Slow clap for everyone who called it weeks ago, whether you were tipped off by the pumpkin spice latte or the Carolyn Hester song “Warning”: Alex was the Big Bad all along. Depending on how strong your detective skills are, the reveal may not come as a shock by the time it arrives, but the way it plays out — with stellar performances from Natasha Lyonne and Patti Harrison, along with thrilling direction from Lyonne herself — is a high point for Poker Face’s second season. While some recent episodes, including last week’s lackluster installment, have shown signs of a sophomore slump, we’re ending on a high note. Should the series get a third season, I’ll be excited to find out where this story is headed next.

The season finale picks up right where we left off, as Charlie and Alex drive toward Beatrix Hasp — and away from the FBI agents, mob goons, and trained assassin pursuing them. Luca calls to make another urgent plea for Charlie to turn back around. He explains his theory that the murder was a set-up to bring the Iguana, the world’s most-wanted assassin, to Hasp (he’s right, just not in the way he thinks), and warns that he won’t be able to keep Charlie out of federal prison if Hasp dies. Unconvinced, Charlie hangs up before Agent Milligan can finish tracing the call. She’s only narrowed Charlie and Alex’s location down to Indiana, and there are too many safehouses in the state to do a full sweep. But when Luca begs SAC Darville and the heads of the NSA and CIA to reveal Hasp’s location so he can protect her, they laugh him off. The Iguana is presumed retired, having not made a peep in over a year. Besides, how could an oyster shucker even find the safehouse? In a speech comparing Charlie to a hawk, Sherlock Holmes, and an English bulldog, Luca explains that she “has an uncanny talent for figuring out things that nobody else can.” I half-expected him to call Charlie the “living manifestation of destiny.”

In reality, Charlie isn’t doing so hot. Luca’s warning that the Iguana is a master of disguise who could be anyone has her on high alert. Lyonne, a clear fan of Dutch angles, leans into the paranoia in her direction in these scenes. Regrouping at a diner with Alex, Charlie feels suitably spooked about the possibility of a trap, so she suggests that they lay low until Hasp testifies in two weeks. But when a cowboy who looks suspiciously like Justin Theroux with facial prosthetics starts moving toward them, Charlie and Alex make a run for it. Even after they sic some locals on the (probable) assassin, they realize they have no choice but to continue on their journey to the safehouse. When they arrive at the home in Greenville, Indiana, Charlie is still all nerves. She asks for some gum and Alex hands her a stick of Big Red — singing the jingle at least defuses some tension. Charlie leaves Alex in the car, urging her to honk the horn if there’s danger approaching. The danger, it turns out, is already there. No one answers when Charlie knocks on Hasp’s door, and as she walks toward a side entrance, she has a sudden revelation. “Alex,” she says, just as her friend starts honking furiously. By the time Charlie makes it back to the car, it’s empty.

The situation goes from bad to worse when Charlie discovers dead federal agents surrounding and inside the safehouse. In a gorgeous overhead shot, we see her make her way into the living room, where Beatrix is planted in front of Wheel of Fortune, a bullet hole in her forehead. (So much for more Rhea Perlman in the finale!) Alex appears in the doorway with a gun to her head, but Charlie has already solved this mystery. “Cut the shit,” she says. “I know who you are.” Alex emerges in a new villain-appropriate leather ensemble. “I was just fucking with you,” she says in a voice that sounds notably different from what we’re used to. That’s because she isn’t Alex — there never was an Alex. The woman standing in front of Charlie is the Iguana. (For the sake of clarity and our collective sanity, I’m going to keep referring to her as Alex in this recap.) Her one misstep was the Big Red gum, which would have been deadly if she’d been telling the truth about her allergy to cinnamon. That also means she’s the world’s greatest sociopath, a theoretical figure teased back in episode eight, a.k.a. the one person who can lie to Charlie without getting caught.

It’s here that we get Alex’s (or, okay, the Iguana’s) backstory. After spending her whole adult life killing the richest and most powerful people in the world — the Vatican tried to get her to assassinate the Pope, but they couldn’t meet her rate — she discovered she was bored. She was ready to retire from her work and the world of the living when she got a call about a seemingly impossible job: a hit on Beatrix Hasp, whose only human connection was a woman who couldn’t be lied to. That odd scene of Alex “accidentally” lying to Charlie about her coffee order when they first met? That was the Iguana testing her ability to successfully trick a human lie detector, which she did by suppressing all of her body’s involuntary responses. In other words, “choking off the roots of my humanity.” But it worked, and it continued to work as Alex lied incessantly to Charlie. The challenge was invigorating. Harrison plays her as being a little turned on by finally meeting her match. “Lying to you was like great sex,” she tells Charlie. “I assume. I don’t really do physical pleasure.”

In another of the episode’s many Sherlock Holmes references, Alex shares that the murder at the gym, though not a part of her original plan, moved things along by turning her into Charlie’s “kooky little Watson.” At that point, she earned Charlie’s trust, and she learned how to manipulate her by preying on Charlie’s do-gooder nature. She hired the world’s second-best assassin to kill Hasp’s son, murdered the other hitman herself (RIP Justin Theroux, whatever your real name was), and then waited for Charlie to bring her to Beatrix, the only person who would be able to save Alex from the apparent mess she’d landed in. It is, as Charlie points out, a bizarrely complicated plan, but that’s not a plot hole — it was the point from the beginning. “All because of you, Charlie Cale, the greatest challenge of my career,” Alex says. “You gave me a reason to live.” Charlie has a surprisingly emotional response to that, even though she knows who Alex really is at this point. But that’s the root of her humanity, the one thing she can never choke off, and she’s grateful that it keeps her from being a soulless killer like the Iguana. Besides, talking this out has helped Charlie stall. By the time Alex is poised to shoot her, the smoke alarm goes off, the delayed result of Charlie cranking up the burners in the safehouse. “Clever girl,” Alex says in what I hope isn’t a Peacock brand synchronicity promo for a new Jurassic World movie. Luca and Milligan arrive with plenty of FBI and local police backup, but Alex uses Charlie as a hostage to make her escape in the Barracuda.

Charlie asks Alex what the plan is, perhaps realizing that she’s not going to like the answer. “I fooled the unfoolable Charlie Cale, the closest thing I’ll ever have to a nemesis, so what’s left?” Alex replies. “This is the end of the road.” They are headed for Indiana’s famed Grand Canyon Canyon (actually more of a gorge), and Alex is about to give them a big Thelma & Louise ending. Charlie pleads for one more chance to catch Alex in a lie, and the assassin is intrigued by the notion. She’s willing to play a final game of Two Truths and a Lie. If Charlie wins, Alex will let them both live — the Iguana will have a true equal, a “Sherlock to my Moriarty,” and that’s reason enough to keep going. Thankfully, even in her panic, Charlie is able to clock the lie, or maybe it’s just wishful thinking that Alex is not telling the truth when she says she’s going to drive off the cliff no matter who wins the game. True to her word (in this case, at least), Alex slams on the brakes, but the ‘cuda — which has been on its last legs for a couple episodes now — doesn’t stop, and the car careens into the gorge.

It looks like we’re about to get a very frustrating “To Be Continued.” Then (sigh of relief), the action rewinds, and we see that Charlie rolled out of the car just in time. She clings to a root on the side of the cliff, as the Barracuda falls to the bottom of Grand Canyon Canyon and explodes. Luca arrives just in time to rescue her, but he doesn’t come bearing good news. Charlie aided and abetted a serial killer and got a federal witness killed, on top of a long list of equally egregious offenses — she’s now officially wanted by the FBI. In a surprisingly emotional scene, the two say a tearful goodbye, with Luca warning Charlie that he’ll have to arrest her the next time he sees her. And the FBI may not be the only ones after her: When Agent Milligan gets to the bottom of the gorge, she discovers that the Barracuda is empty, meaning Alex could be anywhere. For the time being, however, Charlie’s only concern is getting as far away from trouble as she can. She’s back to her nomadic life on the road, free from attachments (minus a dog she rescues from the highway ahead of an oncoming truck). When the driver stops to pick her up, he shares that he’s headed to Wichita, and she hops in. Kansas is as good a next stop as any for Charlie — and her little dog, too.

Just One More Thing

• The Wizard of Oz allusion isn’t accidental. The waitress who tells Charlie about the BOGO deal on parking lot Xanax is named Glinda.

• Now that all is said and done, how do we feel about the second season of Poker Face as a whole? I’ve been a bit taken aback by some of the negativity I’ve seen online, while also acknowledging that I had plenty of complaints along the way.

• Should there be a season three, forcing Charlie back on the run means a return to the status quo of the first season, even if she’s fleeing the feds this time. I’d be very interested to see if the show can balance its episodic structure with the Iguana as an overarching Big Bad. (It would be crazy not to bring back Patti Harrison, right?)

• So much for my Good Buddy as the Big Bad theory. That storyline feels unfinished, though, and I have to believe Steve Buscemi will show up in the flesh next season if the show gets renewed.

• I still think Beatrix Hasp made herself way too easy to find. Again, she posted her address on Instagram! I get that Alex wanted a challenge, but she absolutely could have gotten to her target on her own.

• Poker Face producer and frequent director Adam Arkin gets a cameo as the CEO Alex kills in a panic room 300 feet under the Alaskan tundra.

• But I was even more excited about the Harvey Fierstein vocal cameo. He plays the Iguana’s agent, Cedric, who calls her about the Hasp job. “Talk about the world’s biggest sociopath,” Alex says.

 Depending on how strong your detective skills are, the reveal of the Big Bad may not come as a shock by the time it arrives.