Don't read this if you haven't seen the 2nd episode of the new season of Poker Face

but do read on if you have not discovered this show yet!

The writers of Poker Face understand Chekhov’s Rule. In 1889, the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov famously wrote: “One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off. It’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep.”

It’s a good rule. Only include details pertinent to your story. Don’t set your reader up with false expectations, or bore them with unhelpful material. Crime writers, and more specifically, those who write mysteries, ignore this rule at their peril.

If a character ends up needing a certain thing to do the crime, or to thwart the evil-doer, the writer better make sure it’s been previously introduced.

I’m grateful that as a mystery writer, when I realize what the thing will need to be, to do what needs to be done at the crucial moment, I can go back to the early chapters and plant it for future use.

When I watch a tightly written 45 minute crime show, it’s fun to watch for the “things” that will need to matter, and it’s satisfying when the promises made are kept.

In the opening scene of the second episode of the second season of Poker Face, Charlie Cale, the human lie detector who is the protagonist, is sitting on a beach, talking about her life. She includes the fact that she’s quit smoking, and taken up vaping.

Charlie’s vaping device (I had to look this up) is a box mod. It’s roughly the size and shape of a handheld two way radio, and has a mouthpiece where you might expect a stubby antenna.

The viewer sees the box mod, and hears Charlie complain it needs a new battery. In this episode, called “Last Looks”, the battery is the “thing”.

Charlie drives her sky blue 1969 Plymouth Barracuda (also a kind of recurring thing) to town, to buy batteries. She parks outside a Publix Supermarket, which was a wonderful shorthand way to tell us she was in the American South, and her car is spotted by a wrangler for a movie production company.

The wrangler will pay cash to use her car on location. Charlie lives off the grid, as she is on the run from a group of mob families. Cash is very appealing.

The location of the film shoot is the Finch Family Funeral Home. This episode’s villain, played by Giancarlo Esposito, is Fred Finch, owner and funeral director.

Fred has surrounded himself with keepsake elements made from the cremated remains of his relatives. My favourite was the porcelain toilet in his office, made with ashes from his aunt. He also has an oil painting, a piece of stained glass art, and a coffee mug imbued with familial remains, and shows Charlie a stash of fireworks made to launch ashes skyward.

I don’t want this piece to be a total spoiler, so I won’t tell you how Fred kills his wife, who is this episode’s victim, or how Charlie figures it out. Instead, I’ll toss in a prediction without having watched the next episode. It’s based on a moment about which I will be very surprised, if it does not turn out to be the planting of a thing.

The movie car wrangler tells Charlie he needs to install a vintage CB radio in her car, so the production assistant can speak with whoever will be driving it on camera. This seems vaguely plausible, except that it’s not 1976, and you can communicate with a handheld radio that uses the same frequencies as the old CB units, has a three mile range and sells for about thirty dollars a pair. (And is about the size of a box mod.) Or you could just use your cellphone.

I think the trucker’s radio is going be important, later.

But back to this episode’s version of Chekhov’s gun. The battery.

The climactic scene happens in the funeral home basement, where Fred has fired up his crematorium with the intention of doing away with Charlie, who has seen through his lies. We’ve already watched Fred cremate his dead wife, after having made sure there was nothing battery-powered on her person. On the wall outside the door of the crematorium, a sign warns batteries explode if subjected to the gas-fired heat within.

Charlie escaped from the plain pine box in which she was trapped, moments away from being burned alive. She was cornered in the basement by the scalpel wielding Fred Finch, and eluded his grasp by tossing the mod box into the gaping maw of the crematorium. The flames licked at the plastic case, and then the “thing” exploded with sufficient force to throw Charlie out of the room, allowing her to get away.

The old funeral home, which looks like a cross between the Addams Family house and Cinderella’s castle (the Disney and cinder references seem deliberate as the story happens in Florida) is quickly engulfed in flames. Fred does not escape the inferno. He awaits the end in his office, surrounded by the relics of his family.

The viewer can surmise that Fred will face the fiery fate he intended for Charlie.

Charlie makes it to her 69 Barracuda. From the driver’s seat, while fumbling for her keys, she watches the sinister castle go up in flames. We see fireworks launch, and light up the night sky, even brighter than the burning funeral home.

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