Flirt & Report Pokerface S2 Premiere
Natasha Lyonne our queer icon baddie! 😍 A new episode of Flirt & Report is out now on BuzzFeed Celeb! #PokerFace #FlirtandReport
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‘Poker Face' Season 2 Review: Rian Johnson Ups the Chaotic Ante in Peacock's Comforting Howcatchem
Sleuths, by and large, aren't given the luxury of lying low. Worn-down beat detectives are always getting called to the next crime scene. Part-time investigators can't resist a femme fatale's desperate pleas (or ample pocketbook). But even when you set aside their professional obligations, puzzle-solvers usually don't know what to do with themselves when the game is not yet afoot. Typically, gumshoes crack cases by compulsion. Take Rian Johnson's last 'Knives Out' mystery: At the start of 'Glass Onion,' Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) has grown frustrated by the pandemic's stultifying effect on real-world brainteasers. With too much time off (and too much time moping in the tub), he thinks he's going insane. He's tried reading books, he's tried playing games, he's even enlisted help from a few similarly-minded peers (including Angela Lansbury and 'Poker Face' star Natasha Lyonne). But nothing helps. 'The last thing I need is a vacation,' he says. 'I need danger, the hunt, a challenge. I need… a great case.' More from IndieWire How 'Andor' Season 2 Production Design Gives the Empire Its Oppressive Weight 'Poker Face' Season 2: Costume Designing Wicked Looks for Cynthia Erivo's Quintuplets In 'Poker Face' Season 2, Johnson sees this quandary through the looking glass (onion). Lyonne's Charlie Cale has too many cases to solve and too little downtime in between. No matter where her baby blue Plymouth Barracuda takes her, there's another liar, another dead body, and another wrong waiting to be righted. Her situation, like her innate ability to identify a lie, is unique. She's not a cop on assignment. She's not a private eye looking for work. She's happy to make a living picking apples from an orchard or snagging foul balls in the minor leagues. And yet, death haunts Charlie wherever she goes, so it's only natural to wonder: Is her nose for bullshit a blessing or a curse? What a mystery! Resolving this dilemma gives 'Poker Face' Season 2 a sturdy spine, which is especially important since the individual vertebrae (aka the individual episodes) aren't quite as compelling (save, once again, for one true gem). Since we've known Charlie, she's been running. In the first season, she seeks justice for her murdered friend and, as a result of doing the right thing, has to go on the lam. Each week, she's in a new town, working a new gig, caught up in another suspicious story. The lone wolf lifestyle suits Charlie just fine — for a while. Her ebullient personality helps to make friends wherever she goes, but when some of those friends end up dead and the rest have to be left behind when it's time to skip town, well, those losses add up. As Season 2 starts, Charlie's traded one vengeful mob boss for another. She out-maneuvered Sterling Frost, Sr. (Ron Perlman), but after refusing to use her 'gift' to help another crime family, she now has to deal with Beatrix Hasp (Rhea Perlman). Here we go again: Charlie does the right thing, and her reward is a life spent in hiding. For a procedural, starting over is more of a comfort than an annoyance, and the first episode, directed by Johnson, offers numerous pleasures — five of which are all played by Cynthia Erivo! There's also a mini-montage of Charlie trying out odd jobs (and making new friends) before she's chased off by gun-toting mobsters. There's lovely cinematography by director of photography Jaron Presant, and Johnson savors every odd little eccentricity available in the wacky initial investigation. (His ability to reveal key details through playful yet carefully considered camera movements is downright Spielbergian.) Perhaps most importantly, Episode 1 also makes it clear Charlie is enjoying her life as best she can; that is, she's enjoying her life whenever she's not staring death in the face (those mobsters' bullets come awfully close) — a pattern that persists in her subsequent cases. While most of those aren't as satisfying as the first, Charlie always is: Generous and bright, like the long curly locks spilling out from under her various trucker hats, Charlie is an unnatural charmer, her wide smile and gravelly intonation a congenial contradiction that convincingly cultivates curiosity in wherever they're aimed. She makes the most out of her fleeting conversations with strangers, and only the liars among them are ever upset for sharing a few sentences with our affable star. It's a testament to Lyonne's well-honed charisma and attentive performance that Charlie remains the top draw despite an onslaught of shiny guest stars playing distinct characters. Katie Holmes is a delight as a fed-up mortician's wife more than ready to fly the coop. Gaby Hoffman's quick turn from straight-laced Cop of the Year candidate to a feral Florida Woman is batshit fun. Simon Rex settles in nicely as a washed-up pitcher looking to make a little money off losing. Melanie Lynskey and John Cho crackle with chemistry in the season's best episode (of the 10 screened for critics), and Erivo brings the perfect playful pitch to each of her nearly half-dozen characters. Two tweaks to the format help distinguish Season 2's journey from the original run: The first is a notable uptick in chaos — the situations Charlie finds herself in range from psychotic scams ('A New Lease on Death') to absurd send-ups ('One Last Job'), but each episode attempts to ratchet up whatever quirky quality it's working with, including an early entry that nearly goes supernatural ('Last Looks'). The other departure is simpler: Charlie, without crossing into spoilers, gets to come out of hiding. She's free to decide where to go and when, which allows the show to revel in an extended stay later on and serve the season's central conceit: Season 2, by and large, is about accepting who you are, even if living your best life doesn't mean living an easy life. Charlie yearns for enough time to appreciate 'the unobserved pageant of the ordinary,' as she calls the knickknacks filling up random cars, and thus, random lives. A life on the run doesn't allow for much rumination, but neither does a stationary one. Giving Charlie the time to experience both allows her to examine what she really wants, and what she really needs, without deluding herself into thinking things would be different if she wasn't being hounded by mobsters (or, on the flip-side, if she wasn't tied down to any one place or person). She's not like Benoit Blanc, always itching for the next great case to crack; she'd be perfectly happy floating in untroubled waters. She isn't a detective, and she's certainly not a cop; for all the odd jobs she's had, solving mysteries isn't one of them. Charlie is just a person in a unique position to help, so of course she's persistently hounded by people who need it — and lots of people need it! At a time in America when our institutional safety nets are being disbanded and the burden to support each other often comes down to individual efforts, Charlie's struggle feels all the more apt. She wants to help — she just also wishes there was less need for her to do so. And therein lies her salvation. Charlie can't help but love people. She's a people person. Even when she tries to stay out of their lives, she's inevitably drawn in by natural or circumstantial curiosity. Because Charlie thrives around people, so does 'Poker Face.' As a howcatchem procedural, it has to resolve similar issues as its lead: The formula requires a certain amount of repetition, just as the audience demands a new mystery each week. When episodes rely on people to bring them to life — be it famous guest stars, well-realized characters, life-affirming arcs, or all of the above — they're that much easier to enjoy. For the most part, 'Poker Face' Season 2 is quite easy to enjoy. After all, it knows helping people isn't a gift or a curse; it's a calling, and when you realize how fulfilling it can be, the only mystery left to solve is how to help others see the same thing. 'Poker Face' Season 2 premieres Thursday, May 8 on Peacock. Three episodes will be released the first week, then one episode weekly through the finale on July 10. Best of IndieWire The 25 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies, Ranked Every IndieWire TV Review from 2020, Ranked by Grade from Best to Worst
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Natasha Lyonne: The Maverick Behind the Madness
On June 5, the IndieWire Honors Spring 2025 ceremony will celebrate the creators and stars responsible for some of the most impressive and engaging work of this TV season. Curated and selected by IndieWire's editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the creators, artisans, and performers behind television well worth toasting. We're showcasing their work with new interviews leading up to the Los Angeles event. A conversation with Natasha Lyonne is to experience a gravel-voiced one-woman film school with a carousel of cultural references that range from 'The Long Goodbye' to Lou Reed to quantum physics. More from IndieWire 'Stick' Review: Owen Wilson's Golf Comedy Takes Too Many Shortcuts Trying to Be 'Ted Lasso' Julianne Nicholson Was 'Paradise' Creator Dan Fogelman's Only Choice for His 'Complicated' Villain But what makes Lyonne singular (and why she's being recognized with the Maverick Award at this season's IndieWire Honors) is more than her encyclopedic mind or her distinct creative stamp. It's her ability to turn lived experience into genre-busting, soul-searching, radically original storytelling. In a TV landscape dominated by serialization, Lyonne and co-creator Rian Johnson took a left turn with Peacock's 'Poker Face,' a classic case-of-the-week mystery format with a twist. The heroine is Charlie Cale, a human lie detector with a beat-up car and an even more battered moral compass, and she's received plenty of 'Colombo' comparisons. 'It's quite intentional that I walk around like a rumpled detective,' Lyonne told IndieWire, 'but I'd say I've seen him in more Cassavetes films than 'Columbo' episodes, if I'm being honest. Which I might as well be, given the theme of the show.' As a result, 'Poker Face' doesn't feel like a riff or homage. She and Johnson developed a character who feels both timeless and unmistakably hers. 'It's not really about assessing the landscape,' Lyonne said. 'It's about inner curiosity. That's more likely to resonate than paperwork.' Lyonne's commitment to crafting characters with depth and agency began with co-creating Netflix's 'Russian Doll.' The mind-bending, Emmy-nominated series riffed on time loops and existential dread while feeling deeply personal. 'At the risk of sounding pedantic, I do think it's important to mention that — as it so often seems with women — someone assumes a character was created for them,' she said. 'Let's be really clear: That never occurred. This character exists because, like any good old-fashioned entrepreneur, I saw a void.' Lyonne was never going to fit in the 'beautiful, but she doesn't know it' roles. She's gorgeous but, with her wild red hair and irrepressible intellect, she doesn't look or sound like anyone who's unaware of exactly who she is. To find the work, Lyonne had to create it. 'In modern times, there were no women running around like Philip Marlowe on our screens. Surely, that was a hole I could fill,' she said with a laugh. 'I knew nobody was casting me as a 'Roller Girl' type, you know what I mean? That's Heather Graham's part, and Meryl Streep had her section. Well, I found mine in the basements of YMCAs and Murray Hill in Manhattan, where I would watch a lot of noir films alone in the middle of the day after I dropped out of Tisch.' 'Mae West made her choices,' she added. 'I made mine.' Lyonne builds her shows from the inside out. She's a writer, director, and producer with her own company, Animal Pictures, which she co-founded to support boundary-pushing creators. She's now prepping her first feature, 'Uncanny Valley,' which she's co-writing and directing with Brit Marling ('The OA'). Lyonne and Marling became fast friends after they were invited to a series of what Lyonne describes as 'backdoor Hollywood AI meetings.' 'I adore Brit Marling,' she said. 'She's a fucking genius. Because of our sci-fi leanings, we'd each developed a deep interest in this space. And in these meetings, it became clear that a lot of what was already happening was AI. Brit and I looked at each other and realized: this is real. It's fascinating. We're both interested in this, and we're both kind of punks, raising our eyebrows at how it's all going down. So we got this idea: attack it sideways and head-on. I think it's going to be a very cool movie.' In fact, she cracked, 'It's not announced yet, but Joe Pesci is the star of 'Uncanny Valley.' He plays my daughter. Thanks for this conversation, and thanks to IndieWire for this Maverick Award. As a maverick, it's really important that everyone knows Joe Pesci plays my daughter in 'Uncanny Valley.' It's been said, so now it's fact. Throw it on Wikipedia.' That kind of humor, bone-dry and self-aware, is part of what makes Lyonne's voice so necessary. But underneath it all is a deep understanding of what it means to survive, create, and evolve in an industry that rarely makes space for women like her. Her advice to others, particularly women taking creative control, is simple and hard-earned: Hang tight. Stick to your guns. Don't worry about being palatable, or overthink the wins and losses. 'It's all grist for the mill,' she said. 'Self-respect is the answer. And blood on the page.' That's why Natasha Lyonne is this year's Maverick. And why Joe Pesci better clear his schedule. 'There is no reality,' she said. 'It's what you make it. Where you're at dictates how you receive the world.' 'Poker Face' Season 2 is now streaming on Peacock. Best of IndieWire The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme' Nightmare Film Shoots: The 38 Most Grueling Films Ever Made, from 'Deliverance' to 'The Wages of Fear'
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If She Chooses You, You're in: Melanie Lynskey on the Magic of Natasha Lyonne
On June 5, the IndieWire Honors Spring 2025 ceremony will celebrate the creators and stars responsible for some of the most impressive and engaging work of this TV season. Curated and selected by IndieWire's editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the creators, artisans, and performers behind television well worth toasting. In the days leading up to the event, IndieWire is showcasing their work with new interviews and tributes from their peers. Ahead, Lyonne's long-time best friend Melanie Lynskey tells IndieWire about the many qualities that set our Maverick Award apart, both as a performer and as a pal. More from IndieWire Natasha Lyonne: The Maverick Behind the Madness 'Stick' Review: Owen Wilson's Golf Comedy Takes Too Many Shortcuts Trying to Be 'Ted Lasso' There's a moment when Melanie Lynskey talks about Natasha Lyonne that kind of says it all. 'If she chooses you, you're going to be her friend,' she said. 'That's just it.' For more than 20 years, Lyonne and Lynskey have been ride-or-dies bonded by weird nights, great scripts, and deep mutual respect. They've starred in three movies together, including 'But I'm a Cheerleader' and 'The Intervention' (that one directed by their great pal and 'Cheerleader' co-star Clea DuVall). So as Lyonne gets her flowers at IndieWire Honors, Lynskey is here to remind us why there's nobody like Natasha. 'She's always been insanely talented,' Lynskey said. 'But now, she knows exactly what she's capable of — and the world knows it too.' That includes writing, directing, producing, and starring in not one but two groundbreaking shows ('Russian Doll' and 'Poker Face'), all while championing the people she loves. 'If she loves you, she wants you to be doing everything to the maximum of your abilities,' Lynskey said. 'She's everyone's biggest cheerleader.' Their friendship kicked off in Toronto during filming for the 1999 film 'Detroit Rock City,' when a shy, New Zealand-based Lynskey arrived on set. 'Natasha took me out for the night and that was it. We were bonded for life,' she said. That night included a Halloween KISS concert, an attempted casino trip (denied at the door: no passport), a persistent limo driver trying to crash the afterparty, and vodka. Lots of vodka. 'If we tried that now, it would take me two weeks to recover.' Lynskey still lights up when she talks about how Lyonne works. 'I really kind of envy the looseness she has in her body, like the drapey-ness and the kind of physicality that can be a little bit masculine at times. It's really fun,' she said. 'She's very loose, especially in 'Poker Face.' She has a real sort of looseness to her limbs. And I feel like there's always a part of my brain that's like, 'What do I do with hands?'— there's just this swagger. Meanwhile, I'm over here like, 'What do I do with my hands?'' Even before 'Poker Face,' Lyonne's spirit helped shape Lynskey's path — sometimes literally. When Lynskey was auditioning for the role of a New Jersey girl in 'Coyote Ugly' and couldn't afford a dialect coach, she leaned on her interpretation of Lyonne (never mind that she was very much born and raised on the Upper East Side). 'It morphed into something else after I got cast, but I kind of based it on Natasha, yeah,' she said with a laugh. 'I don't know how impressed she was about that: 'I did that audition, too.' I was like, 'Well, sorry about that.' Now, even as Lyonne's busy running the show, she's still hyping her friends. 'She's everyone's biggest cheerleader. I remember one time I got a message from her, and she was looking for acting coach or a dialect coach and she said, 'You're the best actor I have in my phone.' Such a specific compliment. I loved how it wasn't hyperbolic,' Lynskey said. They don't see each other as much as they'd like, although Lynskey has an upcoming guest-star slot on episode 8 of 'Poker Face' — but when they do, nothing's changed. 'We had this great night recently, just hanging at Natasha's house and talking for hours. That's the good stuff.' So what's left to say? 'She's such a treasure to all of us,' Lynskey said. 'There's nobody like her, so it's really so special to see her being recognized.' Read Natasha Lyonne's full IndieWire Honors profile. Best of IndieWire The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme' Nightmare Film Shoots: The 38 Most Grueling Films Ever Made, from 'Deliverance' to 'The Wages of Fear'
