On a road trip across America, Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne), who is once again on the run, keeps solving puzzles using her talent to detect lies.
Streaming on: Sky / NOW
Episodes viewed: 10 of 12
Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne), a casino employee and whodunit-solver with a “voice like a rusty clarinet” and her trademark BS detector, makes a much-needed comeback in Rian Johnson’s other detective-fiction series, looking for new mysteries to solve. Charlie, who is once again on the run from Rhea Perlman’s gangster, who wants her dead after the events of the previous season, is searching for a place to hide.
This season, however, several things have changed. Lyonne’s curious traveler is attempting to stop smoking, for starters, with questionable assistance from a vape that tastes like cotton candy. Lyonne also takes on the role of director for further episodes in this extended 12-episode run, having previously co-written and directed one episode in the original run. As a result, Season 2 will have a larger, in some ways even more spectacular guest list, which naturally includes Melanie Lynskey, Kumail Nanjiani, Giancarlo Esposito, Cynthia Erivo (x5, as quintuplets), and too many other people to mention all of them. (By the way, after their Emmy-nominated collaboration on Orange Is The New Black, Taylor Schilling and Adrienne C. Moore reunited with Lyonne.)
The main structure has not altered, though, as Cale still works out a crime that occurs every week in the Columbo fashion. From Minor League baseball to eerie funeral homes and even a local police award ceremony, this procedural “howdunnit” explores the most bizarre nooks and crannies of daily Americana. Each new mystery serves as a separate mini-world with its own distinct tone and style. One moment, Season 2 presents us with a horror film from the 1970s, and the next, we see Daisy, the “Judy Garland of alligators.”
Johnson and Lyonne are obviously influenced by a variety of 1970s American films; in fact, they draw from the aesthetics of such luminaries as Peter Bogdanovich and Robert Altman. Lyonne has also stated that Elliott Gould in Altman’s The Long Goodbye served as a major influence on her performance. However, Cale is ultimately a deadpan masterpiece that only Lyonne could have imagined: an inquisitive, sympathetic, and incredibly relaxed character who keeps injecting a likable undertone into every absurd argument.
The Season 2 crew is not resting on their laurels, even after their well-earned Emmy victory the previous year. For instance, the visuals of a baseball-themed episode are completely out of place, while the plot of Episode 3 is completely rewritten by a twist. The concept of the case of the week is largely unaltered, but the serialized plot that unites it shifts to one that is more existential and contemplative, demonstrating that the team’s goals go beyond just assembling TV’s most desirable guest list.