Poker Face's guest stars make for a damn delightful case of the week

Natasha Lyonne is, without a doubt, Poker Face’s ace. Rian Johnson’s drama does have another obvious trick up its sleeve: each episode’s enviable guest cast. The show boasts an adept roster of actors, including last week’s Judith Light and S. Epatha Merkerson; the duo’s performance helped save a relatively mediocre outing. So far, all the other guest stars have been equally great, including Lil Rel Howrey, Chloë Sevigny, and Adrien Brody. The sixth episode is no different. Ellen Barkin and Tim Meadows elevate an already solid ep.

Poker Face does an excellent job of making the supporting characters feel lived in. It’s the most crucial yet challenging aspect of the show because the episodes don’t open with Lyonne’s Charlie Cale—who tends to enter the picture a good 15 to 20 minutes in—but with the killers and their victims. Except: PF ensures they’re not monotonous. It’s easy to invest in all of their stories, which explains why Charlie is also drawn to the case and is motivated to solve the crime. Much like Columbo or even Veronica Mars, her reasons are usually personal and not because she’s a detective on the job. It’s what makes Poker Face stand out too.

In the case of “Exit Stage Death,” Barkin and Meadows are sensational as the twisted Kathleen and Michael, the former co-stars of a cringe-worthy 30-year-old fake TV show called Spooky And The Cop. The duo are seemingly at odds and despise one another, but Michael agrees to be part of Kathleen’s new stage play so they can both earn money. Throughout the three-week prep, they hurl insults, throw tantrums, and turn every conversation into a heated debate that cements their personality. In typical PF fashion, it’s all a ruse. Classic, huh?

Michael and Kathleen are only pretending to be enemies in what is perhaps the greatest bit of acting they’ve done. Anything beats Spooky And The Cop, I’m guessing. Their goal is to fool everyone and get away with killing Michael’s new bride, Ava (Jameela Jamil), who is self-made and affluent; the kind with a mansion that includes a swimming pool and tennis court. They get away with killing her during the play while a horrified audience watches her fall from a trap door on stage. You see, she rushed up there to help Michael, who faked having heart pain. She didn’t know Michael and Kathleen had rigged the whole thing so she can plummet and crack her head open. Oops.

Episode writer Chris Downey executes this bait-and-switch perfectly. I will admit to buying into Kathleen and Michael plotting each other’s death (him with the dry ice lock, her with messing up the light fixture). The credit goes to Barkin and Meadows because they dial up the anger and seething to a T. It’s a juicier twist that their rage was all an act to get Ava’s money. They would’ve gotten away with it, too, if Charlie wasn’t working at the restaurant/theater where they set up the play as a waitress.

“Exit Stage Death,” much like last week’s outing, doesn’t bother explaining how Charlie landed up in this particular location. We have to assume her road trips take her to unexpected places, usually where she meets someone who dies. It’s a bit too coincidental, but Poker Face plays it off as cruel irony. In some cases, if Charlie wouldn’t have interacted or given advice to the victim (like handing the Okja DVD to George in episode three or encouraging Gavin to play Doxxxology his song), they might still be alive. The correlation is subtler here: She pours Ava a ton of wine, as per Ava’s request, but any waitress would do that, right?

Charlie is driven to figure out whether Ava’s death was an accident mainly out of loyalty to stage manager Phil (Chris McKinney), who gave her this new gig. He feels bad about what happened, not knowing he was drugged so Kathleen and Michael could mess with the trap door. And if there’s one thing we know about Charlie—because we actually still don’t know much—it’s that she’ll do everything in her power to save a pal. At first, she suspects Kathleen is the main target and hilariously keeps interrupting the play’s surprise second-night performance. But she quickly deduces that Kathleen and Michael are actually shrewd lovers who planned everything.

I love that, much like Ava’s death, Charlie is able to warn Rebecca (Audrey Corsa) that her co-stars are probably about to kill her next while everyone is on-stage. It’s very theatrical and fitting with the episode’s theme. Rebecca, of course, is fully aware of what Kathleen and Michael did to Ava and is blackmailing them for $5 million. Her price swiftly doubles. (Insert gif of Lucille Bluth saying “Good for her”). Even Charlie’s takedown of Michael and Kathleen is dramatic: Using the hidden recorder gimmick to get them to confess openly. It’s not necessarily crafty or inventive, but it does the trick.

As always, our girl doesn’t stick around to see them get arrested. She can’t come face-to-face with cops because she’s still on the run from Benjamin Bratt. Although let’s not forget, she has FBI agent Luca (Simon Helberg) to help her out when needed potentially. And off she goes to whatever town beckons next.

Stray observations

• I didn’t get to dive into it in the recap, but I’d be remiss not to shout out Audrey Corsa. She crushed her role as Rebecca while working opposite two legends, from her accent changes to the snarky blackmailing.
• Charlie asking Rebecca if she’s in a throuple with Kathleen and Michael was a great comedic bit.
• Ellen Barkin, man. What an incredible performance here. Her scene with Jameela Jamil when Ava laughs at Kathleen, and then the camera zooms in on Barkin’s quivering, enraged facial expressions is excellent.
• Here are the performances that Charlie, a living, breathing human lie detector, deems to be true:
  1.) Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse
  2.) Jennifer Jason Leigh in Single White Female
  3.) Christian Slater in True Romance