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Poker Face

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Reviewer

Emily Tsiao

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Episode Reviews

TV Series Review

Being a human lie detector isn’t exactly a skill you can put on a resumé. But Charlie Cale has made her reputation by being just that.

Several years back, she used her ability to call people’s bluffs to win a series of poker games. It’s not technically illegal (then again, neither is counting cards). But if a casino owner catches you doing it, you may find yourself with a few broken fingers.

Charlie got lucky when she got caught. Instead of breaking her fingers, Sterling Frost Sr. offered her a job at his casino as a cocktail waitress. He also informed every casino and high roller in the gambling loop that she played dirty, preventing her from ever playing again.

Charlie was just fine with that. After all, she never figured it would last forever. She just wanted to have some fun while it did.

What Charlie’s not fine with, however, is murder.

Can’t Read My Poker Face

It all starts when Natalie Hill, Charlie’s best friend, goes to clean the room of Mr. Caine, the Frost Casino’s largest “whale” (someone who spends about the equivalent of a small island in a single weekend without so much as flinch).

We don’t see it on screen, but Nat spots something bad on Caine’s laptop. So bad, in fact, that Natalie quickly snaps a photo with her phone and flees the room to report it.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t go to the police. She goes to the casino’s acting manager, Sterling Frost Jr.

As it turns out, Frost Jr. has cooked up an elaborate scheme to scam Caine out of a hefty sum of money—which he won’t be able to do if Caine goes to jail. So he sends Natalie home and promises her that he’ll take care of the matter. Of course, what he really means is that he’ll have his head of security, Cliff, go to her house and kill both her and her husband, Jerry, framing it as a murder-suicide.

It would’ve been the perfect crime if they hadn’t overlooked Charlie’s relationship with Natalie.

To put it simply, Charlie doesn’t buy that Natalie was killed by her husband. She catches Frost Jr. in a lie. And while it’s not enough to take to police, it is enough to ruin the casino’s reputation. And Frost Jr. ends his life in response.

Well, that sure irks Frost Sr. He all but promises to kill Charlie (via Cliff). And for the next year, Charlie spends her life on the road. She’s fleeing Cliff and Frost Sr., to be sure, but she’s also putting her lie-detecting skills to good use, solving murders and befriending FBI agents along the way.

When the year is over (actually, a bit more than a year), Cliff finally catches up. But rather than kill her, Frost Sr. offers her another deal. He wants her to help him liaison with his archrival Beatrix Hasp (fellow casino owner and head of the Five Families mob) in Atlantic City.

Charlie is prepared to take the deal, but then Cliff double-crosses them. Turns out, he’s a bit bitter after spending more than a year of his life hunting Charlie down, eating crummy fast food and sleeping in cheap motels, just to let her go free when he finally catches her.

So, Cliff makes his own deal with Hasp and frames Charlie for Frost’s murder. And since he’s planted Charlie’s fingerprints on the smoking gun, she’s on the run once again.

I guess it’s a good thing she likes solving murders on the lam.

Terrible Odds

If Peacock executives were betting on a good Plugged In review of this show, they’d swiftly lose it all. Yes, the storyline is intriguing, the writing is clever and the acting is spot-on. But the content? Oof!

Language reaches upwards of two dozen f-bombs in the first episode alone (and that’s not including abuses of God’s name or other profanities).

Violence is the next obvious issue. Again, in the first episode alone, a suicide is shown on screen (we don’t see the body, but it’s still pretty shocking); a woman and her husband are brutally murdered; and another woman is shot. Furthermore, it’s presumed that a man’s laptop contains child pornography.

It should also be noted that Charlie stumbles across multiple photos of a man’s genitals, and we see these pictures on screen.

All this leads me to believe that this show’s not in the cards for family viewing.

(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at [email protected], or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)

Episode Reviews

May 8, 2025 – S2, E1: “The Game Is a Foot”

Still on the run from Beatrix Hasp, Charlie hides in an apple orchard, befriending apple picker and former child star Delia Kazinsky. When Delia’s mother and sister suddenly die, Charlie suspects murder and helps Delia solve the case.

A woman tackles and throws another woman over a cliff, killing her. She then assumes that woman’s identity, pretending that she herself committed suicide. Elsewhere, a daughter prevents her dying mother from hitting a nurse call button, and her mother flatlines as a result. We hear that a man, while driving drunk with his teenage daughter in the car, crashed and was killed. A sharp object impales a woman’s foot, and blood spurts everywhere. Hasp’s goons seem to show up wherever Charlie is, firing guns at her (and missing). In one case, bystanders incorrectly assume the guns are part of a stunt and cheer on the bad guys.

Delia tells Charlie that their mother, Norma, was emotionally abusive to her and her three sisters, pitting them against each other and stealing the money they earned as child actors. Norma was also responsible for giving Delia alcohol as a minor, leading Delia to a lifetime struggle with alcoholism. We see Norma being verbally abusive to Amber, one of Delia’s sisters.

Delia and her sisters are shocked to learn they have a fifth sister, Felicity, who grew up with their father. Felicity tells Amber that their dad was an abusive alcoholic with a gambling addiction.

A lawyer says he’s legally not allowed to disclose information, but he’s unable to control himself and accidentally blurts it out. Someone calls charities “organized malingering.” Delia’s sisters exhibit little emotion regarding the deaths of their mother and sister, and Delia even seems relieved. People lie throughout the episode. Sisters sometimes mock each other and use mean nicknames. One woman takes on two other people’s identities to steal their inheritances.

We see a painting depicting a woman’s bare breast. We hear that the Kazinsky sisters won an award for “best intergenerational kiss” when they were child actors. Amber repeatedly uses the phrase “butt-munch,” which her sisters tell her is “vaguely homophobic.” Someone purposely misuses the word “sextuplets” for a joke.

People drink alcohol. Charlie vapes.

We hear about 20 uses of the f-word and 30 of the s-word (some of which are in French). We also hear “a–hole” and “h—.” God’s name is misused about 10 times, once paired with “d–mit.”

Jan. 26, 2023 – S1, E1: “Dead Man’s Hand”

After her best friend is murdered, Charlie searches for the truth using her unique ability to tell whenever someone is lying.

Someone dies by suicide. Natalie and her husband are both killed with a gun (and there is a slight struggle between the killer and the husband). Their deaths are framed to look like a murder-suicide since the husband was abusive. (In a previous scene, Nat had shown up to work with a black eye, given to her by her husband.) Charlie is shot. People issue death threats. A man is forcefully removed from a casino after causing a scene. Someone drives recklessly.

Charlie reads a news story about a child pornography ring involving the dark web. When Natalie finds an obscene photo on a guest’s laptop (unseen by the viewer), she takes a picture and reports it to her boss. (It can be assumed this is linked to the story Charlie read.) However, her boss deletes the photo and attempts to cover it up.

Natalie talks about finding several pictures of her husband’s genitals on his phone, suspecting that he has sent these to another woman. Later, Charlie (and the audience) sees these pictures on a tablet. Some women wear revealing outfits. A man talks about selling pornographic magazines. Charlie reads an article containing graphic details about sodomy.

People drink and smoke cigars and cigarettes. Charlie often drinks while working. Natalie’s husband arrives at the casino heavily inebriated. When Charlie starts acting erratically after drinking coffee, someone asks if she is using cocaine.

People lie. (And in a poignant observation, Charlie remarks that while she can detect a lie, she can’t detect the motive behind it, which can sometimes be even more nefarious than the lie itself.) People gamble at a casino and some people cheat. We hear about theft. A woman says she can’t divorce her abusive husband because she can’t afford to live alone. Charlie breaks into Natalie’s house (which has been locked up as a crime scene) to obtain evidence. A man uses his resources to manipulate police.

We hear 25 uses of the f-word and 30 of the s-word. There are also multiple uses of “a–,” “a–hole,” “b–tard,” “b–ch,” “d–mit,” “d–k,” “h—” and “p-ss.” God’s name is abused a dozen times, sometimes paired with “d–mit.” Christ’s name is abused once.

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Emily Tsiao

Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.

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