"Poker Face" is an American crime drama television series created by Rian Johnson for the streaming service Peacock. Stylized as a "case-of-the-week" murder mystery series, it stars Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale, a casino worker on the run who entangles herself into several mysterious deaths of strangers along the way.
Peacock announced the series in March 2021, with Lyonne attached and Johnson as director. Nora Zuckerman and Lilla Zuckerman were named as co-showrunners. "Poker Face" consists of 10 episodes and debuted on January 26, 2023. The series has received critical acclaim. Named after the NBC logo, Peacock is a streaming service from NBCUniversal. In March 2023, the service reached 22 million paid subscribers.
Shefik makes an obscured appearance as an Eccentric Gala Guest in Season 1, Episode 8 of "Poker Face". The episode, titled "The Orpheus Syndrome", was written by lead actress and executive producer Natasha Lyonne and consulting producer Alice Ju, and directed by Lyonne. It was released on Peacock on February 23, 2023.
In the episode, Max, the founder of pioneer visual effects company LAM, confronts co-founder Laura over something incriminating he found in old footage. She poisons him, and he jumps to his death. Charlie befriends the third co-founder of LAM, Arthur Liptin, and begins working as his assistant. He admits to her that he is still haunted by the drowning of Lily Albern, the actress who worked on LAM's first film Dragonfish, and blames himself for the incident.
Laura asks Arthur to make a bust of Max's head to grieve, but actually uses it to pass the facial recognition software on his laptop and deletes a piece of Dragonfish footage from the archives. Arthur has an LAM archivist deliver the physical copy of the footage, and watching it, realizes Laura tampered with Lily's safety measure. Arthur burns the reel in front of Laura but secretly saves the incriminating bits, only to die from poisoning upon returning home. Charlie visits Laura and deduces she is lying about her involvement in Arthur and Max's deaths.
Laura takes all of Arthur's things for a memorial exhibit at LAM's offices, but misses the hidden footage, which Charlie retrieves. As Laura eulogizes Arthur and Max at the exhibit's opening, Charlie plays the footage on the screen behind her, exposing her crime to the crowd. Unstable with guilt, she sees visions of Arthur and Max and follows the latter over a balcony to her death.
The episode featured appearances by Nick Nolte, Cherry Jones, Luis Guzmán, Rowan Blanchard, and Tim Russ.
Credits
- Director: Natasha Lyonne
- Eccentric Gala Guest: Shefik
Last Updated: June 12, 2023
