“Poker Face” is out on a streaming platform and is garnering huge acclaim from critics and binge-watchers. The series is the brainchild of Rian Johnson, the man behind “The Lopper,” “Glass Onion,” “Knives Out,” and more. The series features the likes of Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale, Benjamin Bratt as Cliff Legrand, Simon Helberg as Luca, Brandon Micheal Hall as Damian, Hong Chau as Marge, Adrien Brody as Sterling Frost Jr., Rob Perlman as Sterling Frost Sr., and more.
Spoilers Ahead
Complete Character Breakdown Of Charlie Cale, The Protagonist Of ‘Poker Face’
Charlie Cale has a knack for solving mysteries and going the extra mile to dig out unsettling truths. Not just that, she also harbours a special talent and can deduce when someone is holding out the truth. Just like Sherlock, she has a faithful little furry friend who often accompanies Charlie on her heart-wrenching cases. Charlie’s pride and joy is her ride, a blue 69 Plymouth Barracuda. She is a charming woman with an uncanny talent for talking her way out of any situation and likes calling people liars right on their faces. Charlie Cale was not beyond leveraging her skills for financial gain and used to travel across the country to play cards but in any big games or corporate casinos. At first glance, everyone believed her to be a regular woman, but a couple of rounds in, she mops the floor with them.
Charlie never loses and always plays straight, employing no illegal means like wires and no shills, yet she draws her cards with almost supernatural infallibility like she is seeing through her cards or through their lies. Owing to her uncanny abilities, she is employed by the casino boss, who asks her to mop the floor with Mr. Caine, a high roller who has been running his own private casino from his hotel suite, and in return, Cale will keep $1.5 Million, no strings attached. Sadly, her life is sent into chaos as her best friend is murdered by the boss of the same casino because she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see. Now Cale is hell-bent on finding the real culprit, all the while preparing for the big night. She was quick to deduce that Jerry didn’t kill Natlalie, as the gun was in Jerry’s right hand when the cops discovered their body, but he was a lefty. She even went to the Sheriff’s office and urged the cops to direct her to the evidence locker but was turned down. She was someone who deeply cared for Natalie and often advised her to leave her abusive husband. Maybe Natalie’s decision to probe into her murder was a way for her to own up, as she was the last person Natalie called. Cale somehow got hold of Natalie’s iPad and realized her death is something to do with Caine.
Cale is a human lie detector who begins asking questions, worrying the casino boss since he was the one who ordered the hit on Natalie. He was advised to drop her but decides to hostler his gun till he robs Caine of his gambling money. A woman like Cale, with a knack for calling out lies, is a ticking time bomb. Cale knows how to grab someone by their balls, and after figuring it out that her boss had his bodyguard murder Natalie, bringing him, she tipped his most prized highroller, bringing him to his knees. After everything goes south, the casino boss takes a giant leap off the penthouse, forcing Natalie to flee for her life as bullets start flying in.Â
Charlie knew she was up against someone who enjoyed tremendous power and influence compared to her, but she chose to pick up arms because she felt like she owed this to Natalie. $1.2 Million was nothing compared to the injustice Natalie suffered, unlike some who chose to kill their friends for a lottery ticket of mere 25 thousand dollars. Cale doesn’t only have a soft spot for Natalie; in the second episode, we see her going the extra mile to help a female subway employee who is worried for her friend Damian. Cale sees this case through, along with the bunch she encounters while she flees from his ex-boss’s father. All she did was just question one guy she encountered outside the mechanic shop, scratching a knife wound. Charlie Cale is like Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, except with less drama, high-brow detective work, and no ingenious bad guys like Jim Moriarty and Stephan Norton. In a way, Charlie Cale reminds me of Detective Cole, Played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who turned everything upside down and even gambled his career to find the little girl who was abducted outside the house. Like Cole, Charlie always yearns to find the right answer, no matter how hard or dangerous the outcome is. Owing to her friendly and cheerful nature, she made tons of new friends through her journey, who, in fact, in a way or two, ended up helping her by misguiding Frost’s men on a wild goose chase.