When it comes to murder mysteries, no one has spoiled us quite as densely as Rian Johnson. After immediately etching himself into the genre’s history back in 2019 with Knives Out, the entire world was reminded just a few weeks ago that’s he’s the uncontested murder mystery master of the modern era with Glass Onion, the second film in his Benoit Blanc-centric franchise that continuously flips the formula to the point of pure, delectable liquification.
But, apparently, it’s not enough for Johnson to stick Daniel Craig’s delightful gumshoe in the middle of a group of deplorables every three years, because Peacock has gone ahead and dropped the trailer for his next foray into murder mysteries, this time in the form of Poker Face, an original, ten-episode Peacock series whose all-star cast easily rivals what we’ve seen from the Knives Out films thus far.
Poker Face stars the Emmy-nominated Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale, an on-the-run casino employee armed with her trusty Plymouth Barracuda and the unusual ability to immediately know if someone is lying. As she drives across the country in her Barracuda, she encounters a string of mysterious, deadly crimes at seemingly every other town she stops at; crimes that she can’t help but employ her built-in lie detector to help solve.
A case-of-the-week comedy-drama, Lyonne’s Charlie is set to encounter a new group of characters with every passing episode, and filling those shoes are the likes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once), David Castañeda (The Umbrella Academy), Adrien Brody, Jameela Jamil, Ron Perlman, Hong Chau, and Tim Blake Nelson. Indeed, Poker Face looks set to introduce the feminine answer to Benoit Blanc, with just as many amusing, if harrowing, shenanigans that rocketed Knives Out and Glass Onion to such acclaim.
Poker Face will begin streaming on Peacock on Jan. 26.