The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Poker Face’ Episode 9 Recap

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

At the top of an icy mountain with an overpriced SUV, Joanna and Rob return to recap the ninth episode of ‘Poker Face.’ Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Kevin O'Connor. I've got some big news for you. The Mismatch is hosting its first ever live show in Los Angeles at the L.R. A theater on March 6th, me and Chris Vernon are going to be there. I'm fired up about it. At the L.R.R.A. Theta, there's been performers like Bob Dylan and Kendrick Lamar, enraging as the Machine in Licky Lee. I'm fired up.

Get to be on that stage with my guy, Chris Vernon. We've been together since 2016 doing NBA podcasts. And now we're going to get to meet a lot of you who have listened. to our show for so many years. We'll do a Q&A at the end. We might have some special guests, but we're definitely going to be talking basketball. It's going to be a lot of fun.

I'm excited about it. Tickets are going fast, though, so be sure to head to the LRA.com to get your tickets now. Doors are going to open at 7 p.m. And the show is going to be starting right at 8 o'clock. Let's go, baby. This episode is brought to by Bor's Head.

What if we told you the taste of deep-fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Boris Head just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means pointing your whole day around it. Presenting the Friars turkey breast only from Borshead. The backyard tradition now available behind the counter. Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftsmanship behind every bite. Borset committed to craft since 1905.

You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your oceanfront room. Just steps from the water.

The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Jimmy, all when we know each other.

Think about everything we've been through. You were always like, my big brother. You're my protector. And now, all this, I can get you out. Jimmy. Whatever you want. This TV podcast, me. I'm Joanna Romston. Joining me today.

I think B.I.O. Coconut Rum. It's Rob Mahoney. Hi, Rob. How are you? First of all, I would never. And second, I go by Mortimer Bernstein now, so please respect the name. We're here to talk about episode nine of Poker Face. escape from Shit Mountain

written by Nora and Lila Zuckerman and directed by someone you might have heard of Ryan Johnson. We loved

last week's episode of Pokerface and I'm going to go ahead and say we loved this week's

episode of Pokerface as well. We are finishing strong this season. Rob, and you're like

overarching thoughts that you want to say about this episode and why you liked it

so much. I mean, first, just an exciting change of scenery. You know, between this

and the last of us. This is really a great week for the exploration and the terror of the American West, you know, really big-time stuff. Speaking of, like, let's just check in on the Charlie's route, right? Because it's actually a little bit of a weird one this week. We got an email from a listener Clayton who said in episode three, Natasha, Charlie, tells the victim of the week that she will close her eyes and point somewhere on a map and then go there. Thereby, I think that explains her random placement. Sure, to a certain degree.

But let's just recap the route, okay? Loughlin, Nevada, Albuquerque, Houston, Texas, Milwaukee, Chicago area. Georgia, though someone email me is contesting Time of the Monkey being in Georgia, and they think it's actually elsewhere in New York. So I didn't go back and check the license plates, but okay. Seneca Lake, New York, Tennessee. Then we're back in New York, and now we're in Colorado. We're in like Avon just outside of Vale on the way to Denver.

And the problem with that, if you want to call it a problem, is that, like, Charlie left New York, and then she got west of Denver, and now she's going back to Denver. Anyway, chaos on the map. But we do know that Charlie is following a folded map, right? Yes. We have the great line.

Let me just fold my map in this episode. But that is, that is a trajectory. How did you feel about, I mean, you already said, but like the Colorado setting, the, you know, the snowboarding community being involved in this episode. How do you feel? A real indictment of the snowboarding community, if you ask me. Yeah, not great.

I love the setting. I'm a sucker personally for any kind of snowed in with nowhere to run kind of story. So I think it's great for narrative tension. It's great for putting all these characters in the same place. It let us see something with Charlie that's a little bit different, where we're used to in most episodes, she kind of bounces between parties. She'll go talk to this person, then she'll go talk to that group, and she compares their stories, and she hears different details, and that's when the wheel starts spinning. This episode, most of the time, at least from half the episode on, the back half of the episode, they're really in one room and maybe kind of outside it in the parking lot or kind of outside it in the woods behind it.

But really, you have the four critical characters in the same space. There's no time to compare notes. There's no space for secrets. I think it's a really good kind of like boiling kettle of an episode. Yeah, locked in the cabin, you're locked in here with me kind of episode. We've got the snowed out roads, which is like a classic of the genre. And then we've got the incapacitated sleuth, which actually also happens sometimes, where your gumshoe cannot move around.

And so they just have all they can, the only muscle they can really use is their brain. I regret to inform you, Rob Mahoney. Uh-oh. that I am forced to reopen the superhero conversation with you. What do we see in this episode, Rob? Charlie gets mowed down by a car and she's fine. And then she gets stabbed in the chest with no like, oh, good thing I always carry this pocket-sized Bible in my coat. like no explanation as to why that didn't kill her.

Now, she was thrown into the snow, and the snow's going to slow things down, but I still need you to give me a non-superhero explanation for how Charlie escapes death twice in this episode. She's living hard, you know? Living on the edge, it toughens you up, it builds character,

makes you slightly impervious to knife wounds. Look, I'm just tired of this, Joe. I can't get behind it. Right now, you sound like Charlie on the couch screaming at the staghead on the wall, imploring it for answers, when in reality, it's right there before us. This is not a superhero show. I'm sorry.

It was a good move, a good debate move to try to make me seem unhinged. But the facts are with me, I think, this week. So we'll see how you go next week. A couple things we, or one thing at least, that we missed from last week's episode because since we sort of like pre-recorded it, a Sean Lennon cameo. Sean Lennon makes a little appearance in the episode. and I got a lot of people a little frosty with me, a notorious Beatles fan that I did not notice Sean Lennon there

in the cameo last week's episode. And then also the debate rages on about the real life inspiration for last week's episode. I will just say the highlight of my week last week is texting you and Sean Fantasy. By the way, Sean Fantasy texted me and I'm going to do my best reading of what I think the tone of his text message was.

Please. which was, is this episode about Kathy Kennedy with like five question marks? Anyway, I texted you and Sean that Ryan had posted a screenshot from a variety article on his like Instagram, I think it is, right? About how Cuella DeVille was the inspiration for Cherry Jones character last week. And that, I mean, that came from the, you know, the costume designer, I believe. So like sartoriali with the like sweeping dressing gowns and stuff like that and a dramatic black and white gown at the end of the episode inspired by Kuella Deville.

We can see that. Yeah, that makes sense. We're with you on that one. But we're sticking by our Kathy Kennedy assessment for the rest of the episode, right? It's not even negotiable. There is no discussion to be had on the subject. I like, again, it's all friend's center. Tell me LAM isn't ILM.

I don't know how you could possibly say that with a straight face. Something that someone else messaged me about was Louis Guzman's character, who was like the archivist at LAM in last week's episode. They mentioned that perhaps that was an analog to Pablo Hidalgo, who is this beloved by the Star Wars community for his role in the story group at Lucasfilm. He's not quite an archivist over there, but he's like a keeper of the lore over there. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. I hadn't thought about that.

But you mentioned Phil Tippett, obviously, in our conversations last week. And Ryan also tweeted about the fact that, like, Phil Tippett was not only, like, the direct inspo here for Nignulty, but that he actually worked on the episode itself. That was a nice wrinkle for sure. I mean, the clearly Phil Tippett inspired figures are, in fact, just Phil Tippett figures. You know, you love to see it. You love to see it. All right, we got this email from Vinny, and it was perfect timing. Vinnie has not seen this episode, episode 9, Apocrypha,

Vinnie wrote, I was listening to Episode 7 recap, and that episode, Davis being the race car driver, clearly is attracted to Charlie trying to kiss her at a time of the monkey where the Helberg FBI agent is also attracted to her. She's always shown in this cool, deep, and insightful lady who everyone is attracted to, whether as a friend or a potential love interest.

Do you think next season or the following season, Charlie can find love, even if it's just for an episode? And in this episode, Charlie gets a full montage, a love montage. How did you feel about the introduction of Chris Cortez and his impressive torso in this episode, Rob? It was quite impressive, first of all. We love to see Charlie get a lovely summer on the mountain and a lovely summer on a mountain man in this case. It really worked out great for her. Amazing.

I will say, you know, he's the one who really introduces the Proustian concept to this episode. you can have washboard abs or the lit degree. You can't have both. I'm sorry, it's just not fair. What's your degree in, Rob? Do you have a degree? What do you do? Psychology.

So we can dig into that another time. Psych degree. Amazing. All right. Also, speaking of lax of this episode, we got this really interesting email from Casey, who said, I just wanted to offer up one more interesting note

about last week's episode, the possible allusion to the accident by way of arrogance and neglect on the set of John Landis' portion of the Twilight Zone movie. There's this book that Casey cites outrageous conduct, colon, art, ego, and the Twilight Zone case by Stephen Farber, Mark Green. Casey goes on to say, the accident itself, the violent deaths of Vic Morrow and two child actors during an absurdly dangerous helicopter stunt, is pretty different than what takes place in this episode. but there are a couple of connections that I think it has, number one, the willful breaking of protocol that leads to a disastrous outcome, and more importantly, two, the role Frank Marshall, which is Kathy Kennedy's husband, had in the aftermath and his protection of the boy geniuses involved Landis and Spielberg. Landis is the villain, but story goes that Spielberg, who doesn't seem to be directly responsible in any way, to be fair, was very coddled and had to be protected at all costs. As I recall, Marshall also fled the country for long enough to not have to testify. in the trial with Kennedy

alongside him, I believe. It's been a minute since I read the book, but I remember it being not super flattering. I also don't remember how if Kennedy played into the main action at all, but she did work on that movie. So that's another fascinating real-life wrinkle that I didn't know about.

Any thoughts or feelings, Rob. One, holy shit. And two, yeah, that episode's definitely not about Kathy Kennedy or Frank Marshall at all. There's no parallels. There's no similarities. I don't see it.

Not in the slightest. Not in the slightest. All right, we get an answer in this week's episode about the timeline of the season that we've been watching, right? Because Charlie said, and I was just really glad they finally said something about it, she said, I've been a real death magnet this year. We got this email from Maggie who said the timeline is intentionally fuzzy. We only see Charlie when she discovers a crime, but there's nothing saying she doesn't go weeks or months between coming across people lying about a crime. In fact, some of her early jobs seem well established. is she could have been laying low for a while.

So how do you feel, Rob, about that, like, a year-ish timeline for the episodes we've seen so far? How does that check out, though, with the two years she spent training with Luke Skywalker in between episodes? Like, how does that fit into this? How dare you bring up the most controversial news of the day? Yeah, well, you know, she came back proficient in lightsaber skills. We really saw that, I think, in the dinner theater episode.

What is time? For murders per year, it's sort of lower than I had been thinking. I was like almost every week, Charlie's involved on the murder. If this is spread out across the year, that's a little bit more reasonable. But at least she's calling herself a death magnet.

And then she gets like a very serious contemplative reflection on that at the end of the episode, which I absolutely loved. But this joke here at the top, I've been a real death magnet this year. Like, at least you're acknowledging it, right? Like that this is an insane year for someone to have. And it makes the route make a little more sense too, right? Like if there's months in between these episodes,

it might suddenly make sense why she would go from like New York to Atlanta to back to New York or whatever the geography turns out to be. I'm still trapped in your two years with Luke Skywalker joke. It's really solid rub. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigue, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptide, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA.

Zetbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zetbound contains terseptitide and shows. should not be used with other terseptide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pins or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck.

Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonel urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsened kidney problems. Talk to your doctor.

Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbound.lily.com. It's time to refresh your yard during spring backyard days at the home. Get low prices guaranteed on propane grills starting at $179, like the next grill three-burner gas grill. Or get $50 off a select Weber Spirit grill and bring big flavor to your backyard. Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together. Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th, exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. Good sleep is everything.

That's why Ali's science back support is made with a blend of melatonin, and L-D-A-N-E-N- for both kiddos and grown-ups. So when your mind won't switch off, you've got something that can help. Erasing thoughts and restless nights won't stand a chance. Find Ollie Sleep Solutions for the Whole Family at ollie.com. That's OLL-L-Y.com. All right, so let's talk about the intro of this episode.

We meet, and the conventions of the episodes are a little upended again this week in terms of we are there, sort of pulling the rug out from under us throughout the episode, and I really loved that about this episode. Joseph Gordon Leavitt is playing character named Trey. We meet him in the loop of a routine. Ramoni did this give you Desmond in the Hatch and Lost vibes, or no? It actually gave me Sam Tarley cleaning shit in the Citadel vibes a little bit.

Yes, absolutely. I mean, anytime you see a looped routine, this is like not a new thing, people do this. but there's something about the the Peloton bike and the Daily Smoothie which is very Desmond in the Hatch in Lost season two

if you guys haven't watched Lost what are you doing with your lives please go watch all of Lost but and then at first when we were watching I was like is this a COVID episode? I'm glad you mentioned that

I was tripping out all the repetition of the DoorDash in particular was really getting to me and by the way I was I mean, like the scumbag scruff on JGL, I think, is supposed to be telling us something and also just sort of like the douchebag aesthetic of his home.

But it was the first time he smashed that no-tip button on the delivery that I was like, oh, I hate you. You're the villain this week, my guy. Smash the button and you get that aw-s sound effect from the app. I mean, honestly pretty courteous of the designers of that app, I have to say. That's more than I would expect. It's true. It's true.

Yeah, so I thought it was COVID, but then we realized he's under house arrest. And I feel like this character, Trey, which really just seemed to me like Joseph Gordon Levin just staying in his, like, Travis Kalanick in super pumped tech,

Silicon Bro, douchebag mode. Love this. Love this from Joseph Gordon Levitt. Longtime Ryan Johnson collaborator. You may know him. as the titular brick and brick. Did this, did, did, JTL playing like a scumbag?

Did that feel like a nice twist you? Do you feel like you've seen him play scumbag enough? Like, how'd you feel? I was really hoping for it, to be honest. It's just so easy for him to be likable that I prefer it when he gets to twirl his mustache a little bit, or in this case, just be, as you mentioned, just a total douchebag.

Just a repugnant person from the tip to the comment about how he definitely did not go to fucking Stanford. He went to Harvard. They're constantly correcting people on their pronunciation, but incorrectly. I loved all of it. I love that for him.

Yeah. Delicious. But let's talk about his coconut rum habit. Okay. So you mentioned at the jump, right? That you would never. So does that mean, I need to know, Rob, have you ever partaken of coconut rum?

Of course. You know, I went to an undergraduate college. You know, I had a postgraduate experience. I have, I've sampled. the wares of coconut rum. And I have decided, much like Jimmy in this episode, probably should leave that in the past.

Were you a, you know, a 30 or 40-something man? Leave that in the mug. I will have you know that one of the most embarrassing things about me is that coconut rum and pineapple juice was my go-to drink in college. And it's one of the most shameful chapters of my life. when I reflect back on it,

I wonder, did I have any friends in college or did anyone like me that they didn't prevent me from making this mistake over and over and over and over and over and over again? Did you have a go-to drink in college? Not as such, but now I wish I had one on that level. I mean, when was your, when did you see the light? When did you put the glass of pineapple juice and coconut rum down? Yeah.

I think it was, like, within a year of leaving the bad decision cocoon that is college, you know what I mean? Like, you put down your Smyranoffices and you put down your coconut room and pineapple juices and you're out in the real world and like real world, not college town bartenders, but real world bartenders are going to be like, I'm sorry, you want what? You know what I mean? Can you repeat that? Just to get it on the shame record.

Yeah, exactly. One more time a little louder, please. So, yeah, I, unfortunately. As soon as I saw the white bottle, I was like, oh, no. This is a lot of flashbacks for me. It's a real tough one. At least you got out of the bad decision cocoon. Trey, it seems, never quite made it out.

Arrested development. Arrested development for this guy. The other characters in this episode, Mortimer Bernstein, played by Oscar nominee, Stephanie Shoe. Yep. I just found out putting these notes together today, by the way. Stephanie, she was not only like Oscar nominated, she's performing at the Oscars with David Byrne.

How about that? How excited are you for that? What a bill. I know. What did you think of Stephanie in this episode? I thought she was great. But to your point, like, poker face, they've done an incredible thing here in constructing a show

where you can tempt an Oscar nominee in the year they are nominated to come guest as a kleptomaniacal drifter. And not the first Oscar nominee we've seen this year be like, basically living on the fringes of society. You know, we had Hong Chow in a kind of similar capacity in role, if a little less adversarial. We had obviously Adrian Brody on the top. You got Nick Noltee in there.

You had Chloe Seveny. Like, this is a murderer's row of Oscar winners and nominees who were just breezing through, having a good time. And in this case, repeatedly stealing shiny wallets out of Charlie's pocket. I love that. I also, like, when she first showed up, I was like, at first I was like, are we just doing Hong Chow's character again? because, like, our first thing is, like, Charlie's injured.

She's offering her drugs. And I'm like, we didn't really do this. But then we're getting, like, a very different flavor. Yes. And one thing that I absolutely love, in addition to, like, whatever was going on with Stephanie she's hair in this episode is the job the makeup department did in, like, the redness around her eyes that just made her look like perpetually super stoned. Loved that.

I thought she was so good in this episode. I thought her rapport with Charlie. We've talked before about this idea of the sleuth getting like a little sidekick, a little assistant detective. And what I like in this episode is like she's working as an assistant detective. She makes some very crucial discoveries like the bone, the pins in the bone, like all that sort of stuff. She's, you know, she's sleuthing around with the cell phone. Like she's doing it. But she and Charlie are also at cross purposes, right?

Because she's out for herself. at the end of the day she's about the bottom line and that's what gives like once they get to the motel the Snowden Motel with the four of these characters Trey and Jimmy and Morty and Charlie you would think of them as two pairs

but the two pairs within each other within themselves don't really trust each other at all it gives it kind of like a hateful eight sort of vibe where you don't know the backstory of these two men in particular exactly how they know each other exactly how they're bonded other than the fact that they seem to be a little afraid.

I have to say, like, as far as calling someone out of the blue and giving the like, hey, what's up, bro, cool, so listen. And the cool so listen is that you just hit a woman with your car and need to hide her in your, you know, convenient forest hide a hole is quite a big ask. I love that they set it up in that way, where we really don't know what anyone is ultimately going to do or even what anyone necessarily wants other than Charlie.

Do you not have a murder hide hole in a nearby, forest. I kind of thought that everyone had one. You don't have one? Can we take this off mic? Do you think? Okay. Cool, cool, cool. Here's my promise to you, if you ever call me with a cool, so listen, I will do most things to help you. But in the immortal words of meatloaf, I won't do that. Like, I want, I'm not going to hide a body for you. Maybe, like, maybe if we podcast together for another year, I will. But we're not quiet there yet. So you won't even help me with the first body. I'm definitely not helping you with the body of the, like, girlfriend that I also seem to have a crush on that you said, quote unquote, fell.

No, I'm not helping you with that one. She was giving me a hard time, okay? Like, it was a whole thing. You can't deal with all these girls going crazy on you. I love David Castaneda, who played Jimmy, who most people know is Diego from Umbrella Academy, I think. I thought he was great in this episode. First of all, like a really different character than he plays on Umbrella Academy, a really different demeanor. Like, he's very, like, cocksure in Umbrella Academy.

So to see him in this sort of, like, I've been pushed around by this friend of mine for the entirety of our friendship, I am way down by the guilt and the grief over what I do. I see her face everywhere I look. I'm stuck in this shit hole. motel I loved this role and I love I love I don't think we've seen a lot of like

appeal to your better angels moments in this show so far and this idea that Charlie you know when he tells Charlie nothing's gonna have I'm gonna make sure nothing happens to you tonight right yeah you believe me don't you so she does and so she is able to appeal you know so he like he defends her.

When push comes to shove, he defends her. And then it's horrifying to see him get a bullet to the forehead. And obviously he made a huge mistake helping hide this body so many years ago, taking money from Trey so many years ago. But the fact that he's been living with that grief and that ghost for so long and then makes the right decision here. I love your point about the fact that these two pairs are together, or not together at the same time

and working at cross purposes. That's so smart. I think that's really interesting. But yeah, I really love the Jamie character. I thought David injected him with like a lot of soul in this episode. That's a great word for it. Like there is a natural empathy

to the way he performs. Like there is a sense of like this is a sensitive person. This is a person who has carried a lot who, to your point, is like stuck in this place. You know, we basically have two characters who are stuck, as you put it.

Like if Trey is a real person, rested in his development. Now you have Jimmy who's just like, cannot leave. Like, has been left this family business, is literally snowed in, is trapped in this place where his douchebag friends shows up and wants to hide another body. Cool, but so. I love the performance, too. Like, I was not familiar with David Kessoniet's work.

I'm not an umbrella academy guy. I think the only thing I had seen him in was Sicario Deav de'ev the Soldado, which I love Sicario, the first one, would not recommend the sequel personally. He does a perfectly fine job in it, but doesn't get this kind of showcase, right? not only is he like leveling with, again, some pretty heavy-hitting guest stars in this episode, but gets a lot of time. We get a lot of time to kind of figure out what is making him tick and what he might be thinking. And what is a very internal performance from him?

I really loved it a lot. Yeah, and I think that to your point about poker face being a place where Oscar nominated or Oscar winning actors can just like come and play for an episode, It's also an opportunity then for like actors who haven't performed yet on that level necessarily, No Shade de Ambril Academy, to get to sort of show us what they're working with. And like I think, you know, as we've mentioned to some actors maybe haven't fully risen to the occasion in previous episodes. But I think this is just like a perfect 10 out of 10 combination of characters. Love the hateful eight comparison.

I think that's great. We got an email from listener Maggie about this motif of falling and jumping to one's death in this season. Maggie wrote, other aspects of the plot and characters are so original in each episode. I'm wondering if falling, jumping, or being pushed will have some significance in the finale. In episode one, we have Adrian Brody falling, episode two, Subway Guy Damien, the trapdoors in the Ellen Barkin episode, and two characters in Orpheus. Am I missing any falls, jumps, or pushes? And, you know, of course, Stephanie shoot goes over a cliff in this episode.

Well, even before that, we get, like, a tease with the Natasha Leon Pratt fall in the parking lot. You know, she's falling on her ass so that they meet in the first place. She also literally flies to the air. She does. And is not dead somehow. It's all very explainable. I mean, I don't know what to tell you. Any ideas about this motif of falling?

I would love to think that it's a motif, and I would love to think that it's a motif, and I would love to think that there's some symbolic or kind of a theme involved there. I suspect it's more practical, which is the best way to kill people on television is to have them fall because otherwise it can get a little grisly and a little graphic heavy

and a little special effects heavy. I suspect it's more to do with that than anything else if I had to guess. I also want to shout out Natasha Leon's incredible ego-less performance in this episode because she just looks like a drowned rat the entire episode.

She's such a beautiful. beautiful woman, but she's just, like, covered in, like, crap. And, like, I don't know what they did, what they poured under her hair to make it look like that in this episode. But it was, I was just like, can someone just throw a bucket of water on her head, like, poor Natasha having to deal with this. I really thought, like, once, you know, she, she crawls herself out of a grave, basically, knocks on the door.

And we get kind of like a cut to black or a hard transition. And then she's brought inside where she comes to. I really thought when she came two, they probably would have, you know, just for her sake as an as a performer, they would have cleaned her up. But no, they really only half clean her up

and leave. Again, I have no idea what that is in her. Sludge, I think is the best way to describe it. I think sludge is the industry term for it. Yeah, absolutely. So it really is incredible stuff. And it's so funny because,

you know, the fun game to play, obviously with poker face is like, where's Charlie in this episode? And when we're watching, Trey, douchebagger he could have done, then get in his Lambo, like with the glass of coconut rum in his hand, going on a joyride, nearly hitting a deer.

And then, like, I hate when people do this in movies. When you nearly hit the deer and you miss the deer, but you look over your shoulder and you stay looking over your shoulder, why do people do this in movies? Eyes on the road, my guy. But when he hit the person in the road, I was like, I think that might be Charlie. But then I quickly like zigged and zagged all over the place because then I was like, oh, it's shirtless guy. Oh, it's Stephanie's shoe. Because then we saw someone get out of Charlie's car. So we're like, well, that's Charlie.

So it's not the person in the road. You know what I mean? And so like the fact that the person he hit definitely was Charlie, the fact that the person in the car was definitely shoe. Like all of that stuff is really fun, like a really fun mix and mingling of our expectations in this episode. And again, we're not seeing the – I think. think the show can be so top tier if it continues to do what it did this week and last week in a few of the other episodes, which is just, I don't mind the like how catch them sort of idea, but give us some mystery to chase and something to keep us on our toes and guessing other than

how is Charlie going to get out of this one. Do you know what I mean? Absolutely. And I love the way they've done that in some of the more recent previous episodes where, you know, you'll just get like, snippet of dialogue cut out of an exchange the first time you see it, that then changes the context of everything that's being said. Or in this case, obviously you have this figure who, to your point, like they are really playing the idea that in the credits, up top, we are going to tell you Stephanie shoes in this episode. And we're going to show you also this man who's Charlie's involved with, who has like long enough hair and has the kind of physique and could very well be covered in the exact same kind of code as the person who gets hit. Just creating those suspects and those possibilities

is definitely interesting. And to your point, we just don't know as much as you can camouflage when Charlie is going to show up, I think, is the power of the show. And sometimes it's going to be five or ten minutes in.

Sometimes, like in this case, it's more like 15 to 18 minutes in. There's probably a sweet spot somewhere, but the point is that you're varying it up. The point is that we don't know what to expect. That's what makes this in particular a great late season episode, right? Like, we know the patterns by now.

We know the rhythms. And this one threw us for a loop in a lot of different ways. I think also, I wanted to talk a little bit about this deer situation in this episode. It needs to be discussed. So this is a trope of the fantasy genre, but of many different things, where it's just sort of like there is a woodland creature and you see them and are they leading you somewhere?

Is there some message from them? Are they meant to provoke some sort of awakening inside of you, some self-reflection or understanding? It's never something I thought I would see in an episode of poker face necessarily. But this is a very soulful episode. And this episode, this is one of the first episodes where, other than, like, I would say episode two, that really feels like it happened after last week's episode. And I'm really starting to feel the progression of Charlie's character. Because, again, there is this idea in like a Colombo or a Murder She Wrote or someone.

like that where the way in which our main character doesn't change is sort of the point. They're the consistent, clear force that is going to come and make sense of all this like murder and chaos. But Natasha Leon is the kind of performer where I don't know that I'm fully satisfied with that. So like her maintaining her sunny outlook through several episodes in the middle of this season, you can kind of hang with, but like this has to take a toll. Last week's episode where she came to care so much about Nick Nalty's character and to lose

him and to see everything that she saw in that episode, this really felt like it came right off the back of that where she's just, it's really eroding who she is to be in the middle of all this death and destruction. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, and you can see that kind of the commonality that allows. her and Jimmy to bond because of that. Like that's not her, you know, her plea to him. And I think you could argue that ultimately Charlie

maybe gets Jimmy killed in this episode. I, you know, I would like to think, and I would think you could argue that maybe that's in him all along, and he was never going to go along with this. He was never going to stand up to Trey with what he was trying to do. But she's really kind of making a plea in a lot of cases, and you can see how these are two people who are worn down by that. And you can see her kind of, you know,

to your point about the deer, really coming to a different relationship to nature in this episode. Like starting out basically scoffing at the idea of like, why would I even be on a trail or be near a mountain? Like, what is the value in this until, you know, hot shirtless guy shows her the value in that? And look, who are we to disagree? But the contrast between that perspective of,

I am a person who's learning to love this pocket of the world, which is something she does really every episode, versus Trey who is like actively resisting it. Like, he is hold up in his box. He is virtual reality driving the road outside. It's such a stark contrast between, you know, Charlie and the deer and all this, like, it opens with beautiful natural imagery of this mountain. And then this very aggressively modern home nestled into it that it feels like a blight

on that kind of landscape, to be honest with you. And it's such a tech-heavy, you know, like the pellet. It's not just a workout bike. It's a peloton. He's got like a smart home that's going to tell him like when every single door was open. He's got a video call on the doorbell. Like it's so aggressively techie. He's got the like golf course thing.

I mean, it's just like douchebag galore. But I think to the point that you've been making all season about this idea of tech and its role in the show, I think you're right that in this episode is just like a stark contrast between what Charlie goes through to connect. And like she spent this whole season, something. that is interesting, she spent this whole season without a smartphone, right? She smashes her smartphone at the beginning of the season. She spent her whole season without it. And like, we don't, we don't know what life is like anymore without a cell phone, like a smartphone that way, right? So it's like, I think that is an important journey that she's on of like connecting with the world

in a way that a lot of us are very busy insulating ourselves from that world. I think they do a good job of walking a line in that show between not saying that you can't connect with people while still being on a phone. You can make a TikTok feed in which you make sandwiches that can benefit the world, right? That is a thing you can do. But also, like, inherently, some of these things are at odds, right?

Like, some of these constructions are going to lead a douchebag to spam the no-tip button over and over and over. So the quote that Charlie says to Jimmy, right, As she says, I generally live in the sunshine this year. It has eroded me. It's hard to feel safe. It's hard to feel safe with such a good line because it's like, yeah, like, when you hear that from her and then you think about all the people who have attacked her with bedpans

or whatever the case may be, right? Someone tries to drug her in this episode. You know, she's just like, it's hard to feel safe, of course, right? Again, I just, I really love that. I loved her connection with Jimmy. And then I love, okay, I want to, I want to share, maybe your psych degree will help me with this. I want to share an rash. Lay down, get comfortable.

Tell me how you're feeling, Joe. Okay. I want to share an irrational fear. Do you ever get an irrational fear based on something you read in a book that happened and you're like so certain that this could happen to me? Well, I'm going to give you two quick examples. One, in Barber King, Silver's, the bean trees, someone overfills a tire and, you're it explodes and they get like blown up into the air. Yeah.

And I have not filled my tire with air, like my car tires with air. I have to have someone do it like a friend do it for me because I am so scared of an exploding tire, even though that doesn't happen actually. The other is, and I can't remember the source on this, the other is, it's something I read once, someone sliced someone's Achilles tendon. And then the description is this, that their calf muscle. rolled up like a window shade. And it's one of the worst things I've ever heard in my entire life,

and I have spent the rest of my life being so scared. Again, this is like being scared of quicksand, so scared that someone was going to like slash my Achilles tendon at some point or I was going to slash it for myself. So when Charlie slices down, Trey's leg, I had such a visceral reaction to this. And then, of course, in doing so, she grabs his ankle monitor. great, great move from our girl.

Any, any, first of all, do you have any rational fears that you care to share with the class? And secondly, did you, what was your reaction to the slice down the cap? It's like worse than the bullet to the head. It's very bad. It's very bad. I mean, I do have irrational fears now.

So thank you for passing those on. I hope it gives you some relief to share in this. I hope this is a ring situation for you. But, I mean, I think like a lot of people in, are like general generation and sub-generations, like the final destination driving behind the car with logs or rebar will always get me. There will always be things like that.

One for me is like falling out a car door, also automotive-related, leaning on a car door that's unlocked and somehow just like falling straight out of it. Don't know where that one comes from, but we can unpack my childhood trauma at some other time, I have to say. But I did love the ankle monitor move

in general. That felt like a really nice maneuver. And not only that, but if you go back and check, like, you can see the ankle monitor in Charlie's hand after that little tussle for the knife. So, like, it's right there. They're not playing you. It's so visceral. And I think this is, like, the most effective uses of violence in shows and movies and really anything is when they can do it in a way that draws your attention so that they can do something else, right? Like, it either carry some emotional impact. It carries, in this case, like a plot device there, they're smug, into that, it's never needless in a show like this. Really nothing is ever needless in a show like this.

And again, again, this is like a few layers deeper than where they usually go because, or they have gone in some of the lighter episodes. Because like, when the blue pills hit the bottom of the mug, you're like, okay, it's in the coconut rum, okay, at some point, Trey's going to drink the coconut rum, okay, and it's going to knock him out and that's going to allow Charlie to get away. Well, then it didn't. But then you drank it anyway. So then it's like, okay, maybe he's going to like,

pass out right outside the boundaries of his ankle monitor, like thing, and he's not going to make it. But then he makes it. And you're like, okay, what's happening? And then it's like one more twist. And so I like, again, I just think a little added care of playing a few more layers deeper with our expectations. I do have a quick question, though. Trey really thought he got away with something here. How do you think he planned to explain the giant gash down his muddy leg. How is he going to explain that to the officer coming to

examine his ankle monitor? His plan seemed to be like a wad of paper towels and some new sweatpants. That seemed to be his strategy. I don't know that one's going to work too well. I don't think he was going to make it. The ankle monitor though, the ankle monitor move meant, of course,

that the cops could find her. Yeah. And not only her, but the other woman that he had killed. And that is another layer of mystery that's fun and that's in this episode because what happened to Chloe Johnson is, you know, we could pretty much figure it out. But it's slowly fed to us, Jimmy's saying, as soon as we see her like missing poster, we're pretty sure, like, that's the other body in the murder hole. But, you know, how much Jimmy knew or how much Jimmy was involved and all that sort of stuff, sort of slow roles for us over the course of the episode. But it's part of his ultimate unraveling, right? Like in terms of the creative justice that is doled out in these episodes and the way these people are punished.

Like presumably he goes to jail not only for trying to kill Charlie but actually killing Chloe. There's enough evidence kind of tying all these things together. But the undoing there for him is the lack of imagination, right? It's like he killed this person, he killed someone again, and the only thing he could think of to do was to take her to the same motel, to the same hole, to dump. for in the same place. And I think we see this seated pretty early. Like the monotony of the early routine is not just like, oh, this guy's trapped.

Like, the only car he can think of to drive is his own car, like in the VR game. Like, he just boots in his own car. He drives around basically the street that's outside his home. This is who this person is. And, like, ultimately that he gets his sins used against him. And really, it's the sin of, like, insider trading

that ultimately is kind of what's weaponized against him here. But I certainly don't mind that and I like the way it's deployed. I love that. I think that you're never on Trey's side. No. There are a few moves he made where I'm like, well, why would you do that? And the first one was when he gets out of the car and he flings the glass of coconut rum that has his DNA all over it into a nearby snowbank.

Just straight to the woods. Why are you just dropping evidence, like physical evidence, my guy? And then, yeah, and then it was dropping the body. I was like, you don't, you don't go back, you don't go back to the grave site where you dropped a body those many years ago. Like, that's, that's not what we do. All right. The episode ends. I have never been so tempted to watch the next episode, though I did not.

I restrained myself, even though we have the screeners. It's hard. Please, please give me a gold star. But we did get a little cliff appearance. It's been so long. So we saw Benjamin Bratt. Brat watch. We're thrilled to have him here

and we're headed to the finale. Anything? We're going to do a little like finale guessing game in a second, but anything you want to say about the reappearance of Brat here, the end of all things. I mean, so in the opening credits,

we get all the guest stars listed and Benjamin Brat. And I'm like, okay, Brat watches on, we're getting it. And then we get 58-minute Benjamin Brat. Are you kidding me?

Yeah. I know he's probably coming back in the finale. I know he's got to at this point. But it just seemed cruel. For those of us like you and I, Joe, who have just been sitting here all season, patiently waiting for him to return. And we get this kind of tease.

So you're going to want Wal-to-Wall-Brat in the finale. I mean, I want Walt to Wall-to-Wat in most things. But certainly with all this lead-up, I feel like we're owed it. All right. So we have not seen the finale. We don't know what happens. But we do know the remaining guest stars

on the list. It is, obviously, Benjamin and Brad will be back. Rod Perlman, who we've been talking about all season. We heard his voice on the phone. We have yet to see him as Sterling Senior. We heard him in, do we hear him in this episode? Close definitely. Yeah, he's talking on the phone,

and we see him on the speaker phone, but I don't think we do his voice. Okay. Rea Perlman, no relation as far as I know, right, is also in the finale. And Claire Duval, who we talked about who's from Bada matured later, etc.

The faculty, that episode of Buffy. Any speculation about what we're going to see from these characters? We know what Sterling Senior is up to, but like any other speculation you want to make about Raya or Claire? I mean, maybe this is just like hair typecasting, but Rhea Perman feels like

she could be Natasha Leone's mom. I feel like an aunt maybe, a relative of some kind. I could see that for them. And I could see some kind of like not only is there this weird serendipitous connection. Maybe there's a deeper connection between family.

Maybe there's somebody knows somebody who's connecting these otherwise disparate people between Rea Perlman and Ron Perlman who, as you mentioned, as far as we know, are not related otherwise. I'm obsessed with the idea that Raya Perlman and Ron Perlman are the same episode. And I would love for them to play

if she's, you know, Mrs. Sterling, like if she's the wife or something like that. Because, like, I, I've never thought about Ron Perlman and Rayo Perlman in the same thought, in the same space, enough to note that they have the same last name. But, yeah, so I'm going to say husband and wife. But I don't know what we're going to get from Clay DeVal. Could be any number of things. This is a but I'm a cheerleader reunion for Natasha and Clea.

They play loved interests in that film, but as far as we know, Charlie and Joyce shirtless hunks. So, yeah, I'm so excited. I'm so excited for the finale. And I'm really glad that I've gotten to do this season of television with you. Anything else you want to say about douchebag JGL, Oscar nominee, Stephanie's shoe, anything else, the deer in the woods, Proust, before we go.

I mean, that's a wide canvas you've given me. But I want to zoom in on what I found to be the most relatable moment with Trey, the one time I was almost. on his side, which is when he brings in his takeout and the bottom of the bag falls out, you know, I empathize. First of all, like, there's such an acute and specific pain that comes with waiting for food and then spilling it as soon as you get it. But second, like in the spirit of honesty, that's what the show is ostensibly all about.

I'm going to call a little bit of bullshit on that. Like, this is the scene in which he is... Is your eye twitching? My eye is twitching. You know, I'm just feeling it in my bones, not in any super... natural way, but just in a natural, a very natural human sense. Right, right. You know, Trey has no tipped his delivery driver so many times that now he's sick of it.

And the driver leaves his food outside the gate, outside the limits of his ankle monitor. He has to kind of strain to get it. It's in the snow. And as he's bringing it down the hallway, the bottom of what looks like Chinese takeout in a plastic bag falls out. I don't think plastic bags are going to do that for one dish and maybe like an order of dumplings. Like, I just don't see it.

I think you're right. I think it needed to be a paper bag if the bottom was going to fall out. That's what I'm saying. And or the plastic bag had to be scraped over like some concrete or something like that. So unless it was sabotage, unless the driver was really sick of his shit. Okay. Okay. That would be the most devious act on this entire show. This is my new head canon that the driver like perforated the bottom of the bag.

So he's like, A, good luck getting your order, buddy. And B, if you get at the bottom, fuck your dumplings. They're going on the floor. What a power move. And can we just say it's the very least of what trade deserves. Oh, to say the least. All that no tipping. All right.

Well, that has been episode nine of the Presti's TV podcast coverage of Pokerface. This episode was produced by the great Steve Allman. And I'm just going to leave you with this parting advice. Don't put air in your tires. Don't let anyone slash your Achilles' Den. Don't drink coconut rum and pineapple. and don't forget to tip your food delivery driver. Bye!