Poker Face (2023 - Season 1)

 

Rating: ★★★ 

So Rian Johnson seems to be rolling in the big bucks and good books of Hollywood again after the much appreciated success of my 2019 film of the year Knives Out. As long as we forget about the very disappointing sequel that came out late last year, Johnson seems to be going all in on the crime-mystery genre with the addition of this TV series Poker Face, which most critics seem to love, but me not so much.

Poker Face stars Orange Is the New Black's standout starlet Natasha Lyonne. The first episode even features fellow Orange Is the New Black standout Dascha Polanco, and it's quite unfortunate she didn't go on to feature for the rest of the season (as so many other features, but we'll get to that in a bit). The first episode was impressive and I thought I was in for a good series, but by the third episode, I fully knew what this show's plot device was gonna be all about - introduce a whole set of new characters each episode, with a crime, and Natasha Lyonne's highly deus ex machina/macguffin style character swoops in to save the day. It gets boring real quick, even if some of the episodic characters are quite entertaining.

I don't mind unknown actors in my shows and movies, but I can't help but feel that there exists an alternate universe where Poker Face makes full use of Chloe Sevigny, Adrien Brody, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Ron Perlman throughout a full season of devious crimes and malicious intentions that are not so lazily solved. Best exchange in the series comes from episode 5, and I'm paraphrasing: "Wanna watch Euphoria?" "A bunch of teenagers who think they invented fucking?! Please."

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