Poker Face: Season Two (2025 Rhian Johnson)

The Game is a Foot. Cynthia Eribo (Widows, Bad Times at the El Royale) gets to plays five members of family, vying for inheritance of mother's estate. Great fun. Writers Laura Deeley, Teo Ho. Directed by Johnson.

Last Looks. Charlie befriends a woman (Katie Holmes) who's going to leave her husband, mortician Giancarlo Esposito. He uses a movie filming to cover his crime. Written by Natasha Lyonne (and directed by her also) and Alice Ju.

We both loved this shot

Whack-a-Mole. Crime boss Rhea Perlman catches up with Charlie and tries to get her to help with spies in the organization, leading to great line 'You want me to rat on my mole, like a snake?' Writers Wyatt Cain, Tea Ho. 

We love the character of Charlie and the way Natasha plays her.

The Taste of Human Blood. Mad episode featuring a friendly alligator, 'Daisy' (except when on meth). (It was only after that I remembered there is a film called An Alligator Named Daisy.) And Gaby Hoffmann. Wyatt Cain and Tea Ho wrote it.

Hometown Hero. Murder at the ball game. Carol Kane the only actor we recognised. After the alligator one, this features some very trippy material in animated form. Writers Tony Tost.

Sloppy Joseph. A very competitive girl in public school. Featuring David Krumholtz (who acted with Natasha in Slums of Beverley Hills) and Margo Martindale. Written by Kate Thulin.

The format seems to be - something happens, then we wind back and see how Charlie is involved.

Which is certainly the case in brilliant episode One Last Job written by Taofik Kolade, in which a writer Sam Richardson has written a great heist screenplay about a man who cracks the safe at work and steals the money, but the gang fall apart. To push him into becoming a professional writer, his boss Corey Hawkins fires him. Embittered, he joins up with dodgy James Ransone and they decide to commit the burglary for real. Then... And then, or rather before, Charlie turns up as an Indian takeaway deliverer and hooks up (eventually) with Hawkins.  The riffs on film vs reality climax in the action movie finale. It was directed by exec producer Adam Arkin.

However the normal format is disrupted in The Sleazy Georgian, when Charlie gets mixed up with a group of con men, written by Megan Amram - Melanie Lynskey (Heavenly Creatures) is the woman who gets sucked into the con game, John Cho the sucker. With Joel Marsh Garland.

And then Charlie interferes with the murder of Awkwafina by getting pushed out of a window in A New Lease on Death, with Alia Shawkat, written by Tea Ho and Wyatt Cain.

I just looked up Natasha Lyonne - Wilder, has she been in a lot of things. And her debut, believe it or not, was in Heartburn! (Meryl Streep's niece.) We never did watch Russian Doll, which she co-created.