Poker Face: Peacock Exec Has Good News About Season 2 Renewal

The first five episodes of Poker Face are now streaming on Peacock and the Rian Johnson-created series still has five more episodes to go this season. The show stars Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale, a woman who has the ability to tell when people are lying, and the episodes are formatted similarly to Columbo, meaning the audience watches a guest star commit a murder at the top of the episode before the main character comes in to solve the crime. Poker Face is a big hit with critics and audiences alike and currently has a 99% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and an 80% audience score. While there’s no official word on whether or not the show will be getting a second season, The Hollywood Reporter‘s TV’s Top 5 podcast recently had a chat with Susan Rovner, the chairman of entertainment content at NBCUniversal TV and streaming, who gave a promising update about Poker Face‘s future. 

“It’s performed fantastic,” Rovner said of Poker Face. “We are over the moon.”She added, “I know we don’t give numbers,” before the hosts tried to get them out of her, but she continued, “I can’t right now; hopefully at some point we will be able to but [Poker Face] is definitely punching above its weight. In addition to the actual numbers, we are also over the moon about the critical response. [It] has a 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.” When asked about a renewal announcement, she added, “I think there’s probably going to be some good news at some point soon.”

When asked how Peacock plans to capitalize on their breakout hits, Rovner explained, “First, we’re going to continue marketing and promoting the shows as well as having them to be the runway for the shows that are coming. Just like scheduling, we do put shows after Paul T. Goldman and Poker Face. So hopefully people can find more of our originals. There’s going to be a big ad for Poker Face during the Super Bowl, which is exciting. We’re really doubling down on it.”

How Does Charlie’s Gift Work on Poker Face?

During a recent interview with Variety, Lyonne and Johnson broke down just how Charlie’s special gift works.  

“We had to define this really clearly for ourselves and the rules that we landed are, she can tell if someone says something out loud that they know is an intentional lie,” Johnson explained. “If someone says something that’s untrue, but they think that it’s the truth, that will read as truth to her. It’s entirely just if someone says something that’s a lie. The interesting obstruction with that is, how do you do a mystery series where someone has that gift and the show isn’t over in five minutes?”

“We certainly toyed with the idea that, oh, every time it’s a twitch or a flicker or a close-up or something,” Lyonne added. “And it just ultimately seems sort of, not so much silly, but potentially short-sighted. If this was a character that was going to live in all situations and, arguably, if she’d been this way ever since she was a kid, she would have figured out a way to almost hide it. If somebody bites their nails, they sort of figure out how to hide their fingernails or something, they put their fingers in their fists, or you don’t see them on the table. In that way, I think Charlie would have learned how to circumstantially navigate it in all situations, but just sometimes really still can’t help herself or just kind of says it and calls it like she sees it because the stakes aren’t that high. Or, she sometimes finds that she says it in a situation where it was really bad that it was a reflex.”

The sixth episode of Poker Face is coming to Peacock on February 9th.