for a nearby bank to open so she can deposit the $20,000 raised at the previous night’s charity bingo tournament. She’s also undeniably drawn to the shady character she suddenly finds herself sharing a table with. Alec says he offers “bespoke services” to some very high-end clients, and the envelopes of cash that keep getting dropped into his satchel suggest something not legal. Reggie, meanwhile, is 43 and lives alone (unless you count her pet fish). She loves her job, but she needs some excitement in her life. That, along with Alec’s dashing good looks, is enough for her to follow him back to his hotel room, where she presses him to reveal what he’s really doing with all that money. He confides that he works for an exiled Georgian ruler sitting on piles of money he can’t spend. Alec gives him U.S. dollars in exchange for twice the value in Georgian lari, which Alec can then safely exchange at the bank. And while he has been doing this with small amounts for some time, he has now cobbled together $400,000 for a massive, life-changing return. In one hour, the Georgian despot’s bodyguard will knock on the hotel-room door and make Alec very rich.
Reggie is buzzing with excitement. Even spotting Alec’s gun isn’t enough of a red flag for her to back down. “I want to see the money,” she says before suggesting they spread it out on the bed and have sex on top of it. (Alec says that wouldn’t be all that fun in practice, and he’s right. Plus, money is filthy.) She also wants to be part of this, noting that the $20,000 she’s holding could save even more orphans if it doubled to $40,000. Alec refuses to let her contribute, but when he goes to answer the door — the bodyguard is early! — Reggie stuffs her money into the satchel. Unfortunately, the thrill of the situation quickly takes a turn. When Alec opens the door, the bodyguard immediately shoots him. In a panic, Reggie grabs Alec’s gun from the side table and shoots the bodyguard as he closes in on her. She then does something the Reggie before this morning would never have done: She puts the gun in Alec’s hand to make it look as if the men had shot each other, takes the satchel of $400,000 (plus the $20,000 for the orphans), and walks out the door.
When Charlie and Alec cross paths, it’s 8:30 a.m. again at the hotel bar. She’s still recovering from her tragic love affair with Bill, so I guess I can excuse all the indoor vaping. However worse for wear she is, though, her bullshit detector has never been more on point, as she instantly determines Alec is lying about everything, including his name. Impressed by her skills, he decides to be honest. “Nice to meet you,” he tells her. “I’m Guy, and I’m a con man.” Call me a rube because I did not see this coming! It’s the first big twist in the episode, the second being that we’re seeing the story in chronological order. Instead of jumping back in time the way Poker Face always does, Charlie is meeting Guy after the episode’s opening act. Also, there’s no murder victim because no one was actually shot — the despot’s bodyguard is really Manny (Joel Marsh Garland), the muscle in Guy’s gang. For someone who has made a career out of dishonesty, Guy is surprisingly forthcoming with Charlie, if only because she passes every human-lie-detector test he throws at her. Introducing her to the rest of his gang, Guy explains that they’re one of the last crews in the U.S. who pull old-school big cons, and the “sleazy Georgian” is their specialty.
Hearing him break down the con, I once again felt shame at my own gullibility. We know the broad strokes because we saw them play out. The key is letting the mark lead and draw the story out of you until they’re so desperate to add money to the pot that they run to the nearest ATM to withdraw funds. (Reggie having $20,000 on hand was just good fortune.) Charlie wisely asks how they fake the satchel of cash, and Guy reveals that only the top of the pile is real money, made up of the take from the previous con. He also tells her his gun is used only to introduce the threat of violence — it’s loaded with blanks. Even though Charlie’s life is much more thrilling than Reggie’s, you can tell she’s getting a real kick out of these con stories. It’s fun and romantic, she admits, though she doesn’t approve of stealing money from honest people. That’s where Guy corrects her: “You can’t con an honest man.” Greed always outweighs caution and morality. (He’s not entirely wrong about that if you consider Reggie’s recent actions.) When Guy says they steal only from criminals, Charlie basically talks herself into joining the crew. “You’re like the Dexter of con men,” she concludes.
Except the truth may not be so simple. Charlie stumbles on Reggie’s $20,000 check slip for the National Orphan Fund, so she does a little research. An article reveals that after being robbed of the charity money, Reggie threw herself off a bridge. There’s a death in this episode after all, and it’s a particularly sad one. Charlie furiously confronts Guy, who takes it all in stride. Reggie “was blinded by greed, by the larceny in her heart,” he insists. She even tried to steal an extra $400,000 with two “dead” men at her feet and would have stolen the crew’s last take if Guy hadn’t hastily swapped the satchels. It’s not his fault she couldn’t live with the consequences of her actions. Charlie isn’t swayed: Reggie was vulnerable, and Guy took advantage of her. If he doesn’t return the $20,000 to those orphans in need, she’s going to the cops to get the whole operation shut down. Personally, I think that’s easier said than done, though Guy acknowledges it’s possible she would be effective. Regardless, he has a better offer — if she helps him play the next mark, he’ll cut her in for $20,000, which she can donate as she sees fit.
The final mark is a walking red flag, and not just because his name is Sketch. He’s way too eager to get in on the Georgian exchange, and Charlie privately urges Guy to call the whole thing off. Sketch is a twitchy gambling addict who works for the local mob, but he has offered to put in a staggering $400,000, meaning all Guy sees are dollar signs. In the hotel room, Charlie realizes Sketch has a gun of his own, so she tries to blow the deal by revealing that the whole thing is a con as Guy tries his best to talk over her. Charlie can’t warn Manny in time — he walks in, gun raised, and Sketch shoots the “bodyguard” in the chest. She wrestles with him for the gun, with Sketch getting shot in the scuffle. Meanwhile, Guy has, of course, bolted, taking the satchel back to his gang. They’ll need to get out of town, he tells them, and yes, they’re down one crew member, but they’ve just made so much money they’ll get over it.
Or have they? In the episode’s final brilliant twist, Guy opens the satchel and discovers it’s filled with hotel-breakfast coupons, which Charlie collects on her travels. She played him, and she did so with Manny’s help. Back in the hotel room, Manny rises to his feet unharmed. “He really just left you here to die, just like you said he would,” she tells him. Sketch, also not actually shot, is Manny’s husband, Robin, and they were all in on it together. “You’re like the Dexter of con men,” Charlie repeats to Manny, and this time she really means it. “You could make this your whole thing.” But Manny doesn’t want to hurt anyone — beyond, of course, Guy, who has lost the trust of his crew, their entire last take, and, by the sound of the sirens approaching, his freedom. While Charlie can’t undo what happened to Reggie, she can at least make good on the stolen charity money. The episode ends with her dropping the entire satchel into the depository at the bank. Maybe she threw in some extra hotel-breakfast coupons, too.
Just One More Thing
• Charlie’s human-lie-detector skills have felt a bit unexplored this season, so I loved that we got more insight into how it all works — namely, that it has nothing to do with tells. Her theory that the world’s greatest sociopath could trick her is an intriguing one, though I prefer her powers to be vaguely supernatural and, therefore, infallible.
• Hard not to think about Yellowjackets when watching a Melanie Lynskey character break bad, but given how much time I’ve spent with her as Shauna, I kind of assumed the twist would be that she was pulling a fast one on Guy — er, Alec.
• The story we actually get with Reggie is much sadder. Something about that offscreen death really hit me, and yes, at least part of that is because I’m concerned about who’s taking care of her fish.
• Another Orange Is the New Black crossover with Joel Marsh Garland, who has lovely chemistry with Natasha Lyonne. But who doesn’t?
• Sketch/Robin is played by Brendan Sexton III, who is probably best known for his role as Brandon McCarthy in Todd Solondz’s Welcome to the Dollhouse, a movie I am sure Lyonne loves.
• I also wanted to call out the very funny Veronika Slowikowska, who has a tiny part as Cliff, the crew intern who takes minutes. The joke that she’s leaving conwork behind to follow her dreams and become an NBC page is maybe the funniest bit of Peacock brand synergy on the show so far.
John Cho and Melanie Lynskey guest star in a con-man story that delivers one delicious twist after another.
