“Poker Face” Season 1 Episode 7-8 Review
This show manages to simultaneously get more repetitive yet more unique as the season goes on.
At the beginning of every episode it feels like you know exactly what is going to happen, and then BOOM! They throw a total curveball at you.
Episode seven and eight of “Poker Face” were two of the more far-fetched episodes yet.
Episode seven guest starred Tim Blake Nelson, Charles Melton, Angel Desai and Lesli Silva.
The story surrounding this murder is professional racing. An older racer played by Nelson is getting ready to retire until he is beaten in his last race by Melton’s character. The feud between the two, leads Nelson’s character to put off retiring so he can end on top.
His daughter played by Silva is upset by this because she cannot continue in the family legacy until her father retires.
After a series of back and forth threats, Nelson’s character rigs Melton’s car so that he will crash during their next race, but the joke is on him because his daughter ends up driving Melton’s car during practice the next day and is sent into a coma. Talk about karma.
The rest of the episode follows more and more evidence being revealed while Charlie Cale figures out who is lying and why.
This episode was more interesting than some others because of the surprise effect. The audience did not know the whole story of what happened until later in the episode as opposed to some episodes where everything is revealed all at once in the beginning.
Following this in episode eight, guest stars Tim Russ, Nick Nolte, Cherry Jones and Luis Guzmán take the stage.
The story behind this murder was harder to follow than many of the others. Cale is working at a barber shop when she is asked to deliver hair to a special effects artist, Arthur. Her and Arthur hit it off and he invites her to stay with him for a little while, which she takes him up on because it seems super safe. (His house was covered in mannequin heads and other very creepy art projects that he made.)
What comes to light is that Arthur used to help with effects on movie sets with Jones’ character who is not a good person, but he has yet to discover that.
Basically, she killed her ex husband but he made it look like a suicide and the rest of the episode is spend figuring out why.
It was an interesting story line with many twists and turns, but maybe too many? At times it was hard to follow what was going on.
This series is original in how creative each episode is, but it is sometimes exhausting how repetitive it is. If there was more recall to the people that are chasing Cale and causing her to be on the run the show would have a reason to bring audience members back each episode.
Savannah Swartz is a second-year communications major. To contact her, email sms9072@psu.edu.
