‘Poker Face’ Season 2, Episodes 5-8: Midseason Awards!

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Hello, welcome back to the Fresh Siege TV podcast feed.

I'm Joanna Robinson.

I'm Rob Mahoney.

We're not here to talk to you about golf this week.

We are here to talk to you about baseball,

magic,

cinephilia,

and grifting.

It's poker-based.

You know, that's all.

A lot of my passions actually are involved

in these episodes.

We're here to talk to you about poker face,

season two, episodes five, six, seven, and eight.

That's Hometown Hero, Sloppy Joseph, One Last Job,

and the sleaziest, the sleazy Georgia.

Yes.

The sleazy Georgia.

That's what it is.

Okay.

We have some emails from you all.

Thank you so much for emails that you guys sent either in response to our last Poker Face episode.

If you missed it, we did check in season two, episodes one through four a couple weeks ago.

And then we have some categories I want to get to as we sort of try to talk about all these episodes together.

But Rob Mahoney, two things.

Number one, where can folks email us if they want to?

And number two,

How do you feel about these episodes?

Joe, they can always email us at prestige TV at Spotify.com.

And I would encourage it.

You know, Poker Face, we're just all out reaching out to each other, trying to establish human connection,

including with the listeners of the Prestige TV podcast.

I really like these episodes again.

I think they're, again, I think there's one that doesn't quite measure up to the other three, but three I had a really good time with.

Oh, that's interesting.

Do you want to tell me which the one is?

I think it's Hometown Hero.

Okay.

All right.

I can see that.

I actually quite liked it, but it might be because of my fondness for baseball movies,

is maybe why I liked Hometown Hero.

But yeah, I can see why you would think that is like the weakest of the four.

I think enjoyability,

if that's a word, I think the sleazy Georgian was not my favorite.

Oh, actually.

Okay.

But I loved John Cho.

And

I liked that it messed with our expectations of the format and stuff like that.

That was fun.

But the middle two were directed by Adam Arkin,

you know, known actor, but also like great TV director, has directed some of the great episodes of Justified, among other things.

And so I was really excited to see that name on the credits.

I'm going to get to our emails.

First and foremost, in case he's listening again, I would like to formally apologize to the season two showrunner of Poker Face for mispronouncing.

He let us know on Twitter.

Was it Twitter or Blue Sky?

I don't know.

That we mispronounced his name throughout the entire last podcast.

So Tony, toast,

if you're listening, right?

Because we said toss

like a salad, like a toss salad.

You said toss, Joe.

I just said,

You didn't correct me.

I didn't know better.

Man, now we do.

I believe it's toast.

Anyway, and if we got it wrong again, please do let us know.

While we're correcting pronunciations, Joe, I just want to go on the record officially.

If you are emailing us, hitting us up on social media about Gian Carlo Esposito's name, I don't know what to tell you other than please YouTube the man himself saying his own name.

I understand that it looks like Esposito.

I don't know what to tell you.

That's not his name.

I think the, I think where people get messed up is that Giancarlo is from Italian lineage, even though he's played a lot of Spanish-speaking characters on screen.

And then like

Jennifer Esposito is an actress who is Latina.

So

Esposito is the Italian pronunciation and Esposito is the, you know, Hispanic pronunciation.

But yeah, I had my mind was blown.

I learned that like somewhere in a season of Better Call Saul.

I learned it.

So I spent all of Breaking Bad calling him Giancarlo Esposito, et cetera, et cetera.

But it is Esposito.

I have heard it from the man himself.

Okay, in the corrections department, I don't know if it's so much of a corrections.

This is a question

of the 10-4 Good Buddy.

And I

foolishly was like, is this a Gilligan's Islands reference?

Gilligan Island, the skipper called Gilligan Little Buddy, which is not the same as Good Buddy.

104 Good Buddy is, of course, like CB Radio chatter, which I kind of knew, but I thought it was like there was another layer to it.

And we had a couple people let us know that it, you know, specifically they think it's a Smokey and the Bandit reference, which I would not be surprised by.

If you've never seen Smokey and the Bandit, which I have,

no one has ever looked better in a button-down in jeans than Twist Sally Field.

I would say in that movie, you thought I was gonna say Bert, but no, it's Sally.

Incredible, incredible incredible

term from Sally Field in that movie.

Bert is also great.

Okay.

And then we got on the rat versus mole question.

This was huge.

We got some clarification.

Asher

says, and I'm going to remember this from the rest of my life.

Asher wrote in, we were just, we were asking, what's the difference between a rat and a mole in response to, I think it was like episode three or four of the last batch of episodes.

Asher says, the difference between a rat and a a mole, a mole infiltrates and a rat flips.

So the depotted is a double mole situation because both of those people are joining those organizations in order to inform on them.

They're infiltrating from the start.

They're not being turned from within.

That makes that's a great distinction.

It made me think of: have you ever heard the phrase,

crows rock to ca, ravens just rock?

no what

uh it's something someone taught me when i was a kid i think this is right in order to tell the difference between a raven and a crow okay their their calls are different oh very

well not everyone knows that

this is crow talk is that not what we're here for ravens what ravens do is is known as rocking and it's because it's like a very guttural like rock sort of thing and then crows have the like it's like a very croaky kind of sound yeah it's croaky yeah but it's called rock in uh in a uh birding in the birding community in the ornithology crowds um

how deep are you into birding

pretty surface level okay but the phrase crows rock to caw ravens just rock is like the idea that crows when they when they caw, they sort of rock their whole bodies in order to do it.

So like they physically rock and then ravens just like rock.

I believe that's the case.

If I got bird facts wrong, please do email us.

I'd love to know your thoughts on bird facts.

And then our listener, Shana, we were asking, like, can you have a double mole or double rat situation, whatever?

And our listener, Shana, wrote in to let us know that she's re-watching the great television series, Alias.

And spoilers for genuinely the premise of Alias,

genuinely the first episode of a quite at this point old TV show.

Jennifer Gardner's character, Sidney Bristow,

is

informing.

Well, she's a she's a rat, or is she

this is complicated, honestly?

Or is she a snake?

Again, it just honestly, this one's complicated because she

does flip, but she already thought she was in the CIA.

But she turns out she was in like a, she's in a shadowy organization.

She thought she was in the CIA, and then she finds out she's working for, she's like, Am I the bad D?

She finds out she's working for the bad guys.

She gets recruited by the real CIA to inform on the organization that she thought was CIA.

Her dad is also informing for the CIA.

So she thought she was an agent, but she was really an asset.

And then she was flipped into being a rat.

It might be double ratting, actually, in that case.

There's so much.

I don't know.

Anyway, Shana, thank you so much for that, for that email.

And then

our listener, Allison, I just want to respect the game from Allison, who slipped in like a little plug for her book in her email.

And I, and I respect it.

So I just want to say Allison has a book coming out called Mother Maiden Cop at Bloomsbury.

And it's about women inside of like cop shows and cop movies and uh she was talking about how much she she has a section on poker face in there and how much she likes that Charlie often lady cops inside of these uh contexts in in the modern era this is not so much like the Cagney and Lacey era but in the modern era they're often associated with like very traumatic

uh either like sexual assault or death of a child or whatever sort of stories happy valley mare of east town top of the lake were sort of um examples she used and she's like i just like that charlie's like in a in a peppier life of world of crime it's true uh as peppy as as you can get with murder so uh some of those theories are quite good but i think oh they're great they're demonstrative of why poker face sometimes feels like a breath of fresh air like it's very different from so many other things on tv based on how episodic it is based on the tone of the show like i that's why i enjoy coming back to it is obviously not to un like unfurl some greater mystery about or even just like delving into the soul of mankind.

It's more just like, I want to have fun with my silly detective show week to week.

And it's reliably a very good time.

With like fun zany references to various genres that we enjoy, a roster of guest stars that we enjoy.

I mean, yeah, it's, it's really fun.

I tend to watch these in like four episode chunks just because of our recording schedule and everything else.

But I can imagine that this is a really fun, just little week to week check-in at the end of the week with charlie and what she's up to um

last but not least um our listener matthew wrote in the the subject of his email was the moral of poker face and it's interesting because i never thought of poker face as a show with like a moral message.

Charlie is a very moral person.

She has inherent morality to her.

But I really like this email from Matthew, especially, I was thinking about it, especially the context of the last episode.

We got the sleazy Georgian.

Matthew wrote, I was wondering if you agree with me that one of the core messages of poker face is the value of human connection.

I think this is most overtly shown in the Sloppy Joseph episode, but I think it is reflective in a lot of other episodes to varying degrees.

Oftentimes, the murderers in the show are disconnected, isolated, or dejected from humanity and or other humans.

They are consumed by their own wants and desires and ignore the potential ramifications of their actions on others.

I don't think that many of the murderers in Poker Face were always bad people, but their social isolation leads them to lack empathy.

Charlie often reflects the benefits of social interaction with one other character in the story, and we see her empathy and kindness improve the spirits of a character throughout an episode.

So I don't know if I agree with this on like every, in every single case by case.

I do think Charlie's innate curiosity about people is what always, I was thinking about this the other day, you know, the whole, the whole thing they say about murder she wrote is like, murder follows Jessica Fletcher, the, you know, lady detective in that show, wherever she goes.

Like, don't go to where Jessica Fletcher is.

You'll, you're going to get murdered.

And I was like, would we say the same about Charlie?

But I was like, no, what I think is the case is that

wherever Charlie goes, these murders would have happened and they would have been ruled as accidents or suicides or whatever the case may be.

And she's just like, it's because she's asking the questions that they get exposed at all in the first place.

And that human curiosity

that, especially in the Sleegy Georgian,

the fact that

John Cho's character gets got in the con at the end because he never bothered to meet the spouse of his clothes, you know, the person he works most closely with.

Right.

That attitude is what hangs him to a certain degree in the end.

And so I can see how that feeds in directly to what Matthew's talking about.

Certainly, our little mispsycho in Sloppy Joseph, but like thoughts to come on that front.

I'm a big fan, honestly.

But there are other, but I think more crucially to what Matthew's talking about is something I love thinking about in these episodes is like, what drives an otherwise good person to murder?

What is the moment of desperation?

And I think about it in someone like Simon Rex's character, who in Hometown Hero, who isn't like necessarily the greatest guy, but kind of comes off as this, like, not to trigger you with the C word, but like Kevin Costner-esque, like leader of the team.

You know, he's like, he's the leader.

He's the guy.

He's got his head on straight.

He's got an idea.

He's not,

you know, a shitty dude.

And then he gets, feels like he gets backed into a corner and out of desperation.

And then he makes, you know, this, this one impulsive mood and then a move.

And then how do I cover that up?

I think that's when Poker Face does that.

What's the thing that can drive an otherwise good person to a desperate act?

I think that's always an interesting thing.

The show has on its mind.

For sure.

And I think the counterpoint to that is a lot of times the victims, whether they're like literal murder victims or just people who are caused undue pain by the circumstances of the murder or whatever, are usually the people who are trying to invest in some idea of community.

They're trying to save the ballpark.

They're trying to bring people together.

They just want to have a conman team that's actually a team and not a guy who's barking out orders, you know?

God forbid.

All right.

So anything you want to talk about in a bigger picture way before we get into some of our categories that we have here?

Let's get into the categories.

I think they will naturally sort of lend themselves to some of the bigger picture stuff.

We're doing the same categories we did last time.

We added one extra one, which we will get to second.

First and foremost, though, Poker Face is famous for this.

Best use of a guest star in these four episodes, Rob Mahoney.

I think it's John Cho as Guy the Con Man.

Okay, tell me why.

Okay, first of all, I think based on your reaction so far, I think this episode worked for me a little bit better than it worked for you overall.

I mean, I liked it.

Yeah.

I really, like, I love in particular a John Cho like face turn.

Like he'll turn kind of dynamic.

Like he's so good at playing both sides of of that.

He's so good at playing charming or kind of like uptight and responsible or sort of nefarious in like a very subtle way.

I loved him in this episode.

I loved his chemistry with Melanie Linsky in particular.

Their cold open sequence is so, so good.

And overall, just seeing him kind of change shape over the course of the episode, like that's what I want out of poker face.

I mean, John Cho is always

the very best.

Were you a selfie fan?

Did you watch the TV show selfie?

You know, it missed me somehow.

I definitely watched all of selfie, but that's

time.

But certainly Doctor Who adjacent.

Yeah.

Sure.

John Cho

is, I think, one of our most like underused leading men in general.

So yeah, giving him a showcase, I think, is always going to be welcome.

You can see people trying sometimes.

Like, I can understand how he ended up as the lead in a Cowboy Bebop live-action reboot.

It just like didn't really work.

It didn't.

But like, I wanted to.

You can understand based on his range why you would want him to play like kind of swashbuckling.

um okay love that i gotta give it to crumholtz our guy david crumholtz my dad david crumholtz like just

i just always love watching david crumholtz i never don't and like

it's sort of uh

you know similar to me getting excited to see richard kind like you want to see i don't know um every flavor an actor has to offer i think i want to see like extremely jewish new yorkers in poker face i think that's what I'm here for.

You've come to the right place, it turns out.

And I just really love.

Carol Kane also is in these group of episodes, though she might, she's a candidate for my next category because like she's not used very much in her episode.

Also, should we mention that

Noah is it either Segan or Sagan?

Now I now I'm doubting all pronunciation.

AKA Kid Blue,

who's the Ryan Johnson regular in all the Ryan Johnson movies,

even the Star Wars, shows up in season one as a cop and shows up in this season as a baseball player.

So that's kind of fun that he's going to hopefully show up every season as like a completely different person.

But you got to have your Noah cameo or else it's not a Ryan Johnson joint.

So that's a lot of FaceTime too.

You know, playing a catcher gets to be involved in a lot of legit baseball action.

Even more, because he was in like the first

episode, the pilot

as a cop and like was kind of there, but like Adrian Brody was really there, so it was like much smaller role.

But yeah, this is this is much more for Noah to do in this episode in this episode.

Do you have any honorable mentions, Joe?

Uh, I

Sam Richardson, I guess.

Always perpetually.

I actually really like Geraldine Viswanathan as well, as like the rom-com-loving best friend who herself is now in a rom-com.

Yeah, uh, that that whole construction really worked for me.

Yeah, that was really, really good.

Um, I would also say, oh, um, um

a good use of simon rex too i thought honestly um

least

it's more like least use of a guest star like what what would you like to have seen this person do more of yeah for me

it's

yeah it's tough it's like it really is like a use thing or like they're part of a bit that just like didn't quite take off or work the way that i would have wanted it to um eggo nodom like who's the

like the pa announcer for the uh velvety Canned Cheese Park, who is descending slowly into madness as she consumes more canned cheese.

Yeah.

I like it on paper, and I like the casting.

It's just like didn't, it didn't never really clicked for me for some reason.

You know, the more you're talking about that episode, because I was like, I was like, you know what else didn't work really super well for me is the whole animated hallucinogenic BJ Novak sequence.

I didn't love that either.

It's like a little better off dead, a little yellow submarine.

Yeah.

A little too much anthropomorphic sock.

Definitely yellow submarine.

I will say

both of my least use of a guest star are from that episode because Carol Kane and Gil Birmingham, both like actors I love.

I'm like, it's a crowded episode.

So I guess I would have loved to have seen them more central to a different episode, something like that.

Absolutely.

That being said,

I have a couple of options here, but my number one best joke is from that episode, Hometown Hero.

It does involve Gil Birmingham, and it's just the pan across him reading the book.

So you find yourself in an open marriage.

This was a good running through line of the episode.

And then later he's like, let's hear it for monogamy.

Good old-fashioned monogamy.

I just, that one like really got me.

What do you have for Best Joke?

I think for me, like, I just have to be true to who I am.

And it's Ziggy Sabatka in a Miami Vice wig asking if you want to go get some mojitos.

Ziggy Sabatka being in this up, like, okay, Ziggy Sabatka is here from The Wire.

If you guys haven't seen season the incredible season two of The Wire Ziggy and his duck incredible icon um Ziggy Sabaka is here in in that in one last job and then Warren from Empire Records is in the sleazy Georgian like we're doing some good like

some good excavating for some of our guest stars here um

that's a that's a great pick on that episode front yeah

do you have poster watch recorded Do you have it here?

Or can I read you what I wrote down for all the posters in Sam Richardson's apartment?

Yeah, please go through them.

I have a couple of questions about some of the posters that are featured there.

And I might have missed some.

So I will just say on the book front.

Charlie is also reading Borges Labyrinthos, which is like incredible.

The kid from

Sloppy Joseph is reading the Ricky J collection, which I have to imagine,

I mean, obviously, Ricky J, iconic magician, but also,

you know, in the Brother's Bloom, a film that you and I love.

Orion's a great actor in his own Ryan Johnson joy.

Okay.

Sam Richardson in his character's apartment.

We have Heat, obviously.

Inside Man, obviously.

Oceans 11, obviously.

Baby Driver, obviously.

Out of Sight, Miami Vice, Kill Bill.

Yep.

12 Monkeys.

Question Mark.

Scarface.

Wall.

Also kind of question mark.

Wall Street.

Well, the ultimate.

Greed is good.

Casino.

That's what I wrote down.

Honestly, Baby Driver threw me for a loop as well.

Like, I think we're.

Look, I like Baby Driver.

I only kind of like Baby Driver.

I love Edgar Rice.

Yes.

And I get how we got here, but I feel like we're throwing it a big old bone by looping it in on a heavy Michael Mann-themed episode.

I really agree.

It's in the wrong class with what it's being compared to.

Inside Man

belongs there.

Baby Driver does not.

Would it have been too self-referential to do Hot Fuzz?

Because to me, this episode is to Michael Mann what Hot Fuzz is to Point Break or to Bad Boys 2.

Maybe it's the snake eating its own tail at that point, but they seem to be of a kind.

I like that.

I think my biggest question is Scarface.

I think Scarface is too broy a poster for this character to have on his wall.

Also, is the Kill Bill poster there only to set up one, killing Bill and two, the Katana guess.

It's the katana and it's the, it's, yeah, the Hittori Hanzo moment and then that they literally kill Bill in this episode.

I that was my guess.

Sorry, Bill.

Um

do we want to hear, is now the moment to talk about the use of Mission Impossible in this episode?

We have to do it.

Okay.

As two people who just did a whole ass Mission Impossible podcast.

We just did a House of Our Mission Impossible podcast.

We just talked about our rankings of Mission Impossible movies.

And then we have Sam Richardson's character asking Charlie what the best Mission Impossible movie is.

She says one, which she considers to be a decent answer.

But is the implication when she cracks the code on his locker accommodation and she says, and I quote, skyscraper, Superman power arms, classic original.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, bad guy.

Do we think that's his order?

I think so.

Favorite.

So he's a GoPro, Ghost Protocol.

Yep.

Fallout.

Brethren.

One,

three.

I don't think that's a bad.

I don't think that's a bad ranking.

It leaves out Rogue Nation, which I wouldn't do, but you know.

I again think it's quite kind to three.

In an episode that I will say uses a cop-loving three as like a gag bit.

You know, like, I feel like they're playing into it so hard, but to me, this is Charlie seeing the truth in yet another thing.

Like, she is seeing the truth of this person.

Oh, and she knows how he would rank his position possible.

I know.

Which, if I remember correctly about you, Joe, you are four

one

six five

Yeah, and you're four

No, no, sorry, sorry.

No, no, no, no, no, don't worry, don't worry.

I'm don't worry.

You're six five

one four

six one five four six one five four.

Wow, you know, I'm sorry.

I failed.

I failed.

You win.

I don't.

You know what matters?

Like, really, it is kind of those four, which is why why the three, even Philip Seymour Hoffman, I feel like, is ushering him into a category and that movie into a category it probably does not belong in.

One last thing about this movie geek episode, which was like so, I mean, first of all, him starting by turning off the motion smoothing is like one of my favorite things that's ever happened.

The fact that he carries around a universal remote so he can turn off the motion smoothing in the bar is like just how uh Rob, uh,

have you ever, and if so, how many, uh, turned off the motion smoothing on someone else's television for you?

Oh, so many times.

It drives me insane.

Absolutely, bonkers.

I would love to be in the mind of somebody who is not bothered by emotions.

Most people can't tell the difference, Rob, but I'm not knocking most people.

They just aren't like,

I think they're not broken in the way.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Um, last but not least.

Will you allow me to well actually the movie geek episode?

I would be disappointed if you did not.

When they are debating whether or not diehard is a Christmas movie,

Charlie, who usually exhibits a deep knowledge

of movie.

So I don't think this is meant to indicate Charlie doesn't know what she's talking about.

Says, well, you got Bruce Willis in the hat.

But Bruce Willis never wears a Santa hat.

No.

I think that the implication is that you have Bruce Willis in the hat, meaning that's close to Santa in your diehard movie.

But Bruce Willis never wore a Santa hat in a diehard, in the first diehard movie, at least.

I'm also going to say, if you invoke ho-ho-ho, even if it's in the context of I have the machine gun, what does he have?

What is it that's being ho-ho-ho?

I have a machine gun.

I have a machine gun.

I think that qualifies as invoking Santa to me.

Oh, I mean, it is a Christmas movie.

It's Waldwell Christmas tunes.

It's like definitely a Christmas movie.

That's not the point.

The point is that he does not wear a Santa hat.

And if you Google image search, Bruce Willis, Die Hard, Santa hat, and you see images of it, you'll know that they are all like a doctored image that someone made to as a header for their article of whether or not diehard is a Christmas movie.

So, so this is an inside movie nerd knowledge and also inside how the sausage is made on a listical knowledge.

Yes,

uniquely qualified to talk about this.

Okay,

best episode of this batch.

I think it is the sleazy Georgia movie.

Oh, you loved the sleazy.

Well, you really liked it.

You love a grift.

And I also love a grift, but okay.

All right.

I was almost disappointed we did our whole what are our favorite con man movies and shit already too early you know we really had a prime opportunity here but it's true like if I was going to step outside of that because we haven't talked enough about it yet Sloppy Joseph that's my number one incredible episode it's sloppy really really great

uh

Joseph gerbils it's like the second they set it up you're like I know they're gonna go there but I just appreciate appreciate the architecture of how we're going to ultimately make it happen.

When our

sociopathic, psychopathic,

you know, protagonist

Googles, though it's not Google, it's a, it's a clone.

Yeah.

How do you murder a boy

self-esteem?

Good stuff.

Also one of the most successful search results I've seen in recent internet history.

Yeah.

I mean, really gets to the bottom of it very much.

Especially the way that like AI has completely cooked our ability to Google anything.

That's not your gerbil husband and that's socialism shrieked into the hallway.

You forgot that's not your gerbil husband cut to just two gerbils absolutely going at it.

One of which has like a fake little miniature headbandage as part of the costuming.

to sell the idea that it's Joseph brought back to life.

Okay.

Do you think there has been a greater TV villain than Stephanie?

No, I loved her.

She's about as good as

I loved her.

Eva Jade Halford, I don't think I looked up her.

I haven't seen her in anything.

She's fantastic.

I

would love to see her in more things in the years to come.

The other kid too, Callum Binson, who plays the other main kid, I thought he was really good too.

Two really good kid performances.

Best Charlie Fit.

I mean, just to salute your love of a baseball movie, Joe, I think it is Ball Girl Charlie.

Charlie, Ball Girl Charlie.

Which just made me irrationally angry that Natasha Leon was not in the League of Their Own remake.

Like,

did somebody fall asleep on the job?

What were we doing?

I feel like Ball Girl Charlie is the fit she has been training for this entire time.

All the knee socks, all the everything, all the ringer T's were leading up to this moment for Ball Girl Charlie.

I agree.

Completely.

Best murder.

I think it's it's got to be the explosive murder of Joseph Derbys.

It is Sloppy Joe.

It's Sloppy Joseph.

It's the way the blood spatters off

the children.

Look, you hate to see it, but if you do see it, you hate to be in the splash show.

Like, that's just not where you want to be sitting in a particular presentation.

It's like being at a Gallagher show.

It's like, that was fantastic.

It was so funny.

I mean, I'm sorry for the gerbil and for everyone who cared for Joseph Derbles.

Yeah.

My heart goes out.

But that was just the way, I don't, it was just the way it was.

I mean, shout out out of market, but like the way it was like a pause before the

screech

was just like

so good.

I do want to give honorable mention.

Sorry, Joe, you didn't give your best murders, do you?

No, it's definitely.

It's, we're two for two.

Ballgirl Charlie and Sloppy Joseph himself.

Yeah.

One of my favorite parts of Hometown Hero, though, the death by fastball is a very good construction, especially like a pastist prime pitcher who doesn't have the heat anymore, rediscovers it.

Yeah.

Like that's, that's a great little bit and true to Poker Face form, like a classic like hoisted by your own petard moment, right?

It's like you get the thing back that you've been wanting all this time.

It's what ultimately does you in.

And I also love that Poker Face is the kind of show where even though everyone is pretty sure that he's the murderer, you know, he just gets to finish the ending.

You know, he just gets to pitch it out.

And we're going to wait for the changeover and then we're going to arrest this guy.

She's like, show him what you got.

You know what I mean?

Like, go for it.

Yeah.

Fucking love it.

I really, yeah.

If you cut out the hallucinogenic sequence,

I really like this of this episode.

Okay.

Most delightful visual.

I think for me, it's every time they had Stephanie look right down the barrel and cued Prodigy.

And so it's kind of a combination visual needle drop situation.

But that just did it for me literally every single time.

I I will say, and this is like, yeah, similarly, the Charlie Browning of the adults when you're in the children POV in that episode, we don't see Crumholes' face or Marco Martindale's face.

Like, we know their voices, but like, we don't see the top shoulders up of their bodies until we're in Charlie's POV.

Um, the cash swirling around Sam Richardson at the end of One Last Job, very good.

And then I thought the overhead pool table

at the start of the sleazy

Georgian was really good.

I just want to say it.

My name is like Stephanie's like I love to achieve on her like aspiration board.

I can't.

This is, it's just like Gus Fring, Cersei Lannister,

Stephanie, Hannibal.

Like, that's the list in some order.

I don't know what it is in terms of best TV villains, but that's that's mine.

When her little like Mary Jane feet come down from the bathroom stall

and she's got these like lacy little bows on her knee socks, it's just it's fantastic.

The diabolical friendship/slash slash blackmail bracelet.

Oh, yeah, you're mine.

Really great.

So good.

Okay.

Best needle drop.

Yeah, I think it's the prodigy.

Prodigy.

Do you have another take?

Once again, this is my like my dad taste

in the baseball episode.

Sister Golden Hair by America.

America band I have an unreasonable amount of affection for

because I went to middle school with the daughter of the lead singer.

So we were all, we all thought that America was like the biggest band ever.

And then we graduated middle school and found out that was not the case, but they're still pretty, you know.

But Sister Golden Hair is like my favorite of their songs, and it's an absolute banger.

And that's what plays during their losing montage.

I love a montage.

And then similarly, Glory Days, Bruce Springsteen plays when they are like celebrating

on the field, which felt like a Bull Durham rainout

homage.

yeah the sprinklers on the field and stuff like that so has a show ever been more yearning for a bruce springstein's drop like it's it's just been there again waiting in the wings this entire time i'm glad they indulged us this episode is brought to you by pretty litter if you track your steps your sleep even your screen time why wouldn't you track your cat's health too Pretty litter is like smart tech for your litter box.

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Charlie job you'd most want to have.

This one is also super easy, and it's again the Montgomery cheesemonger's ball girl.

Like, that's a great one.

Oh,

mostly because she has an assistant ball girl to do all her actual running for her.

Yeah, you deputize the children to do the job.

You just sit there with a hot dog and a beverage of your choice, looking very stylish.

What's not to love about that particular one?

Phenomenal.

Did you think she was going to be the mascot?

Oh, I mean, that would have been.

See, that's a much worse job for the record.

Being in the big, sweaty mascot apparatus.

Don't want any part of that.

Yeah.

You know, I'm glad that she wasn't ultimately.

We need the Charlie FaceTime.

We need the fit.

Her and the mascot is almost too easy.

It's almost, again, it's like it's almost right there for us.

I always like to think about where is Charlie hiding in plain sight inside of this, you know, sequence, this opening sequence.

And

so they kept showing us the mascot.

And I was like, oh, like, is it going to be the mascot?

And then she wasn't the mascot at all.

I

don't know that I want to be a Montgomery Cheese ball girl.

Okay.

I

will pick con artist, but was she a con artist, though?

The dexter of con artists.

Only conning the con artist.

This is true.

That's what I would want to do.

So that is easily the alternative.

Like, honestly, delivery for an Indian restaurant, not bad.

As far as Charlie's jobs go, like much better than most.

I think we can all agree: lunch lady at a private institution for children, you will not catch me dead ever in that job.

I mean, I meant to ask you how you enjoyed the use of Steve Basemi inside of these episodes.

It wasn't every episode, but we did check in a couple times.

I most enjoyed him and Sloppy Joseph when he was like, tell me how

much time have you spent around children.

Well, as adults ourselves who do not have children, yeah, you know, it's easy to overestimate or overinflate or, you know, like you just appropriate the wrong amounts of like, oh, this part of having a kid around is going to be good versus this part of having a kid around is going to be a disaster.

Yeah.

And we, you know, we over-index on the wisdom of the simpler times of childhood and maybe not enough on being the lunch lady in the cafeteria and the kid telling you like point blank, you look tired.

On the con artist, the Dexter of Con artist front,

the sleazy Georgian front.

If you, Rob Mahoney, had to grift in a bar at 8:30 a.m.,

what adult beverage are you ordering?

Well, I feel like having something deeply alcoholic is sort of the pull, right?

Like it adds to your era, like your aura of mystique in that way.

Yeah, your allure.

You can't just have the Bloody Mary.

You can't just have a coffee.

Yeah.

I think it's got to be pretty intense.

Hmm.

I think I would go something tequila-based just to really throw people off the scent.

Just say, like,

you know what?

I'm not fucking around.

It's 8:30 in the morning.

I've clearly got business to attend to.

I'm going to confiscate all these envelopes as they come up.

And I'm just over here sipping.

You know, it doesn't have to be like

even a Paloma would do, frankly.

You know, maybe we're getting into more mezcal territory at that point, but I would be into it.

Paloma.

Not a mojito, though.

No, no.

I'm actually not a mojito guy.

I just support the mojito fiending community.

Mojito is something that I enjoyed like in college and cannot

handle.

Can't go back.

No, no, no.

But yeah, tequila, I like that.

Tequila soda is my drink.

Okay.

Charlie's smartest move.

I think it is teaming up with Manny to one-up Guy the Conman.

Like going behind his back, setting up the whole thing.

I think she's really honestly playing at a pretty advanced level by Charlie standards, especially.

Yeah, that's true.

I would say.

Either psychologically destroying a child with socialism

or

playing into Simon Rex's need to be acknowledged for his fastball.

That was very good.

Either way, in all three cases, manipulation.

Yes.

Because her dumbest move comes for me in the one episode we haven't mentioned, which is One Last Job.

And it's hiding in the tent after hours to check the locker rather than alerting the cops.

I don't know why the cops didn't search all those lockers in the first place.

Nor do I.

Nor, why would you put all the money in your locker?

Were there other lockers that didn't have that?

Because you can lock it and then secure it so that you can go back and get it.

But it's specifically assigned to you.

It is a it's a bunch of neon arrows pointing directly back to you.

I mean, but that's mainly because he's got, he had to have a Ethan Hunt sticker on his locker.

That's true.

Um, that place is just swarming with cops forever.

And given that Charlie, like, works with cops, you know, um,

which is her own decision to make, uh, why

would she not

tell them to check the Ethan Hunt locker for, and she could even tell them what order of Mission Impossible movies they should use to open the.

But yes,

going rogue means she winds up in this die-hard, kill Bill, katana situation.

Honestly,

you already mentioned Ziggy Sabaka in

the wig.

Him showing up with a katana.

Still in pails.

How did he get there?

No clue.

On a motorcycle?

Like,

how do you transport your body?

I mean, not in a sedan, I can tell you.

Not on public transportation, surely.

No.

It's got to be a motorcycle of some.

Uber pool?

I don't know.

Like, I have questions

about that.

Okay.

Did you have a dumb move for Charlie?

Mine is also from One Last Job.

It's this.

You know, date night at the Super Safe.

In the patio and garden section, pretty cute.

Oh.

Delightful.

Going to the beds and linens to consummate the date.

Yeah.

Bad move.

I don't think this is dumbest, but I understand that it's bothered you the most.

I think it's dumbest in the sense that I think

you're going to catch something.

I wouldn't recommend.

Do you think other people have used the beds and linens section?

They've certainly been all over it, and I don't know where they've been.

I was just thinking he's got to throw away those.

Yeah, he's got to throw away.

You can't sell those sheets, man.

Not that you would because they're modeled sheets, but yeah.

I mean, what did you think of?

I mean, I thought Corey Hawkins was really good in this episode, but like, what did you think of giving Charlie a

love interest and then, you know, and watching that unfold knowing that he was already dead in the present timeline?

I thought that element of the

timeline inversion really worked for me.

And I like the, you know, kind of sidelining the main murder crime story, setting us on these two paths, right?

Like there's a rom-com path and there's a crime thriller path, and they are ultimately going to become the same movie.

I guess that's out of sight, if we're being honest, but it's also this episode.

Um, I really loved his performance, and I, and yeah, like I think giving Charlie the occasional love interest

obviously works.

You can't do it every episode in the same way that you don't want Steve Bashimi piping in necessarily every episode, like being sparing with this stuff is part of what makes the balance of the show work as well as it does.

But I like that he got a mention in the next episode, so it wasn't like that never happened, totally, you know.

Um,

yeah, you want like some level of disconnect so that people can kind of pop in and it will feel a little separate week to week and like its own discrete adventure, but there has to be some carryover when you're seeing this much murder.

You know, you don't see the murder of Joseph Gerbils and then just get over it instantly.

Well, lucky for Charlie, I believe she was outside when that happened.

She heard it, though.

She heard the sledgehammer heard round the campus.

I want to raise one other, again, this is not a dumb move because empathy is never dumb, Joe.

We support it here on this podcast.

Certainly Poker Face is an advocate in terms of its construction and plot.

But like her investment, her like instant investment in Lucille and in Velvety Canned Cheese Park based on one hallucinogenic dream.

Yeah.

I just like don't understand how she gets like roped into that so quickly to the point where she's like, I have to save this for this woman.

And I know for a fact that she has done nothing wrong.

Yeah, I agree.

I think I would prefer her to spend more time with Carol Kane's character.

So like that's the usual reason why Charlie's like, no, this person didn't do this.

I know them so well.

Not I had a hallucinogenic trip and B.J.

Novak was there.

He certainly was.

As Sergeant Pepper.

Okay.

Most interesting fact you learned from this batch of poker face episodes.

You know, I learned about the Black Mountain Poets.

Oh.

So.

In that episode, Hometown Hero, we get a look in the background at the Montgomery Cheesemonger schedule, and you can see the other teams that they're set to play.

The Lake Charles Crawdads, the Tennessee Moon Pies, the Fort Smith Chickadees, great elite minor league baseball names.

This is so good.

Also, the Black Mountain Poetics are a team.

And I'm like, that's such a specific framing and reference that I do not know.

You know, it leads a man to Google, to actual Google, and thus to discover a new little like corner of American open verse poetry.

You know, I'm going to dabble.

I'm going to see what's going on with Charles Olson.

I'm just going to see what's going on with the Black Mountain Poetics.

That's a mouthful.

Black Mountain Poetics.

Here's what's so funny is I was like, wow, I out-freeze-framed.

Rob Freeze frame Mahoney by getting all those movie posters.

And I, you, I should have known.

Lurking in the background was Rob wrote down the name of all the minor league baseball, fictional minor league baseball teams, and then dug into the inspiration for one of them.

It has to be done.

I will say, Poker Face, a great freeze-frame show.

I also really enjoyed the list of potential gifts gifts that Charlie was going to buy in one last job for her first date with her new boyfriend.

Just tremendous stuff all around.

Johnny Mitchell CD was on there as a love, actually, right?

A hot sauce subscription.

Yeah.

Which is very good.

For me, it's the true story of Doc Ellis

and the

LSD game of 1970.

Can I read to you Doc Ellis's recollection of this game?

Please do.

I can can only remember bits and pieces of the game.

I was sight.

Oh, no.

First, let me promise it by saying, Ellis had visited a friend in Los Angeles, used LSD, quote, two or three times.

Thinking it was still Thursday, he took a hit of LSD on Friday at noon, right?

So he's lost all track of time, doesn't know what day it is, took a hit of LSD.

Classic.

And his friend's girlfriend's like, hey,

don't you have to pitch tonight?

And so he took a flight from Los Angeles to San Diego,

arrived at the stadium at 4:30.

The game started at 6, right?

So, this is what he's working with here.

And he threw a no-hitter.

Ellis says, I can only remember bits and pieces of the game.

I was psyched.

I had a feeling of euphoria.

I was zeroed in on the catcher's glove, but I didn't hit the glove too much.

I remember hitting a couple batters, and the bases were loaded two or three times.

The ball was small sometimes,

the ball was large sometimes.

Sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn't.

Sometimes I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him.

I chewed my gum until it turned powder.

they say i had about three to four fielding chances i remember diving out of the way of a ball i thought was a line drive i jumped but the ball wasn't hit hard and never reached me

and this is the best this is the best this is all from the incredible accurate uh source that is wikipedia ellis reported that he never used lsd during the season again though he continued to use amphetamines so okay you know just to you know keep his competitive edge This is one area where I want to fact-check PokerFace a little bit.

The amount of big league chew that the pitcher consumes laced with LSD, I completely buy.

That would, that would get

off your rocker.

Charlie has like an amount, an amount of big league chew that would disintegrate in your mouth.

He's just like not even registering as gum at that point.

And it's like, are you really going into full yellow submarine

hallucination based on that amount of gum and an acid?

Again, we're not experts.

We've established many times.

This is not a podcast that has a lot of expertise in recreational drug use, but

I'm going to venture a guess that that's not enough.

I do want to know one thing for sure, and that's that Bruce Willis never puts on a Santa hat in diehard.

And that's about all the level of expertise that I can bring to this podcast.

Last but not least about the legend of Doc Ellis,

a Pittsburgh pirate.

Ellis said that he regretted taking the LSD that day because, quote, it robbed him of his greatest professional memory.

That's so sad.

It's very sad.

Very sad.

He lives in fame and infamy.

Yeah.

He is not able to remember it himself.

How cruel.

Sometimes the ball was small.

Sometimes the ball was large.

That's all he remembers.

That's how I feel about many of our podcasts, Joe.

You know,

I get out of them and I'm like, that was a blur.

I don't remember anything I said.

But sometimes, you know, the words were large.

Sometimes they were small.

Who's to say if they made any sense together?

Yeah, sometimes the show is your friends and neighbors, and sometimes the show is Severance season two.

And we're here for all of it.

We are.

Anything else you want to say about this batch of poker face episodes?

I want to give one particular special acknowledgement to Melanie Linsky's line read on Umami, Umami.

Just because it's transcendent television, and I think we need to enshrine it somewhere very quickly.

It's really good.

And what's funny about Melanie Linsky and that, like, you know, obviously we're watching a con.

Yes.

And it, like, should be so obvious that John Cho is

conning her.

This is like basically a Nigerian prince like scam.

Like, okay.

But I'm so used to looking for the edge underneath the soft parts of Melanie Linsky that I was waiting for her to like double reverse con him.

And I suppose the fact that she shot a person

and was willing to spend $20,000 that was supposed to go to orphans.

You know, that's a sharp edge of a kind.

She's going to have an affair after a Bloody Mary, a really shitty-looking Bloody Mary, by the way.

It looked really bad.

The brighter red your Bloody Mary is, the more absolute.

That's just like watery tomato juice.

It's not enough.

It's not eight and a stalk of celery in there.

Like literally nothing.

And like, well, to his credit, like three to four olives, which is a good olive ratio.

Nine to ten, too few, as far as I'm concerned.

I really agree.

I really agree.

Have you ever been to Zeitgeist in San Francisco?

No.

Good Moody Mary.

They have really good Bloody Marys that are essentially they put like a garden inside of the glass and you get like a pickled green bean and asparagus

and like it's just like so much greenery shoved in the glass.

It's great stuff.

So I was just like looking for another twist on Melanie Linsky and it didn't come and that's okay.

Maybe that's that's what sort of like left me wanting more from the sleazy Georgian.

But see, I kind of like that element, especially once they get up to his room.

Yeah.

And she becomes like a, has a different kind of aggressive presence.

Like she's clearly like probing him and we're not sure for what.

Like is she a cop?

Oh, we know, we know for what.

Well, we know for what, you know, it's, I mean, is that his concealed carry in his pants?

Or is she just, he's happy to see her?

But like, ultimately, I, I wasn't sure, like, is she a cop?

Like, he's kind of terrible.

That's what I'm saying.

I was like waiting for like one more turn of the screw.

But it turns out the message is just like, you can't con an innocent person, Joe.

You know, at least per guy.

That's his, his point of view on the world.

You can agree or disagree.

There was a moment when

John Cho got like left the seat of the crime with the, with the bag full of the breakfast coupons

in our, like, in a great Ocean's 11 moment.

And before we heard sirens, I guess, I was like, oh, is John Cho going to be some kind of like ongoing antagonist for Charlie of some kind?

That doesn't seem to be the case.

But I wouldn't mind if they brought John Cho back in some capacity or another.

That could be fun.

Also, just that idea of the person that Charlie can't read, maybe.

Like, I think one of the things I love about that episode is she actually calls out bullshit probably less than she does in any other episode, or bullshoot if you prefer,

in Sloppy Joseph's case.

I like that we're sort of trying to decipher what everyone is thinking, where everyone is, and that Charlie isn't thinking out loud in that Colombo way quite so much.

I love that as a framework for the show, but it's also fun when we deviate from it a little bit.

Exactly.

Okay.

Well, that was our second round of Poker Face season two episodes.

I'm really enjoying this season a lot.

Anything else you want to say about?

I just think people should email us at prestige TV at Spotify.com with all of their poker face impressions, with their favorite guest stars, you know, with their extensive knowledge and expertise in recreational acid use.

I think we could really use that, Joe.

Send us your burning thoughts.

Send us your poetry thoughts.

Send us anything you want to send us there.

I can't wait to see what Eva Jade Halford does next.

Can I just say,

so I really like, you know, I like that we get to see the names of the guest stars at the beginning of the episode.

It gets me like, I'm like, oh, so-and-so is in this episode.

That's exciting.

Can I just say that, like,

you know, obviously I did not know the name of this child actress.

When I was watching the opening credits and I saw Eva Jade Halford, I was like, that's a young girl.

That is a child actress name.

What makes you think that?

Is it because if you're entering SAG now, you need the third name to do that?

Three barrels.

Eva Jade.

Yeah.

It's just like, it's just like, that's a, that's a gen alpha name.

Okay.

Well, that's poker face we'll be back with more something for you next week that is our goal to always come back to you with something on this feed uh until the tv gods provide more obvious solutions for us uh thank you to justin sales thank you to ct in the studio uh once again and i said this on house of our also there is a lot going on in los angeles right now so um

You know, we record these pods to hopefully provide everyone with, I don't know, a moment of respite or whatever, but we thank all of our Spotify family for

working through some absolute madness in Los Angeles.

And we will see you soon.

Bye.

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