Warning: This review contains spoilers forPoker Faceseason 2, episode 8.Charlie falls in with a crack team of con artists in another mystery-of-the-week featuringPoker Face’s twisty, hilarious story and star-studded supporting cast. In “The Sleazy Georgian,” a con artist named Guy attempts to scam Charlie over a hotel breakfast, but she can immediately tell that every word out of his mouth is untrue. Guy becomes enamored with Charlie’s talents as a human lie detector and recruits her to join his team.
This character was the perfect vehicle for the show to finally examine Charlie’s superpower. Until now, it’s just been a given that Charlie can instantly tell if someone is telling the truth, and she brushes it off whenever someone asks her to explain how. But Guy wants to get to the bottom of it. Guy thinks she’s just exceptionally skilled at picking up on people’s tells, but Charlie argues that tells aren’t an exact science.
As usual, “The Sleazy Georgian” has a couple of great guest stars giving stellar performances.John Choditches his usual lovability to play Guy as a reprehensible sociopath who tricks regular people out of their money and bullies his own partner-in-crime, Manny. Melanie Lynskey brings her everywoman charms to the role of Regina, Guy’s mark, who falls for the con because she wants to inject some excitement into her boring life.Cho and Lynskey share such tangible chemistry that the opening meet-cute is convincing as a straightforward romancebefore it takes a dark turn.
Poker Face Season 2, Episode 8 Is Structured Like Knives Out
You See The Crime, But You Still Don’t Know What Really Happened
“The Sleazy Georgian” is structured likethe firstKnives Outmovie:you see how the crime went down, but you also have no idea what happened. Manny shot Guy, but that was part of the con. Regina shot Manny, which wasn’t part of the plan. The gun is revealed to be full of blanks, but Manny still went down. And it’s unclear whether this all happened before or after Charlie fell in with these con men. It’s not until she finds a check made out to the National Orphan Fund that we learn this is all happening after the ordeal with Regina.
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This leads to an interesting discussion of morality. Guy believes that the fact his marks are willing to gamble with their money means they deserve to get scammed, but Charlie argues that doesn’t make them bad people. Guy proves to bethe perfect adversary for Charlie. He’s always one step ahead of her (until he isn’t), he can similarly tell when people are lying, and his poker face is just as good as hers, soit’s fascinating to watch their conversations unfold.
“The Sleazy Georgian” Builds To The Perfect Final Twist
Charlie Cons The Con Man
What makes this show so great is its mind-blowing plot twists, but some of the twists this season have been pretty underwhelming;Poker Face’s baseball episodepetered out after a strong start. Thankfully, “The Sleazy Georgian” doesn’t have this problem. It builds to the perfect final twist in which Charlie cons the con man.
At the climax of the episode, Charlie pulls a switcheroo of her own that brilliantly calls back to an earlier gag.
All throughout the episode, Guy has been pulling sleight-of-hand switches. He swapped out the satchel full of cash before Regina grabbed it, and he pulled Charlie’s warning note out of the mark’s pocket before he had a chance to read it. At the climax of the episode, Charlie pulls a switcheroo of her own that brilliantly calls back to an earlier gag. Guy leaves Manny to die, escapes with the bag of cash, and Charlie seemingly kills the mark. But then, it turns out that Charlie, Manny, and the mark are all in cahoots, pulling a scam of their own.
This is revealed beautifully when Guy empties out the bag. It’s supposed to contain $400,000 in cash, but it actually contains all the hotel breakfast coupons that Charlie has been using to eat for free across the country. It wasthe perfect visual punchlineon which to end one ofPoker Face’s strongest episodes to date.
