Review: Poker Face, "The Sleazy Georgian" | Season 2, Episode 8
Give me those old-timey con shenanigans!
“I don’t know what you are.”
Sometimes, the most enjoyable parts of a formulaic TV show are when the people making that show choose to zig instead of zag. Formula-shifting installments can take many forms, whether it’s because a show does a bottle episode or an ensemble show focuses just on one character for a specific hour. For Poker Face, a show that has taken many (if not all) of its dramatic cues from procedurals like Columbo, perhaps the easiest way to upend the formula is simple. What if there was an episode of Poker Face where no one gets murdered? What if there’s no mystery for Charlie Cale to solve?
Thus, we have “The Sleazy Georgian,” an hour that feels very much in keeping with the work of Rian Johnson, and yet one that is very different from other episodes of Poker Face. Now, it is true that there is a death in this episode, but a) it’s off-screen and b) it’s a tragic suicide. Moreover, there’s no mystery to uncover once we learn who killed themselves, because …
