"Dead Man's Hand" is the very first episode from the pretty new American series "Poker Face" and it aired in January 2023, so it is pretty much to the day almost exactly one year old. This means that you can easily get into the series without having too much to catch up on. Most of the awards attention for it so far went to lead actress Natasha Lyonne, who is surely among the dominating forces on the small screen now and will be interesting to see at what point she is going to move on to the big screen maybe. She looked like a rougher Shakira you could say, but her hair contributes a lot to that obviously. Still can't look any better really in your mid-40s. Aside from that and her performance, the episode is also worth seeing for numerous other reasons. The director and one of three writers here was Rian Johnson and he already managed a highly successful transition to the big screen, so this shows you again the extremely high level (American) television is on right now that they got him to launch things and of course it also helped with getting a name like Oscar winner Adrien Brody on board. Benjamin Bratt is always easy to identify too and he is ten years older than Brody now, so around the age of 60. Brody was just so young when he won the Oscar. Anyway, at the end of the episode or briefly before that you realize that he is only in it for one episode. A bit of a pity we won't see his character again in the next episodes, but at least there will be a second season. And other pretty well-known performers will take over.
If we look at the plot, this is all about the crime and how it gets solved. Right at the very beginning we know who got killed and who pulled the trigger on them. We also know that the victim saw something she should not have seen, but do not find out right away what it was exactly. However, the very first scene then that included Lyonne in the car explained that pretty much as well, even if it was not chronological. So this is no whodunnit, but rather a fascinating watch as we see the protagonist get closer to the truth. Still, I was a bit surprised and maybe it was a bit exaggerated too that she solved the entire mystery so quickly. This also could have gone on for the entire first season or so. However, the solution then when she confronts the two killers was good enough to let them get away with it. The moment Brody's character jumps out of the window was perhaps the most breathtaking from the entire episode. The two murders early on performed by Bratt's character were not far behind though. The role of the police here was interesting too, how Brody's character might have them all in his pocket. You could wonder at the end of course if the police are in the other room and come to the protagonist's rescue, but turns out the episode took a totally different route, but one just as effective. And maybe it even made sense this way because while the police officer in charge tells Lyonne's character that whatever she finds she can bring him and he will take a look into it, he still called Brody's character immediately afterwards.
Then there is still the component that she is basically a human lie detector. They will definitely dig deeper into that during the next episodes. Seeing her in action this way was interesting too, even if most viewers probably expected that we would also see her pull through with the plan she made with Brody's character to get all the money from the rich guy. This was a very unexpected twist there that he was long gone. Big respect from me to you if you saw it coming. I know I didn't. What was not unexpected was her friend in a way digging her own grave and that Brody's and Bratt's characters would deal with her because of what she saw and not call the FBI. Here and there it is also an episode that will put a smile on your lips. No super serious stuff. Just take the surprise inclusion of Oprah there that had me stunned with my mouth wide open. And even the way Brody's character had some really dark humor to it because this was exactly how he planned for Lyonne's character to die. At the very end, in what is almost an epilogue, we hear Brody's character's father on the phone with the protagonist and this connection and their shared past is surely something that the series will elaborate on in the next episodes. She will be on the run from him. We also only hear his voice, so we do not know at this point which actor will portray him.
All in all, this was an episode very much worth watching. It's hard to find any flaws and each major character had some strong showings or at least entertaining ones like take Bratt's character's over-the-top laughing towards the end when he realizes how much Brody's character messed up. Daddy's call the exact same moment was another highlight. You can say that the beginning was spectacular and so was the ending then. In-between, I guess they could have cut maybe ten minutes from these pretty long 64.5 minutes almost, but it also did not drag too much and I guess if they had, then maybe Lyonne's character solving all of it so quickly would have felt even less realistic. So it is all good. I will definitely keep watching and I hope the really high level here continues. We will see about that. In general, I am a fan of chronological narration, but here I felt it was also done pretty nicely how they handled it with the way the show began and how we get to the point where Brody's character is informed about what the chambermaid saw later on again when we already know he had her killed. We just didn't know early on that Lyonne's character was in the other room there. I guess you get it by now. I enjoyed the watch here a lot and highly recommend seeing this pilot episode. One of 2023's finest and what a way to start a year and a series. Highly recommended. "Burn Notice" fans will also like one little mention here by the way.
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