Poker Face’s formula wasn’t broke, so Rian Johnson didn’t want to change it

Season 1 of Poker Face, Rian Johnson's eclectic crime dramedy starring Natasha Lyonne as a woman who can always tell when someone is lying, was one of Peacock's first truly fantastic series. Each Columbo-esque episode spun a uniquely wild tale of murder, mystery, and people realizing how different their understandings of the truth can be. […]

May 7, 2025 - 13:01

Poker Face’s formula wasn’t broke, so Rian Johnson didn’t want to change it

Rian Johnson at the premiere of Poker Face’s second season in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Legion Theater.

Season 1 of Poker Face, Rian Johnson's eclectic crime dramedy starring Natasha Lyonne as a woman who can always tell when someone is lying, was one of Peacock's first truly fantastic series. Each Columbo-esque episode spun a uniquely wild tale of murder, mystery, and people realizing how different their understandings of the truth can be. And you could see that its massive cast of guest stars was having a ball hamming it up as ridiculous characters that felt like they were ripped right out of a game of Clue.

Though every episode dropped Lyonne's character, Charlie Cale, into a new situation involving people she'd just met, Poker Face's first season was still very much a larger story about her being on the run and trying to stay one step ahead of shady figures from her past. The dangerous stakes of that narrative seemed like something that Poker Face might want to crank up when Peacock renewed the series for its second season.

But when I spoke with Johnson recently, he told me that he was never all that interested in fiddling with the scope of Poker Face's narrative. For him, the joy of crafting Charlie Cale's story has always been rooted in figuring out how to create novel, emot …

Read the full story at The Verge.