Peacock’s Poker Face is a slick new take on the classic Columbo formula. In every episode, we first meet the murderers and their victims and then learn how our scrappy heroine Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) solves the case. Poker Face Episode 5 “Time of the Monkey” throws a spanner into the works for us, though. Sure, we learn straight from the top who the killers are and how they murdered their target. But unlike the other Poker Face cases so far, “Time of the Monkey” kicks off with us rooting for the murderers. It’s only as Charlie learns more about the case that we’re force to reckon with what right and wrong really looks like — and if our own biases blind us to real justice in a myriad of ways.
Poker Face Episode 5 is the best of what the murder mystery genre is: an exploration of what we consider good and evil to actually be.
*Spoilers for Poker Face Episode 5 “Time of the Monkey” Ahead*
Poker Face is a brand new mystery series co-created by Knives Out writer/director Rian Johnson and series star Natasha Lyonne. Harkening back to the pals’ love of ’70s and ’80s detective dramas, the show follows leading lady Charlie Cale as she travels the outskirts of America while on the run from a vengeful casino boss. Charlie is in hot water because she used her unique power to suss out lies to ruin the boss’s son Frost Jr. (Adrien Brody) after he ordered a hit on her best friend Natalie (Dascha Polanco). While on the lam, Charlie has to pick up a number of odd jobs which introduce her to a series of innocent folks who just so happen to get murdered. Charlie is then emboldened by her devotion to truth, justice, and just being a decent person to solve said murders.
Poker Face Episode 5, however, challenges Charlie’s own ideas of justice. And ours in turn.
Poker Face Episode 5 “Time of the Monkey” introduces us to life-long best friends and retirement community hell raisers Joyce Harris (S. Epatha Merkerson) and Irene Smothers (Judith Light). The two besties rebelliously cling to their counter-culture past, enjoying garden-made pot, listening to loud music, and giving their prudish neighbors the finger. When a new resident named “Ben” (Reed Birney) arrives in their community, the two women emotionally recognize them as a blast from their past — and vow to kill him.
Watching Joyce and Irene’s brilliant murder scheme unfold is a sheer delight. They use their connections to the local plant guy to procure poison, manufacture a near airtight alibi, use the nursing home’s annoying biometric bracelets as a red herring, and even take advantage of paraplegic Irene’s incredible upper body strength to have her climb a garden trellis into Ben’s room! Ben is killed, but his death is so perfectly staged that it looks like a normal heart attack.
Joyce and Irene should be home free…except they’ve befriended the community’s newest employee: Charlie Cale.
At this point in the story, our biggest worry is that Charlie might actually have to put her new best buddies behind bars. Joyce and Irene are kindred spirits for Charlie. Their story of activism in the ’70s and finding their lives destroyed by an FBI raid — which landed them both in jail and is the reason why Irene is in a wheelchair — appeals to Charlie’s better self. She sees nothing wrong with these two chill old ladies who like to curse, drink, and break small rules. And why should she? They rule.
But as Charlie pieces together the clues that her friends might be murderers, she also learns that Joyce and Irene might not be the faultless flower children she assumed they were. After learning that Ben’s “nephew” is actually his witness protection case worker Luca (Simon Helberg), Charlie realizes that “Ben” was actually Gabriel, the former lover of both Joyce and Irene who betrayed them to the FBI when he thought their plans had gone a touch too far. The women weren’t planning a peace protest, but a terrorist attack on a high school U.N. meeting that was intended to murder the students.
When Charlie confronts the women about their past, they show no remorse over their plans to kill random teenagers. In fact, they double down on their philosophy. Charlie rejects them and things suddenly get far darker. Knowing that Charlie is on to them, Joyce and Irene decide to dispatch with anyone who could nail them for Ben/Gabriel’s murder — including Charlie. The older women manage to off one other resident via a pressure cooker bomb and make multiple attempts to kill Charlie. Charlie manages to survive, but only after fighting Joyce and Irene off and teaming up with Luca.
Unlike past episodes of Poker Face — where we clearly were meant to sympathize with the victims — Episode 5 asks knotty questions about good and evil. Joyce and Irene still believe their actions have been entirely justified. As they put it, the teens they intended to murder would grow up to be the wealthy pigs who hurt society. Gabriel betrayed them, robbing Irene of her legs and both women of their freedom. From there, the women were just bent on ensuring their own freedom.
Charlie was right about Joyce and Irene in the first place. She is a lot like both women. Like them, she has taken justice into her own hands — sometimes leaving bodies, as in the case of Brody’s Frost, Jr. — in her wake.
Poker Face Episode 5 “Time of the Monkey” asks us to interrogate our own biases about who is good and evil, and what those concepts ultimately mean, like no other episode we’ve seen so far.
