‘Poker Face’ Renewed for Season 2 at Peacock

No bullshit here: Poker Face is returning for a second season.

The Peacock series created by Rian Johnson and starring Natasha Lyonne has been renewed at the streamer. The renewal comes as the first season of the T-Street and MRC Television series is rolling out, heading toward its March 9 finale. A season two premiere date has yet to be announced.

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The murder mystery drama follows Lyonne as Charlie Cale, a Columbo-inspired murder-solving fugitive who, thanks to her special ability of being able to identify when someone is lying, is consistently calling “bullshit” on the homicidal liars she encounters.

The series experimented with the release format by dropping four episodes at once, followed by a weekly Thursday release of its 10-episode first season. Each episode functions as a stand-alone murder mystery — complete with a new location and cast — with Charlie (Lyonne) anchoring the series as it follows her on the run after the events of the first episode.

Poker Face marked Johnson’s first TV series, as the Knives Out and Star Wars: The Last Jedi filmmaker has previously only directed episodes of television. With showrunners Nora and Lilla Zuckerman, the Glass Onion director said he was in the writers room through the entire process and that the howcatchem format of the series (hearkening back to the ’80s and ’90s detective shows he and Lyonne grew up watching) helped attract the show’s top-notch roster of guest stars.

Each episode opens with a near-perfect murder, which provided meaty parts for stars like Adrien Brody, Lil Rel Howery, Judith Light, Chloë Sevigny, Ellen Barkin, Tim Meadows, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Nick Nolte, Cherry Jones, Ron Perlman and more. The guest stars could come in for one episode and play either murderer or victim. Benjamin Bratt joins Lyonne as a season-long character, as he goes on the hunt for the former Las Vegas casino waitress.

The first season has been met with critical acclaim — The Hollywood Reporter‘s chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg called it a “mystery fan’s delight” in his review — as well as a collective audience thumbs-up. The first season currently has a 99 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

“It’s performed fantastic. We are over the moon,” Susan Rovner, chairman of entertainment content at NBCUniversal TV and streaming, recently told THR. Though the streamer doesn’t share viewership numbers, Rovner touted Poker Face for “punching above its weight” and said that Peacock having the libraries for Columbo and Murder, She Wrote actually helped the streamer land the series.

In a statement with the renewal news, Rovner added: “Poker Face is one of those rare, undeniable shows that we all fell in love with from the start, but the critical acclaim and viewer response has been beyond our wildest dreams. Working alongside the creative genius of Rian Johnson, Natasha Lyonne and Ram Bergman, along with our partners at MRC and T-Street, has been a spectacular ride, and we can’t wait to hit the road for another season as we continue to build momentum across Peacock’s originals slate.”

The T-Street and MRC Television series is executive produced by Johnson and Bergman, the Zuckermans, Lyonne under her Animal Pictures banner, Nena Rodrigue and Iain B. MacDonald. Maya Rudolph and Danielle Renfrew Behrens are co-producers with Animal Pictures.

When speaking to THR, Johnson shared that he hoped to grow old making Poker Face, especially since the format lends itself to going on forever and forever, much like the procedurals of the past that inspired the show: “Natasha and I keep talking about getting old doing this. I can imagine her Jessica Fletcher-ing it. And I would be thrilled. … This is something that’s obviously built with an engine to keep on going.”

Lyonne also summed up her hopes for the show as being about Charlie standing up “for the little guy or the misfits and the outsiders and the dark horses and sort of have a voice for all those people, a truthful one that kind of cuts through a sea of mendacity. And I do think that what’s so exciting about Poker Face is that, thanks to Rian, that voice comes through in a super clear, very inclusive, inviting way for an even larger audience.”

Along with Poker Face, Lyonne (who made a cameo in Johnson’s Glass Onion) has the outstanding season of Russian Doll season three, which has yet to be greenlit by Netflix. And Johnson has the already-announced third Knives Out movie next up at Netflix.

The renewal comes at a pivotal time for Peacock, which recently hit 20 million subscribers and ended its free tier for new users amid expected losses of $3 billion for the year. The renewal adds Poker Face to the list of Peacock original series recently renewed for second seasons, including Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin, Bel-Air, Wolf Like Me, Killing It, Dr. Death and We Are Lady Parts.

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