‘Poker Face’ Season 2, Episodes 1-4: Best Guest Stars, Favorite Jokes, and Meth Gators

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Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed.

I'm Joanna Robinson.

I'm Rob Mahoney.

We're here today with a little poker face check-in for you guys, season two of PokerFace.

And Rob was like, Joanna,

let's go nuts this week.

Let's do a Last of Us pod, a Your Friends and Neighbors pod.

Let's hit them with a couple episodes of Poker Face as well.

So we're here to cover episodes one through four of season two of Poker Face.

Rob Mahoney, tell me why Poker Face was like a must-a must-chat show for you.

I think it's a sentimental show for us here on the Prestige feed.

You know, we wanted to return after you and I did basically episode by episode for the first season.

We really enjoyed it.

I was eager for Poker Face's return.

I don't know if I knew how eager until I hit play on this thing.

We're right back in it.

It's exactly a flavor of TV that I don't get enough of right now.

So I've just been thrilled watching these first four episodes.

And what is the flavor how contained each episode is, or the tone of it?

Or what is it in particular for you?

I think a lot of it is the tone.

I think a lot of it is how quickly within these first four episodes, we get out from under the weight of a big overarching criminal conspiracy on the run from mafia bosses and into literally let's point at the map and go somewhere.

Like,

let's just be honest about what the conceit is here.

We're going to go to a new town every week.

There's going to be a new mystery, usually a murder of some kind to solve.

I'm enjoying the mechanics of all those things.

And I think the show is hitting its stride in terms of doing all that stuff in a really playful way and dealing specifically with Charlie's preternatural ability to detect bullshit in new and exciting ways, basically every time out.

So spoilers up through episode four of season two.

To the extent that this is a

spoilable show.

Just like if you haven't watched episode four yet, go watch it before you listen to us.

The Game is Afoot is the first episode.

Last Looks is the second episode.

Whack-a-mole is the third episode.

And The Taste of Human Blood is the fourth episode.

And I agree, like, so we're going to, we're not going to go beat by beat for any of these episodes.

By any stretch, this is just like a fun, light, and breezy Friday afternoon pod that we're going to do.

And we've got some categories that we're going to hit of things, you know, our favorite things over the course of these four episodes.

But when I was going through the categories and picking things, it was very clear to me that episode four, which is the episode that takes place after

we get out from underneath this sort of premise of season one, which is Charlie's on the run from organized crime,

was just like a wide open new space for my enjoyment of this show.

And I think it was just like a really brilliant move.

I like the concept of the first season.

It's not like I didn't enjoy it.

And I didn't, but I didn't know what was possible until, you know, we've got people like shooting at Charlie in the first two episodes.

We've got the resolution of her being chased by Rhea Parlman's character in the third episode.

And then the fourth episode, we get a better sense of like what the show can be going forward with, as you say, the introduction of the point of the map.

And then it becomes this sort of like,

even though the episodes are contained, it becomes this, because it's her choice to do this town-to-town every week sort of adventure.

It really feeds well into, I think, before they felt like they needed a reason, but Charlie's curiosity about people and sort of zest for life is certainly reason enough at this point.

So I really like that they made that choice to basically change the premise of the show to a certain degree.

We're still doing murder of the week.

What do you think, Rob?

Yeah, I think they're changing the premise, but not the soul of the show.

That's kind of what we found in the first season was that the engine of it was not the getting away from the mafia bosses and the hitmen and the like, you know, various grunts down the chain.

It was Charlie as like an empathy magnet, glomming onto people in the world, getting to know them.

And you can see it even in these first three episodes, which, as you said, are kind of still within that globe before we fully break out of the crime element of the story.

But just watching like Natasha Leone and Cynthia Rivo like become buddies watching this old show together, like that to me is the soul of what poker face is.

It's like her ability to, that character's ability to connect very quickly with somebody and then kind of worm her way into their world and figure out what it's all about.

And help.

And what's wild to me is that,

you know, I like because we watch so much television, we cover so much television.

Our producer Kai and I were just talking about before we started recording like the fact that I will often re-watch a season, a previous season of a television show.

I didn't do that with Poker Face.

We kind of made a late, late in the day

decision decision to watch this upon you, Joe.

And I willingly embrace it, but I didn't re-watch season one.

So I had forgotten that

the, you know, basically you see the murder happen, and Charlie usually enters the episode midway through the episode, or at least after, like, I don't know, at least a quarter of the episode.

Between 20 minutes sometimes, yeah.

Yeah.

So, in terms of that Charlie makes a friend

move, you don't even have a whole episode to make that feel realistic.

You often just have like a scene or two scenes or some kind of montage.

So, watching her befriend

a badly wigged Katie Holmes in the second episode, or something like that, over like a campfire.

I mean, you know, it just happens so quickly.

And then, but then you are invested in it, and you believe that when spoiler for episode two, Katie Holmes gets incinerated, that Charlie would be invested in figuring out what happened to her.

It all

completely plays perfectly for me.

So, yeah.

And that's just a perfect marriage of material and performer, right?

Like, Natasha Leone as a great hang is the premise of the show now.

And I'm excited for where we can take that and the kind of like infinite number of spins you can put on it as we move from city to city.

One thing that we should note, just because we like to track these things, is there's a different showrunner this season.

The showrunners of the first season have gone off to go make the Buffy reboot that Rob and I have a lot of thoughts and opinions on, which you can find on this very feed.

Yeah.

Best in interest, to say the least, in the outcome of that property.

Rob, did you see the casting news?

No.

Can you break it to me right here on air?

Yeah, so they've cast their like chosen one for the, for the Buffy reboot.

It's this young actress named Ryan Kira Armstrong, who was in Skeleton Crew, which was the Star Wars show that came out last year.

So one of the kids in that, she's like quite young.

She's not like, she's not like a kid kid, but she's like,

definitely younger, I think, than Sarah Michelle Geller was when she was cast.

And there is,

I don't, you don't, Rob, you're a sentimental person, but I don't think you go for cute that often.

But there is an obscenely cute video of Sarah Michelle Geller telling this girl over Zoom that she got the part.

And it is just, I, I, I cried.

I'm sorry.

I got sorry.

I cried.

So, um, yeah, I'm still very skeptical of this show, but like that video really got me.

So I will be seeking it out.

I suspect it will work on me too.

Look, this is an important, an important property for us.

And I have to say, she does look, again, as you said, younger than Buffy in the original show.

Also, not unlike a young Sarah Michelle Geller in her way.

I hope this isn't a Buffy's daughter situation, but look, we have a long way to go before that show comes out.

Yeah, I don't think they would do that, but we'll see.

Yeah, so the Zuckermans have gone on to do that.

And so the new showrunner of Pokéfrey Season 2 is Tony Tost, who Rob and I were sort of digging into, we're like, who is this person that we have not heard of necessarily?

He's worked on Longmire and a couple of other things, which will come back up a little later today, and a couple of other things.

But we also discovered that he has made a film called Americana, which

was completed in 2023, but will not be released until this summer.

Rob dug up a trailer that you sent to me.

Anything you want to say about this?

We were just trying to get a sense of who this guy was and what his taste was.

Anything you want to tell the listeners about this trailer you dug up for this movie?

It's just one of the truly strangest collections of people in a movie.

The cast for Americana, Sidney Sweeney, Paul Walterhauser, Halsey plays a prominent role in that movie.

I have no, I've seen the trailer.

I have no idea what to think of it, except that now having seen Poker Face, you can absolutely see some common DNA, not just in the Americana of it all, but in sort of like the certain Western vibe to like particular elements, like a type of

like ensemble storytelling that I think it has in common.

Like there is something shared between them.

It almost reminds me, having just seen the trailer, not the film itself, it has like a little Cohen zaniness and like specifically like Ethan Cohen, zany, Ethan, Ethan all alone sort of zaniness.

Separated the variables within the Cohen verse these days.

I think we can put a finger on it.

But yeah, Simon Rex is in this.

Eric Dane's on McLarnon.

So, I mean, I'll be watching this movie.

I'm very, I'm very curious.

I am

a little concerned about the delay between its completion and release.

That's never usually a great sign, but I'll be very curious about it.

And then I just want to share this quote from Natasha Leone

that she gave about season two of Poker Face.

And she said, It's the concept of we lose interest in ourselves and gain interest in our fellows in a way she's sort of on the case of anyone but herself.

And I really love that idea of like Charlie's interest in other people is a great strength of the show, but maybe

a bit of a weakness inside of her and that she just does not want to

introspect.

But

there is this interesting element that's added in episode four,

which is Steve Bussemi on the CV Radio.

Now, I have not watched Beyond Episode 4, but do you get the sense that this will be a recurring character that she'll get to

get this sort of homespun trucker poetry wisdom from Steve Busami over the radio.

What do you think?

I do.

I mean, I think he has to be popping up periodically, maybe not every episode, but it makes sense to have some character in Charlie's life who she's bouncing off of more consistently and not just having to introduce herself to every single week out.

So having that through line of a voice on the radio is a really smart way to do it because you don't have to have a co-pilot in the chair who you have to account for in every story.

So we're getting our lone Charlie out on the range storytelling, but with all the comforts of Steve Buscemi over the radio, as you said,

being a warrior poet in his way, I've really, really enjoyed it so far.

I don't know if we're going to get him in the flesh at any point.

Like maybe it is strictly a voice cameo, but either way, I'm happy with it.

I would say that's either like a finale

thing of this season or like a finale thing of the show.

But I really like him.

They haven't even named him in the credits.

He's listed as good buddy.

That's his like handle and that's how he's he's billed in the credits so i like this idea of him being this like sort of anonymous voice but if something ever happened to him like charlie would certainly want to investigate it or if he needed something like charlie would be there for him so for however long poker face runs

i would not mind having steve bissomi on the radio um it reminds me of did you like because you're

A bit younger than me, Rob, did you ever watch Northern Exposure?

You know, I kind of missed it somehow.

Yeah, yeah.

The box set I remember very specifically because in like the puffy coat DVD, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

There's a DJ

in that show who hosted like a morning radio show where he would just sort of like read Alaskan wisdom over the microphone.

It reminds me a lot of that, where it's just sort of like, you just get some like soulful poetic wisdom from someone in a sort of homespun context.

That's really fun.

I mean, he's a Linda Mansman, you know, he can be be in, we'll take as many Linda Mansmen in any story that you want to tell.

I'm down for it.

Do you, other than that sort of slight tweak in premise that we get in episode four, do you sense any other major like differences between season one and season two?

I think just some of that clarity as far as taking some of these like heavy existential threats out of the story and turning them into, as you said, this like heavier introspective or introspective avoidant kind of danger.

That gives it a little bit of a different flair.

I'm also happy, Joe, that we can officially put to bed our recurring conversation about poker face as to whether Charlie has some kind of superpower.

I've always said from the beginning, this is a preternatural sense of truth, not a superpower.

And I think we've confirmed it by the fact that you and I are podcasting about it again here on the Prestige TV feed, and not, this isn't a Ringerverse podcast.

This isn't a House of R podcast.

This is not a superhero.

I don't know how you're like, how you dare to try to make that your case when we're covering a zombie show on this very feed.

Also, not superheroes on that show, you know?

You don't have a single leg to stand on

in this week specifically.

Can't blame a guy for trying.

You got it.

You got to try it.

Okay.

Do you want to do the categories?

Anything else you want to chat about before we get to them?

Okay.

Let's get into it.

So these are just random things that I made up for us to talk about here on a Friday.

Joe, that's what a podcast is.

You know,

only the pod can reveal the podcaster, I I like to say.

Do you like to say that?

After every episodes, I do.

Yeah.

Okay, okay, okay.

Best guest star.

This is like Poker Face's absolute magic trick.

Even in these first four episodes, there's just an embarrassment of riches in terms of guest stars.

And then when you look at the whole, the season as a whole, you and I were trading like some of the names that we were excited to see coming up that we haven't even seen yet.

And

it's astounding what they can put together.

you.

You think, like, oh, well, there's this person, that's the guest star of this episode, but it knows like five different guest stars in a single episode.

So, um, who do you want to call out as the best guest star of these first four episodes?

I have a one definitive answer.

I wonder if you share it, and it's Gabby Hoffman as Officer Fran Lamont.

I think that's right.

When I got to her, you were a little bit behind me when we were watching, and I was watching episode four when you were, I think, on episode three.

And I was like, I'm watching Gabby Hoffman.

Like,

police officers stuck in a spiral of ego and also alligator meth.

Like, I don't know what more you want from a TV show than that.

I think that's, I think that's a really, really good answer.

And especially when you find out, when you meet her in episode four and she has it put together, and then you get the cut to six years later, and she has become unhinged, and you're like, oh, that's what I'm watching.

Great.

Okay.

On my answer,

just because Gabby Hoffman, also, Gabby Hoffman is is a flavor, a performer who fits this world very, very well.

Without a doubt,

my

nominee is Richard Kind in episode three, who plays Rhea Perlman's

love

and

an informant

to the FBI.

I love Richard Kine.

Anytime he shows up in anything, I'm thrilled beyond belief.

And

he's just so perfect for this.

I was actually devastated that he was the murder victim because I would love to see Richard Kine come back on poker face, but he will not be coming back on poker face.

If he had actually made it into witness protection and then we got to circle back with him in season three,

that would have been a perfect way to close that loop.

And yeah, he's such a wonderful rube in everything that he's in.

Like he plays that strand of performance so, so well.

But again, it was another episode where it's like Rhea Perlman and Richard Kine and John Mulaney just like stacked on top of each other.

You either have three or four different people we're delighted to see, or five Cynthia Arrivos, who I'm also delighted to see happening at once.

The balance of all these guest stars is super impressive.

The other person in episode four

acting opposite

Gabby Hoffman is the director John Sales,

who did

Secret of Roan Inish, Lone Star, one of my favorite movies, Madowan, Eight Men Out, like John Sales, who has occasionally occasionally acted before, but he's just like in there as a police chief, just being John Sales in an episode of television.

You're just sort of like,

I mean,

what else could you ask for?

And then also, I mean, like, I would add Bussemi to the mix, like adding Bussemi in as like a potentially weekly or, you know, every few weeks or something like that character is really exciting.

I want to give one runner-up as well.

I've never historically had the biggest relationship to Katie Holmes, but Katie Holmes in the bad wig, I thought was wonderful.

And she has found this like era of her career where she'll just show up in something like this or show up in something like Logan Lucky.

And she brings like a totally different charge than anybody else on screen has.

And some of that's like her character in episode two gets to be the breath of fresh air in the like embalming house of death.

So like by nature, she's going to feel like a bit of a relief, but I thought she was awesome in that part.

And I, you know, I was sad to see her incinerated, as were, as was Charlie and many other people.

Yeah, the bad wig was sort of like felt like kind of the point.

I don't know.

She has

part of the deal.

This daffiness to her in that role that is just like, yeah, very welcome.

Very, very good.

I agree.

Great, great use of Katie Holmes.

Okay, best joke of these episodes.

Not to over-index on episode four,

the Divine Gator, every time they looked into the Gator's eye and connected with the deeper spirituality of the Gatorverse, it got me literally every time.

I know it's coming.

I know they're setting it up.

And yet here I am dying on my couch at the Divine Gator.

Listen, mine is also from episode four.

And it's

so the setting for much of episode four is a cop award ceremony called the Saflopa Copa.

Is that the Sflopa Copopa?

Also, every time they just said Flopa Copa, I was laughing.

Really?

Really good.

And

the first year, I think it's the first year when they're announcing the award, the guy who goes up to announce the award and they say, star of the hit A ⁇ E show, The Glades.

Yeah.

Which was just like calibrated perfect level of non-celebrity, celebrity

to be presenting at the Flopacopas.

The fact that

like Tony Tust, who's the showrunner of the season, like worked on Longmire, which is an A ⁇ E show, you know, just sort of like really marinating in that A ⁇ E level of, it's just so good.

Really, really good stuff.

Yeah.

Also within that episode, I think the cops having a joint circular argument about which one of them is the loose cannon, I found really, really delightful.

There's just, it's hard to make a really, really funny cop episode these days.

You've seen even like the cop-oriented comedies like had to bail on their premises as soon as things started getting up.

I was like, Brooklyn 99.

Famously,

this one is genuinely hilarious, genuinely very funny.

Start to finish.

And look, some of that is you get a Gator involved.

You make one of the cops into like a manic TikToker, and all of a sudden you're really cooking with grease.

When it started and I was like, and it starts with like calling Gabby Hoffman's character one of the good ones.

And I was like, what are we, I was like, what am I about to watch?

And then I was like, oh, this is the best thing I've ever seen.

Best episode is episode four.

I think it is.

Should we do a runner-up?

So episode four, I would say, it has the best setup, the biggest laughs.

the most alligators on meth, as mentioned.

Like it just has all the ingredients you want for great TV.

If I were to pick another, I think it's honestly really competitive against these other three, which all have something to recommend about them.

I am partial to episode two, Last Looks, which is the funeral home episode.

I love that one.

I really, really like, I look, full disclosure,

since we're all being honest about ourselves on this podcast,

I come from a funeral home family.

My grandfather was a funeral director.

There is a certain like Mortician humor that appeals to me and that is baked into at least that half of my family.

You, I didn't know this.

This is, you're like, you're like, representation matters.

This is what this is what Poker Face is about:

looking into our souls, figuring out what we really need at this moment in time, and if Charlie Hill can provide it for us.

Looking into the gator's eye, that is the funeral home industry.

Okay.

Yeah.

Best Charlie fit.

I've never made you talk about fashion before on a podcast, Rob Mahoney.

This is usually something Mallory and I talk about, but

Charlie,

her style is incredible.

The hair is

still outrageous, but like better this season than it was.

She has to like put a wig on for a flashback to season one.

And I'm just sort of like, oh yeah, that's what the season of hair looked like.

Anyway, the hair is much less, like, just a bit less crispy this season and redder.

And

the style is incredible.

They're really leading into like the 70s inspired

thing for the whole season.

So do you have a Charlie look that you want to shout out?

I think there are a lot of good ones.

I would also pick one from episode two here, which is her beach fit, Hawaiian shirt, teal ray bands with red frames, beer helmet.

Like, that's that's a nice little ensemble she's got going together.

She's also rocking a lot of like high socks in this season.

It's a lot of like jean shorts, high socks, a lot of bolos with open collars, which I don't know about that one personally, but I support Charlie and all her endeavors.

Okay, as a as a Texan, you want to object to the use of the bolo here?

I mean, I object to most uses of the bolo.

It's not even me being territorial.

I just don't think anybody should be doing it, native Texans included.

Unless it's Peter Sarsgaard and presumed innocent, which is the second time I get to talk about that this week.

That one will allow.

We'll grandfather in Peter.

Okay.

You sort of outlined the

kind of outfit I'm going to talk about, which is like when she's talking to Steve Basemi on the radio, and she's wearing high-striped socks,

denim short shorts, a crab shirt, and a trucker hat.

And it's just phenomenal.

It's just really, really good.

Runner-up for me

is the party down cater waiter

outfit in episode four.

They went full party down for their look to liberate the gator from the flopacopas, and it's pretty great.

And she has the matching pink sunglasses to go with it.

It's pretty great.

How many sunglasses do you think she packed?

She's got a whole, like, you know, she often lives in her car.

And I'm like, but, but, but is like

one quarter of your trunk space just a bag of sunglasses?

I know.

Quite well protected, it seems like.

You know, these aren't dinged up.

Like, they seem to be in quite good condition.

Gleaming.

Yeah, absolutely.

Best murder.

I feel guilty again going back to episode four, but one person in these episodes died by getting overdosed with Gator laxative.

So what am I supposed to do here?

I wrote Gator Joe shit himself to death.

So,

come on.

There's really no question.

And then was eaten by a methed up Gator.

I mean, that's just

our producer, Kai, is on this podcast.

And again, Kai got sort of like roped in a little last minute to doing this podcast, so hasn't had a chance to watch any of Poker Face.

And I don't, the only thing I'm bummed to spoil for Kai is

the fact that Kamale and Johnny, with like a bleached

party mullet,

shits himself to death and then is eaten by his own exploited gator, hopped up on Beth.

Um, that's art to me.

That's tremendous, really tremendous.

There's there's literally no competition, like you can't even get close to that.

I'm so sorry.

So, yeah, the other murders are good.

I also should, we kind of skip past Kamale in the guest star section.

I'm just, again, very happy to see him here.

It's like we have a collection of wonderful that guy performers, wonderful, like people we love every time they show up.

In Kumail's case, like I haven't seen him in anything like live action because I am respectfully out on OnlyMurders.

I, as we have discussed also recently on this podcast, I'm not tuning in to Ghostbusters Frozen Empire.

Is that the name of that?

Were you surprised by how many, we got a couple emails from people being like, how dare you besmirch the new Ghostbuster?

I've been very surprised by the pro Ghostbusters stance at prestige TV at Spotify.com if you would like to join the chorus.

But so I haven't seen Kamil in anything like live action since I think Obi-Wan and Eternals.

Not my preferred context to see a performer that I really like and a comic who can be really great and is great as Gator Joe.

His Gator Joe performance is so good.

And what's really just the icing on the Gator Joe cake is

the accent, right?

Because he's trying to like embody

the Florida man.

And Kumail is not really hiding that he

his natural accent, but he is just layered on top of it.

He's just smeared over the top of it.

Yeah.

The twang of the Florida man.

And it's pretty outstanding.

It's pretty, pretty good.

And then the like the little TikTok bits that play over the closing credits of that episode really, really good stuff.

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Most delightful visuals.

So, something we talked a lot about in our coverage of the first season is: you know, Ryan Johnson, a director we both love,

directed some, the first two episodes, I think, of

season one, and he directed the first episode of this season.

But we talked a lot about sort of the visual style, the visual palette.

Yeah.

There was some like interesting camera work that he certainly did in his episodes.

And I was curious

if you had a visual that most delighted you Rob Bahoney

last scion of a of a funeral home family thank you I appreciate that respect yeah

I think my pick for the most delightful visual would be a Ryan Johnson joint he directed as you said the first episode of this season the dramatic reveal of the prosthetic leg dangling off of the cliff I think was my first like oh fuck yeah moment like the the twist on a twist of how far are these characters willing to go to cover up whatever they need to cover up, to get the money that they need to get.

Like that was my first like return to poker face moment, I would say.

And so that was my moment of true delight.

But there are lots of visuals in the show that are not as delightful, but I still enjoy quite a bit.

And I think the, you know, Gian Carlo Esposito burning alive in his funeral home at the end of his episode, like, am I delighted by it?

Yes and no.

But but please speak on it, Joe.

Like that was, that was an awesome moment.

It's so cool.

Like, so he's sitting in the chair in his office surrounded by the trappings of his of his business and then watching this portrait of his father burn the portrait made from his father's remains burn in very normal

and something that you discover that maybe you always knew but you well i guess we we've known it since breaking bad is that giancarlo esposito has this like incredible bone structure of his face and so in breaking bad spoilership breaking bad uh when his character very famously once again a spoiler for breaking bad please skip ahead if you haven't seen it, gets half of his face blown off.

And it's just this like incredible visual of like Gus Fring's like half blown off face and his normal face.

And so watching him sit there in that chair, he just looks, you can see the skeleton sort of underneath, like he's just about to melt off of his own bones as he sits there in the fire.

And there was just something like really, like, that's the moment.

when I was like coming up with these categories sort of on the fly as I was watching.

I was like, best visual where I was like inspired by this very moment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I also think that moment opened up something for Poker Face for me, which is, you know, clearly this is a show that draws a lot from Columbo.

The case of the week structure, the one more thing kind of return as like Charlie's talking through the cases, like it's all right there on its sleeve.

That episode, among others, but I think they all kind of have their moment of this, had some real like Twilight Zone in it too.

Not in the like, oh, there's a supernatural element way, but like the hoisted by your own petard dramatic irony twist at the very end felt very Twilight Zone.

And I think that's where a show like Poker Face can draw from all sorts of influences because it can be anything at once at any time.

I want to, I want to actually, I'll circle back to that in our next category, but I do want to also say while we're here, this is less of like a striking sort of cinematic visual and more of like, to your point, a gag reveal.

To me, in episode one,

the running

bit of Charlie gnawing on a turkey leg for like a quarter of the episode.

Yeah.

Like a funeral buffet turkey leg.

Like she's Henry VIII is like pretty phenomenal.

And then

in that same episode, the biggest laugh I think of maybe all four episodes that the show got from me

was when she drops Chekhov's pointy award, the Latvian Intergenerational Kiss Award.

There you go.

Onto Cynthia Rivo's one of the Cynthia Rivos foot yeah to reveal that it's a real foot and not a prosthetic underneath there and that that Cynthia Rivo is pretending it doesn't hurt and then blood just like

gushes out geysers out of it and it's so funny I don't think we gave

I don't think we gave Cynthia her flowers enough to for her episode where she is playing Amber and BB and Cece and Delia and Felicity and Amber playing Felicity and Amber playing Delia.

Like, there's a lot to juggle in that episode.

And she, there's a lot of very exaggerated accent work happening, I think, to distinguish some of those characters and very clear color palettes in addition to like the naming scheme situation.

But I had a great time with it.

I enjoyed her getting to just riff off of different versions of herself.

The two sort of very backup ones, which are, I think, BB and Cece,

are

like the fact that you just mostly get them in reaction shots, and it's just sort of like one of them says something very pretentious in French, and one of them says something very spacey in DJ, and it's just sort of like, let's move on from here.

It's really funny.

Best needle drop.

Okay, so this is where I want to, I don't want to step on your answer or whatever, but I will say, in terms of the Twilight Zone feel

of episode two,

if you use the ink spots in an episode as a rule,

you're going to give haunted.

It gives haunted always anytime you use the ink spots as a needle drop.

But what is your pick for needle drop?

Very competitive category.

I'm glad you brought up, I believe it's BB, who's the DJ.

Yes.

Honorable mention to BB's remix of the kids cop colon nights theme that she plays at the funeral, which I think is wonderful.

Also, honorable mention.

Sorry, the kid cops.

Like the first scene we get where she's like a showgirl sitting on the drug hoodie.

Yeah, well, she's a drug mule, but she's like dressed as like a saloon girl.

And she's just like, I don't know where I end.

And the mule begins.

Very, very good.

Really?

The fact that Charlie wants to go back and watch the one where the Kid Cop meets or catches the Zodiac Killer.

The Zodiac Killer.

I also would like to watch that episode.

But yeah, the Kids Cop Night remix theme does slap.

So honorable mention to that.

Honorable mention to Johan Sebastian Bach.

He He cooked in these episodes as well.

I think there is one definitive answer for me, though.

I couldn't go any other way.

It is the shredding guitar Ave Maria at the Biker funeral in episode two.

Just really, really inspired work by everyone involved.

Very, very good.

Yeah, we get some like literal needle drops inside of that episode.

For me, it's a song I had never heard before,

which is John Kale's Barracuda, not to be confused with a barracuda that you might know yes a different barracuda but i love when a show can

uh teach me about uh an absolute banger that i had never heard before so um i love john kale i just didn't know the song so there we go barracuda but a different one all right charlie um

part of the premise of the show is charlie goes from town to town picking up odd jobs as she goes

Which Charlie odd job and we and we got a montage of them we did in this season in addition to working at the Gator Farm and all the other things that she does this season.

What a corpse, sorry, I don't, I'll stop naming them so you can say what you want.

Which Charlie Odd job would you most want to have

from Mahoney?

I mean, the actual answer is none.

None of these seem particularly pleasant to do, but if you're going to pick one, I think you could do a lot of work, a lot worse than apple picking.

You know, a little bit of sunshine, a little bit of fresh air.

Yeah, long days on your feet in the elements, not always great.

I'm not not saying it's easy work, but I would much rather do that than be a parking lot attendant.

Okay, yeah.

Parking lot attendant looked the most bleak to me, honestly.

Yeah.

Some good reading time, apparently, but, you know, didn't seem like she was getting some good conversation from her coworker.

Cookie, I think is his name?

Great, great note.

Haunted Hayride.

That's my, that's my.

Haunted Hayride, yeah, yeah, yeah.

When she plays the mummy in the haunted hayride.

How do you feel about a haunting, Joe?

Like a a haunted house, a haunted hayride, any kind of spooky Halloween-type situation.

Thank you so much for asking.

I love it.

I'm a big fan.

I have been in a few haunted houses in my day as a performer, and it has been extremely fun for me.

So, so this isn't which job you would like to have, it's which job you would like to have.

No, not paid.

I did it in college a couple times, like when you know, people put together a haunted house.

Yeah, I think I've told this, I know I've told the story.

I can't, I don't know if I've told it to you, but definitely on a pod before that

freshman year, one year,

they had, yeah, it was freshman year.

They had me do,

I was like Linda Blair from The Exorcist.

And so they just like had me.

So it was like in a dorm.

And so each room had been like dressed up or something.

And they had me like, so I was on the bed.

There were people under the bed shaking the bed.

And then they just like had.

like dumped pea soup on me, which was like actually completely rancid.

But then I just got to like shout swears at people as they walked past and had a great time.

And I'd fared better than the girl who played Carrie who got caros syrup, like red caro syrup dumped over her hair.

And it took like maybe a haircut to get it all out.

So we didn't know what we were doing.

We're not professionals.

Yeah.

We were just doing our best.

But that was really fun.

And a haunted hayride is really, really fun.

So

I think that's what I would want to do.

I'm sure the dorm administrators too loved.

just like the pea soup and caro syrup being poured everywhere.

Every bed, every surface, every crevice in that dorm room.

Well, that's very sticky.

Yeah, very sticky situation.

I'm not what you want.

Would you like, are you so superstitious that you would not do like a haunted house or a haunted hayride?

I'm fine with it, but mostly like not that interested.

Here's the thing: Halloween, not my holiday.

More of a Thanksgiving guy, ultimately, more of like a July barbecue kind of guy.

I'm not out here trying to get spooked.

Do you think it's because you come from a long lineage of funeral

directors and you take death more seriously than the goons do at Halloween?

You know what?

You're right.

We are more evolved.

We have a healthier relationship with death.

We don't need to make it a joke.

You know, this is part of who we are.

This is part of the natural life cycle.

Very serious.

Wow.

You don't like Halloween.

I'm neutral slash indifferent.

Actually, slight negative.

Neutral is too, too positive.

Slight negative.

Follow-up question.

You, Ramahoni.

Are you a costume party person?

Like, would you dress up for a costume party?

Absolutely.

If there's a theme, if there's a participation element, some friends of mine back in Dallas used to celebrate every year Leonardo DiCaprio's birthday.

Long story.

You had to show up in costume as a Leonardo DiCaprio character of some kind.

So yeah, I was good.

Many, many great costumes.

I would say my favorite of those was Leo did, I think it was a Vanity Fair photo shoot where he is in a black turtleneck with a swan wrapped around his neck.

The swan.

Let's just say the costume went off.

It really worked out.

Oh, yeah.

The very first swan cover is like absolutely iconic.

That's a great costume.

I just don't understand why you don't then like apply that zeal, that clear talent you have for this to

the holiday where we all dress up and

have fun.

I think what I want is the camaraderie of knowing we are all on theme together.

Like we have a joint mission.

We're all aiming for the same thing and we're going to reach at it together versus actual Halloween.

You have so many varied levels of investment, execution.

People, some people are spooky, some people are funny.

Like it's just all over the place in a way that does not do a lot for me.

All right.

So a more organized Halloween for Ramahona, please.

That's a note for the American populace.

Okay.

Charlie's smartest move.

She doesn't always make the smartest moves, and we'll talk about that in a second.

But what's her like most impressively intelligent move that you think she makes?

See, I would say this is maybe not her smartest collection of episodes.

She's not coming up with all the stops here.

I'm going to say, my memory is that in season one, she is also quite often fumbling and bumbling, and we're like, oh, Charlie.

Oh, Charlie.

And she gets out of it because she's...

you know, has this superpower.

Yes.

Well, no, she has a preternatural sense.

You agreed.

you agreed you said yes that was me trying to yes and my podcast partner not me endorsing every word that you say the first thing you said was yes okay um what is the smartest thing charlie does in this collection of episodes so i would i have kind of a tie here because one of them i think is very smart but not in a super obvious way which is in episode one when she detects Amber is telling her a set of facts and the family lawyer is telling her the same set of facts.

And the fact that one is ringing true and one is ringing false, I think is like a great setup to use her power in the first episode of this season.

And it's like a really smart way to kind of walk that line.

Is that a brilliant maneuver?

I think it's probably great writing more than it is like great Charlie being Charlie.

Her actual smartest move, I think, is throwing the vape into the incinerator.

I think it's her real superpower, Joe, is listening.

Yeah.

Every episode, every throwaway line, you tell me that a battery will explode in this furnace, then I'm going to remember that.

I'm going to lock it up.

I'm going to throw my vape in there at just the most opportune moment possible.

And I was like, I didn't know.

I didn't know it would do.

I didn't know it would go like that.

No.

It was pretty impressive.

I almost had

best vape moment as a

category, but there was just like a clear answer.

Well,

she's vaping up a storm until she decides to go back to the cigarette.

So

yeah.

Those are all good ones.

I have to say,

maybe this isn't the smartest.

It's just the one that like delighted me the most.

When she's trying to figure out where the bag of meth went and whether or not the gator was capable of stealing the bag of meth.

And she was like, no, look how cleanly it was taken.

These are definitely, definitely human hands stole this bag of meth.

I don't know what it is about the meth gator, but like everything about that episode really, really gets me for some reason.

Just

what a show we've got.

It's like what cocaine bear should have been, honestly, is how I feel about that.

Charlie's dumbest move.

Even though it's not her fault,

the twist tie on the Gator cage.

I mean, it kind of worked.

It held, and it's not her fault that Fran came along and untwisted it, but I was just like, that's,

you're very lucky that that did not go poorly for you, Charlie.

Anyway,

what is your answer?

I think her dumbest move, and this may be observable by this point in the podcast, based on which episodes we've talked about, most of her actions in episode three, I don't really understand what Charlie is doing, how forthcoming she's being, why she's just like going along with these various schemes, slash being like super upfront about everything, including her preternatural sense of bullshit.

I don't know what she's up to in episode three, but episode three kind of goes off the rails.

Episode three, where Don Mulaney shows up

with his.

Like, I will just say, whatever he has done to his face had not settled when he filmed that episode.

His face is like in a silly putty state.

And it's, oh, no, I think it has like settled down since.

But anyway, it was just like kind of uh

ungainly.

But there's a Steven Sondheim runner, and I'm trying to spare you from it.

I could spend the whole podcast talking about the musical references in that episode, but I was like, Rob doesn't usually like make you talk about basketball for most.

Usually, I ask you about basketball, so I'm going to like spare you for me talking about musicals.

But the Sondheim runner through that episode is quite good.

A reason why that episode works so well for me, but everything that Charlie does is quite baffling.

And so that is where we find ourselves in that.

Okay.

And Joe, you say that about musicals.

I will say, you know, I'm musical open and certainly musical humor open in this kind of context.

I'm also a human being for reasons that I cannot explain to you.

Have had several tick-tick boom songs stuck in my head for now, like 48 hours, and I don't know where they came from or why.

I've only seen that movie.

I have not seen it in years.

They're They're just lodged up there somehow.

You know, I'm just, I'm just in therapy with Andrew Garfield.

You got Garfielded?

I got Garfielded.

I got subconsciously Garfielded like a sleeper agent.

I must have seen like his face somewhere and it just popped back into my head.

Have I told you about my favorite, my like current favorite piece of swag that we have

in the house?

You simply must.

In our kitchen,

we got

there's a timer, like a like an egg timer, like a spin it and a tick, tick, tick, tick, ticks.

Um, and it's just got Andrew Garfield's face on it, and they set it out for we live in time.

And it's just an egg timer with Andrew Garfield's face on it.

And it's magnetized, so it's just on like the hood of our like range.

It's just there, and I use it all the time.

And I think about Andrew Garfield when I do.

But I haven't been thinking about tick, tick, boom, and maybe I will start doing that.

There you go.

I mean, look, if you got the egg timer, it's already, it's already built in.

Is there a corresponding flow egg timer that you can collect the set?

They just did Andy, I think.

They just did Andrew Garfield.

It's a real missed opportunity.

If you had like a McDonald's happy meal with those toys in it, I would buy them.

A We Live in Time egg timer with Andrew Garfield and Florence Pee on them, I'd shell out some money for that.

Yeah, that sounds like the words of someone who dressed as the Manny Fair Leonardo DiCaprio cover.

Guilty is charged.

Other than learning that Ramoni once dressed as the Manny Fair Leonardo DiCaprio cover.

The most interesting fact you learned from

these stretches of episodes,

I gave you an example, not knowing that you definitely probably already knew what you could do with cremains,

but what did you learn from these four episodes?

I don't want to speak out of turn.

I'm going to say that my ancestral family funeral home was not putting people's remains into records, was not putting them into toilet seat covers.

But did you know that you could press remains into a record?

I did know that.

I just don't think

that we're a little more tasteful than that, ultimately.

Okay.

Yeah, you're elegant.

I got it.

Okay.

Mine was less like a fact of,

you know, for example, that you can't throw a battery into a furnace and more a fact of life.

Courtesy of, you know, Steve Buscemi piping in in these episodes, Joe.

This is a quote from that character.

Good Buddy.

Is that his official canonical name?

Good Buddy, yeah.

Good Buddy says.

i think is a gilligan's island reference i think i assumed it's just like a 10-4 good buddy kind of thing yeah but i think that's is that from gilligan's island gilligan's island maybe not but i think it is we're gonna have to get to the bottom of that if you if you know where 104 good buddy comes from and if it is gilligan's island please email us at prestige tv at spotify.com uh the quote from that character is there is no destination there is only the highway And I believe if we open our perception and trust and humble ourselves and find sanctuary when we need it, that highway will find us.

That's some facts.

That's

fine.

That's a thing I did not fully embrace and understand until watching this episode of television.

And that's what I'm saying.

Like, I feel like we can look forward to more of these words of wisdom from Super Summon going forward.

Before you send us an email about this, I might want to walk back.

Do you?

Joe, stake your claim.

If you feel like that's true, I want you to stand on it.

I know that the skipper calls Gilligan like,

I want to say, maybe it's like little buddy, but I think

there is a little buddy element.

There could, I mean, look, there could be multiple kinds of buddies on Gilligan's Island.

That's right, it's 10-4 good buddy.

I just thought like it was a Gilligan thing, which fit in with the 70s thing, but

we could Google it.

Instead, why don't you email us, pressctv at spotify.com, and don't ask chat GPT.

Only email us if you know this, what the answer is.

We want human reactions.

Okay.

Here's what I learned.

And it's like a

semantic thing.

The difference between a rat and a mole.

I don't know that I had just maybe never really thought about it, but in episode three,

they're talking about, you know, Rhea Proman's character is concerned that there's someone in her organization that is ratting on her.

So she's like, there's the rat, blah, blah, blah.

And then later, someone's like, oh, the mole.

They said, Did you say the rat or do you say the mole?

And I was like, What do you mean?

What's the difference between a rat and a mole?

And

so, the difference, as far as I understand it, right?

I mean, I guess I should have known this.

It just never, I was just like, it was just a moment where I was like, I've never considered what the difference between a rat and a mole is, but a mole being someone like who's long-term embedded in an organization versus a rat being someone who's like, there's a sense of betrayal from a rat.

Will there be a sense of betrayal from a mole?

I don't know.

In the departed, departed,

leaving aside the literal rat and the Jack Nicholson talking about the rat, those are both moles, wouldn't you say?

I would say that.

They're both embedded.

So this is the question.

Is it a matter of like timing and circumstance?

Like if you're going in to infiltrate and filter out information, that feels more mole to me.

If you're in an organization and you decide to turn state to witness or turn whatever, that would make you a rat.

But also, is there an element where it's like, if you are part of the establishment, then you are a mole infiltrating the establishment you wouldn't have a rat within the fbi you know what i'm saying

yeah so a rat only the mole can work for the man

that's and only a rat can snitch is that what you're saying but where does that leave the snakes and the stool pigeons i don't know see we've learned something but we have more questions than answers I couldn't actually could not find a satisfying, like clear-cut answer to this.

There's like a few Reddit threads that I was like, Thank you.

Other people

years ago, other people have asked these questions.

But

again, press EGB at spotify.com if you have thoughts and questions about Reddit.

He's animals, yeah.

He's an undercover cop, like the one we see during episode four, the cop who's been a janitor, like hiding in plain sight the whole time.

It's just a good bit.

If you're an undercover cop, an undercover cop would, by our definition that we're kind of sussing out here, be more of a mole than a rat.

Because he's going into infiltrate.

But also, if you're a cop.

Yeah, so a rat is someone who has been turned.

Yes.

You know,

is an original gangster, is like part of the team, those three scary guys that she was playing.

Right.

Well, not playing Pokemon.

And Richard Kine.

Whatever.

And Richard Kine.

So, but Richard Kine,

when they cut to like the suspect suspect board and it just said, like, not really involved next to Richard Kine, it's really funny.

But those three guys, if any of those three guys at the card table turn, they're rats.

Definitely.

But if you join the FBI

knowing that you are going to be

an agent for hire sort of thing, you're a mole.

So Wahlberg and the Department of Definitively a mole.

Or sorry, not Wahlberg.

Sorry, Damon and the Departed.

Yeah, sorry.

Damon a mole, but DiCaprio a mole, because they both join with the intention of

infiltrating and then distributing that information.

Can you be a mole if you are a police officer acting lawfully?

I don't know.

But you're a mole from the perspective of the criminal organization that you've infiltrated.

Without a doubt.

You know, from a certain point of view, Joe, you're absolutely right.

Okay.

If you think the departed is a double mole situation,

Parsi Shivi and Spotify.com.

If you can think of a double rat, like Donnie Brasco, that's a double rat.

Yeah.

Like, what's a double rat situation?

There's got to be one out there.

I would love to hear about any double rat situations that come to mind for people.

I would love to hear about those as well.

Yeah.

All right.

Anything else you want to say about Poker Face before we

depat this podcast here today?

I love this show.

I, you know, clearly we're going off the rails of it here by the end, but I think that's in part because the tonality of the show lends itself to it and the silliness that's kind of baked into what it can be.

So excited to have it back.

I would watch an infinite number of episodes of this show, as many as they would care to make.

And so, to have a full season and we're just at the start of it, I hope we can keep checking in, Joe.

So, that is it for Poker Face episodes one through four of season two.

We will be back in some form to check in on Poker Face, maybe not week to week.

We'll see.

Um, because we're not doing week to week, I don't think we're doing any sort of uh show-specific emails, but again, press gcv at spotify.com if you have Gilligan's Island information for us, rat versus mole information for us,

all sorts of stuff.

We'd love to hear it from you, our listeners.

And we will see you next week with the Last of Us coverage, with your friends and neighbors coverage.

We have a really sick interview on the Last of Us podcast.

Next week, we got, I can say it now because we've already conducted the interview, but

Neil Druckman and Hallie Gross, who co-wrote co-wrote Last of Us Part 2, the game, and Neil Druckman, who's a co-show runner of the HBO show and Hallie, who worked on season two, talked to us about the episodes that could premiere this Sunday.

So

great interview.

They're the best.

They're wonderful.

And

so tune in for that next week.

And thanks to Kai Grady, who is working on a Friday afternoon after taking a flight from Texas to California.

The best.

And thank you to Justin Sales for allowing us to do a poker for random poker face episode.

Thank you so much, Justin, and we will see you soon.

Bye.