Poker Face Season 2, Episode 7
"One Last Job"
Writer: Taofik Kolade
Director: Adam Arkin
Cast: Natasha Lyonne, Sam Richarson, Corey Hawkins, James Ransone, Geraldine Viswanathan
Part of the fun of Poker Face has been its ability to mix murder mysteries with genre and theme. We've had faux mob movies, old Hollywood noir, and a baseball bonanza. So it feels especially fitting that this week's guest star is Sam Richardson, an actor who mastered the genre grab bag approach with his own murder mystery series, Afterparty. He adds a charming wit to an episode that already includes holiday rom-com, retail satire, and a heist thriller rolled into one.
It's nearly Black Friday at SuperSave, a cavernous big-box store filled with bargain hunters and overstocked DVD shelves. Kendall (Richardson) is doing his best to upsell home electronics and Blu-rays but his real passion lies in screenwriting. He pitches another script to his Manager Bill (Corey Hawkins). His boss loves his work and thinks he needs to take off for Hollywood. When Kendall thinks he needs to write one more perfect script, Bill fires him so he'll take the leap. SuperSave is downsizing and shoplifting is out of control. They need security, not storytellers. Bill tries to spin it as a favor, urging Kendall to chase his Hollywood dreams. But Kendall, bitter and desperate, lashes out: "If you want to fire me, just do it. Don't pretend you're doing me a favor."
Outside, Kendall spots a would-be shoplifter (James Ransone) and, instead of reporting him, gives him pointers on how to do it better. One mojito-fueled hangout later, the two are watching Heat together, and Kendall jokingly pitches the script he just got fired over: a heist set inside a SuperSave. The thief doesn't think it should be fiction. He wants to actually do the heist and Kendall knows the store layout better than anyone.
The two get to work with Kendall mapping out how to get the job done. And then things go sideways. Bill walks in on them mid-heist. The thief panics and shoots him. Kendall, shaken, decides to cover up the murder by making it look like Bill ran off with the cash.
Enter: Charlie Cale, reluctant rom-com lead.
We then catch up with Charlie, now working delivery for a local tandoori restaurant. At the restaurant, she chats with Jenny, the daughter of the store owners. Jenny seems uninterested in Charlie entirely until her daily delivery to SuperSave has all the makings of a rom-com. She offers Charlie rom-com-tested advice for navigating her budding connection with Bill, including the most sacred of all first date moves: "forgetting" a personal item at his place.
Charlie takes Jenny's advice and preps for her dinner with Bill, selecting a small but meaningful gift: a guardian bell for his beloved motorcycle, Betty (she learns about Bill's bike when she meets Kendall at the store). When she arrives at SuperSave, she's surprised to find that Bill has gone all out! He's cooked a full dinner and transformed the store into a romantic setting, complete with mood lighting and a roast chicken.
They share stories, bond over Die Hard being a Christmas movie (which it totally is, by the way), and Charlie "forgets" her sunglasses on his desk, just as Jenny instructed. Charlie and Bill are very cute together, all the more tragic by the fact that we know he'll be murdered later that night.
A few days pass, and Bill suddenly stops returning Charlie's messages. Jenny, in full rom-com consultant mode, tells Charlie not to worry … it's just the "mix-up" portion of the story. But this isn't a missed message in You've Got Mail. When Charlie gets a new delivery order to SuperSave and arrives to find the place swarming with police, it becomes clear something is very wrong.
Bill has vanished and rumors swirl that he robbed the store on Black Friday and skipped town with over $400,000 in cash — but Charlie doesn't buy it. That's not the man she met. He talked about big box stores being the modern day equivalent of the Town Square. He had no intentions of skipping town.
Charlie finds Bill's body in place of the store Santa the two joked about the night before. The thief had put him there thinking by the time it was discovered, he and Kendall would have skipped town. Charlie is questioned by the police and notices some holes in the story. Bill told her the cameras are just on an old loop of footage, so when the cops find a polaroid in front of the camera (a move out of Mission: Impossible), she knows something is up.
Kendall went back because he found more money in the safe than he expected and in order to avoid splitting it, he kept some in his locker. The locker is guarded by some cops when he returns and he's around when Charlie finds Bill. The thief watches the news and realizes Kendall kept more of the money. A showdown sees the thief get stabbed with a sword and Kendall heads back to SuperSave to get the remaining dough.
Realizing the trick from Mission: Impossible, Charlie finds a "What Would Ethan Hunt Do?" sticker on Kendall's locker and cracks the code by figuring out Kendall's M:I rankings. "Questionable order, but I'll allow it," she says. She finds the money inside but Kendall is already there to get it back.
He tries to play it cool, claiming he didn't kill Bill and never meant for things to go this far. Charlie isn't buying it. She lays it all out, her voice equal parts accusation and disappointment: Bill believed in you. He gave you a push. And you repaid that kindness by helping stage a robbery, covering up his murder, and putting his body on display in the store Santa suit.
Kendall's guilt is written all over him, but it's too late for redemption. The two scuffle. When the thief reappears — somehow still alive — and tries to shoot them both, they use movie footage to make him waste his bullets. Eventually he runs out of gas, keels over, and dies. Kendall tries to get away but Charlie had already called the cops. Like the end of a good heist movie, Kendall is arrested by the police in dramatic fashion.
"One Last Job" is another solid, if slightly underwhelming, entry in Poker Face's second season. It's not the funniest episode, nor is Charlie's crime-solving at its sharpest, but Sam Richardson is such a charismatic and reliable presence that it's hard to mind. He's a treasure, and any excuse to watch him scheme his way through a heist is good enough for me. That said, the real surprise was how great Corey Hawkins and Natasha Lyonne were together. It's a shame their chemistry only lasted one episode… but hey, that's Poker Face.
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