How Alex, the Iguana Killer, Fools Charlie

SPOILER ALERT: This text incorporates spoilers for “The Finish of the Highway,” Season 2, Episode 12 of “Poker Face,” now streaming on Peacock.

Each episode main as much as the Season 2 finale of “Poker Face” — Rian Johnson’s murder-of-the-week love letter to “Columbo” — has relied on Charlie Cale’s (Natasha Lyonne) unmatched potential to smell out lies to resolve any thriller.

However in a shocking flip of occasions within the newest episode, “The Finish of the Highway,” Charlie finds herself outsmarted at her personal sport by shut good friend Alex (Patti Harrison), who has been the Iguana killer all alongside. Alex managed to bypass Charlie’s detection by coaching herself to swallow all her pure impulses when mendacity, subverting the template of the present and what followers have come to anticipate.

Season 2 showrunner Tony Tost explains that the twist was pitched by co-executive producer Laura Deeley within the writers’ room. “She got here in with the pitch as a strategy to play off of Charlie’s bullshit detector and the style,” Tost tells Selection. “We’ve received our sort of spin on a basic old-school detective, and there’s a set variety of archetypes there. So we thought it could be enjoyable to introduce a personality that looks as if she’s going to be Charlie’s Watson, however finally ends up being her Moriarty.”

Whereas Season 1 primarily follows Charlie on the run from a direct menace, Tost needed Season 2 to transition into her being on the highway in a extra “existential” means as she tries to quiet down. “There’s an actual harm and nearly disappointment that Charlie is continually overcoming,” he says. “That’s perhaps a supply of her ‘smile and bear it, toss it apart’ with a reasonably intelligent one-liner [ethos]. However beneath there, there’s this aching want to attach. Season 1 begins along with her shedding her greatest good friend.”

The tip of Season 2 sees Charlie hit the highway once more as soon as once more after narrowly rolling out of the automobile earlier than it goes off the cliff, presumably killing Alex (although we by no means do see her physique). And the implications and feelings are fairly completely different this time, as Charlie is now needed by the FBI. “It’s not a playful, defiant second,” Tost says. “That’s a part of the place you need to earn it piece-by-piece. You’re not steering into it an excessive amount of on an episode-by-episode foundation, however it accumulates. You are feeling the heartbreak there after which she covers it again up, hitchhiking with Steve Earle and off for an additional journey. However you get to [briefly] see what she’s been hiding beneath.”

Under, Tost breaks down how Charlie’s deep reference to folks performs into the ultimate twist, what Lyonne delivered to the desk because the episode’s director, and the place a possible Season 3 is perhaps headed after the betrayal.

The twist with Alex is so shocking, as a result of we’re used to trusting Charlie’s lie detection system, and that is the primary time we’re seeing that referred to as into query. What have been the bigger implications for the season as a complete — and for Charlie’s character — when you knew that may be the endpoint?

As soon as we latched onto this concept of, “Possibly there may be somebody on the market who can misinform Charlie,” it opens up the query of how she does it. Clearly, Charlie’s important calling card as a personality, if you happen to’re describing the present, is Natasha Lyonne taking part in a drifter-type character born with the power to inform when persons are mendacity. 

However one other key ingredient of Charlie’s character is the depth of her humanity and the way she connects with folks. She will be able to’t assist however attempt to assist folks and get up for the underdog, so it was actually interesting to then tie in Alex’s potential to chop off her personal humanity. Even with that, there’s weirdly a reference to Alex and Charlie that we needed to play with as nicely. It was all baked in there collectively as soon as we began digging on the idea and the character.

Each episode, Charlie is continually assembly new individuals who come and go from her life. However we see Alex and Charlie join over an extended time frame, beginning in Episodes 9 and 10. How did you determine to commit extra time to their relationship, and will you communicate to the methods they’re emotionally related?

As soon as we knew that we have been going to have Charlie quiet down somewhat bit, not less than for a part of the season, we needed to ease in a sidekick character. That appeared like a pure oddball pairing. Natasha performs Charlie with a sure wryness and knowingness, after which to provide her a youthful seeming sidekick who appears extra naive and might’t assist however inform the reality — that was interesting to us. There’s this yin and yang ingredient with them. Charlie’s personal relationship along with her personal sister is estranged, so we thought, “What could be an attention-grabbing sisterhood and an attention-grabbing performer to pair with Natasha to purchase into a giant sister, little sister dynamic?”

With the massive twist, how did you plant the seeds from the introduction of Alex’s character? I observed on a rewatch that in Episode 8, Charlie theorizes to the conmen, “The world’s best sociopath may trick me.” That’s precisely what occurs with Alex.

I’ve a way that some persons are catching on to the reveal, and for different folks, it’s a pleasant shock. However you need to earn it. You need it to return and, simply as you’re saying, on reflection, you’re like, “Oh yeah, there was this line about perhaps it’s potential to idiot Charlie.” And seeing that first introduction with Alex is her testing out whether or not or not she really is able to fooling the unfoolable particular person.

I do know Clea DuVall, who directed Episode 10, performed an element in Patti Harrison’s casting. May you discuss what made Patti Harrison proper for Alex? It’s a high quality line she has to play up till the reveal that she’s an entire sociopath.

The casting course of on this present could be very chaotic. There’s a textual content chain of myself, Rian and Natasha. Then there’s one other with our casting administrators. Then Rian and Natasha could have facet conversations with folks, and our EPs will weigh in. For Alex, we knew we needed somebody youthful with a sure sunniness to the character. I knew Patti from “I Assume You Ought to Depart With Tim Robinson,” the place she has a number of the most splendidly batshit loopy line readings I’ve ever seen, and I believe Rian reached out to Clea as a result of there might have been a while spent with Patti. It’s loads of these completely different tracks, completely different conversations occurring all in real-time, after which someway we at all times find yourself touchdown on the individual that’s presupposed to be.

When Episode 3 ends with Beatrix Hasp (Rhea Perlman) now not being a menace to Charlie, this season transitions into feeling extra existential, as you mentioned. However you do carry again characters like FBI Agent Luca Clarke (Simon Helberg). Trying again on Season 2, how did you consider which characters to maintain on the planet as Charlie tries to quiet down?

I used to be not concerned in Season 1, however coming in for Season 2, I used to be an enormous fan of Simon Helberg’s efficiency. It was nearly an unstated start line to carry Luca again for a number of episodes. And clearly we wanted to choose up Rhea Perlman’s character and put that to mattress early so we may do that different model of a Charlie highway journey. However after we have been beginning the writers’ room, I even had playing cards up only for myself with an actor’s identify and a query mark. “How are we going to carry again Simon?” Clea’s identify was up there, regardless that we didn’t carry her again, as a result of she’s such a terrific actress. I’ve selfishly at all times needed to work with Hong Chau and discover a strategy to carry her again.

After which we transition. Rian’s actual mandate for the writers’ room is to not take into consideration serialization at first. Don’t take into consideration this as a season-long story. Simply concentrate on breaking some actually good standalone episodes. The primary episodes we really broke have been the Gator Joe episode, then the baseball one and the elementary college. After which we began organically having conversations a couple of completely different form so we weren’t repeating precisely what Season 1 did so nicely.

This season, we see Charlie have a short love curiosity with Invoice (Corey Hawkins), the shop supervisor, in Episode 7, earlier than he will get killed off. How did that match into Charlie’s total arc for the season and her reference to folks?

We needed to discover that facet of Charlie. As a viewer, you need to see Natasha’s nice chemistry with the visitor stars. Due to the present, we knew it in all probability wasn’t going to be a long-term romance, however it was enjoyable to discover and take into consideration what kind of character Charlie could be drawn to. With Invoice, there’s an honesty to him. He’s not a high-status particular person, he’s able to his job, however he’s only a man who manages a retailer.

It was very a lot this concept of, “Let’s drop Charlie in conditions which are a part of human life.” However due to the character of the present and her reward, she has to maintain shifting. She needs to search out her neighborhood, she needs to search out her house, which is what we settled for when she strikes into Brooklyn. In a means, you nearly need to set it up so it looks as if she’s lastly received a long-term good friend earlier than that turns. There’s a certain quantity of virtually perversion — as a author, you need to make it as heartbreaking as potential. Versus introducing Alex as a nemesis from the get-go, it’s extra of a betrayal. And I believe Natasha performs that.

Season 2 introduces a slew of recent places, together with New York Metropolis. Trying again on the season as a complete, what issues have been necessary in increasing the visible world of the present?

What I needed to guard from Season 1 was that a lot of the story takes place in neglected little pockets of America that aren’t “aspirational.” Peculiar folks working service jobs. So it was, “OK, how can we discover some regional colour?” Rian actually needed us to do a Florida man episode. Regardless that that was the fourth episode of the season, that’s the place we began. Then for the minor league baseball episode, we realized we may make our means up the East Coast. I spent eight years residing in North Carolina and would go to Durham Bulls video games on a regular basis. From our writers’ room, everybody’s background gave us somewhat little bit of added specificity.

Natasha Lyonne additionally directed the finale, and he or she has her personal movie, “Uncanny Valley,” arising. What did she carry to the desk as a director?

She’s a real lover of cinema, and he or she’s very bold as a director. I believe she’s happier directing than she is performing. I don’t need to communicate for her, however I do know directing is a ardour for her, and he or she’s excited to interrupt out of normal tv protection and actually push the medium. On “Poker Face,” we solely have 10 days per episode, however inside that, she loves shot-listing and discovering references. We have been scouting places for a scene within the finale and we realized there’s a scene in Steven Spielberg’s “Duel” that weirdly had overlap when Charlie doesn’t know the Iguana is following her. Loads of the folks on the present, and I wish to assume myself included, are actual lovers of cinema. All of us have these rolodoxes of scenes that we will pull from for reference.

Do you could have any plans but for Season 3, or the place the story would possibly go subsequent?

We haven’t actually talked about what Season 3 would seem like, or if there’s going to be one. I’m in Arkansas proper now, I’m sort of R&R from a busy final yr and a half, so these are all future conversations down the road. However I do assume there’s some stuff arrange now that we have now Alex, Luca and Charlie. Whether or not it’s the top of the sequence or simply the top of the season, hopefully it’s satisfying in both iteration.

This interview has been edited and condensed.