Poker Face Shows Its Hand

Rian Johnson's latest mystery feels radically paint-by-numbers for a streaming series.

- KATHRYN VANARENDONK

A COUPLE OF episodes into Poker Face, its true nature starts to come into focus: It's just a touch blah. Not too much! But this old-school detective show lets itself drag in places, lingering on details and minor logistics, taking its time to sift through each red herring and every clue. Set against the headlong-plot-rush binge model of typical streaming mysteries, Poker Face's measured pace looks downright leisurely. In fact, it behaves a lot like its nonchalant lead detective, Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne): in no hurry to outrace its viewers or leap into some unexpected twist before anyone has had the time to see it coming. This is not a series to fly through because you're desperately longing to find out how it concludes. It's one to watch because you already know what the end will look like, and all the half-tedious, half-revelatory step-by-step machinery that gets you there is the fun part.

Created by Rian Johnson of Knives Out and Star Wars: The Last Jedi fame, Poker Face is something weirdly rare in the world of streaming television: an episodic drama. Lyonne's Charlie is a loyal, chilled-out casino employee just doing her best to make it through the workweek who also happens to have an unusual talent for identifying lies. The show's first episode presents a set of familiar circumstances: A murder happens; Charlie is determined to find justice but gets mixed up in forces beyond her control; she makes some powerful enemies (including Benjamin Bratt, playing an excellent sly baddie); and she goes on the run. It's not hard to picture what would come next in a much more typical version of a streaming mystery: Charlie gets double-crossed, she makes friends and enemies, and they stumble through a few staid cliffhangers until arriving at a shocking (yet predictable) conclusion.