The crime drama series Poker Face just ended, and the Peacock series has been a surprising treat on TV. Poker Face, led by Natasha Lyonne and created by Rian Johnson, was already renewed for a second season, and showrunners Nora & Lilla Zuckerman share details on what’s coming to the series and the process of writing the first season.
The series finale took the viewers back to the immediate aftermath of the death of Adrien Brody’s character. The Poker Face showrunners reveal they’ve set up the finale to bring Charlie back to where she started. The pair also shared that they might carry the same setup to the upcoming seasons.
Nora told Collider, “I think we’ll still probably continue to play with it, but that was always the plan for Season 1. We knew we would pick up the Cliff and Sterling thread, at the end of the season, and that there would be a little bit of check in throughout, but we really set about creating these individual stories and making them as compelling as possible.”
She continued, “And then, in an instance like episode four, when Cliff came into the end of it, finding cool, organic ways for him to pop up in a way that was surprising and fun.” Lilla added, “But we always knew, at the end of Season 1, that Charlie wasn’t gonna be settling down and getting a day job and starting a family. It feels appropriate and really satisfying that she launches herself back across the roads of America to see what’s in front of her.”
Nora admitted that with the kind of storyline they are working on, there are endless possibilities on where the story is headed. She says, “You never wanna totally tie yourself in knots, in terms of rules, for a show like this. You wanna play with them a little bit, but never cheat the audience.”
Making Season One and Plans For Season Two
Nora shared details on their writing process and how they developed the plot line for the first season. She said, “We eventually really figured out how to subvert expectations and have fun with this format. When we started writing, we were figuring out how to do the howcatchem format, in general, which is a flip on the regular procedural whodunit. Once we figured that out, then we really began to play with it in a fun way.”
The other half of the Zuckerman sisters hinted at what’s coming in the show's second season.
“I hope that we’re able to continue to do that in Season 2 and really push ourselves. Watching how audiences have absorbed the episodes and what their experience has been like watching them, will inform us that we can have fun with it.”
Lilla initially wanted to stick to their original structure. However, when she saw the many ways they could play with the plot line, she gave in and just went along with it. She said, “I was always in the room saying, “We can’t break our structure. We really do need to stick to this, first you see this out of POV murder, then you understand how Charlie comes into it, and then we move forward in solving the case, hopefully with some big twist in the middle of that part of the story.”
She continued, “I was always adamant about keeping that format, but we found really interesting ways to innovate and play within that structure, and I know that we’re gonna come up with even more exciting possibilities in Season 2.”