For once in the life of Charlie Cale she is no longer on the run since Beatrix Hasp gave her freedom papers in the previous episode of Poker Face. She could go home, or she could seek new adventures and continue her crime-solving spree. There will come a time where she will have to ask herself if she’s in it for the glory of being right or the benevolence of it all.
If Dog the Bounty Hunter and Tiger Joe had a baby, it would be Gator Joe (Kumail Nanjiani). What else would you expect from an episode of Florida’s finest but a hot mess of insane and unnatural behavior? Here's a recap of what happened. Spoilers for season 2 episode 4 of Poker Face, “The Taste of Human Blood,” below.
Gator Joe vs. Fran Lamont
This episode is a great idea by Rian Johnson, but they could have made this character with a touch of originality. Like maybe the first name perhaps. Confuse your audience a little. Regardless Joe is a famous Floridian cop with a massive “tik tok” following after saving the life of a baby alligator. Later, he took it on as his pet by naming her Daisy. He’s a typical back woods redneck with short sleeves, tattoos, and charisma. And of course, a flare for fame, who will seemingly do anything to get it.
When we first meet Fran Lamont (Gaby Hoffmann), she is the opposite of Joe. A respected cop with integrity. She doesn’t care about simple things like the Florida Panhandle Cop of the Year Award whereas Joe thrives off it. She saves the lives of women and children and checks off all the boxes for every heroic act. But after the years pass, the constant losses to Gator Joe start to mess with her psyche as human being and as a cop.
Not an original tagline, but still effective
The panhandle prince phrased the tag line “Gator Done.” The biggest problem I have with this episode is it’s lacking creativity. “Gator Done” is too similar to “Get-R-Done” the famous tag line of Larry the Cable Guy. Now Joe is about to win his seventh consecutive award, and Fran can’t handle anymore of it. She sees Gator Joe as a gimmick only in it for the accolades. Fran is a real cop who puts her life on the line for her community daily.
The good cop decides to play Joe at his own game and uses his reptile laxative against him. In small doses, the laxative would be fine, but Fran misjudged the dosing which forced Joe to collapse dead with his pants around his ankles. No way to go even for him. To make matters worse, Fran covers up the crime by enticing Joe’s gator to follow her and sprinkles meth all over the reptile. This effort makes the crime scene look like a brutal attack, so they won’t give him an autopsy.
How does Charlie Cale come to investigate the death of Gator Joe?
Charlie Cale takes on a new gig with a group of animal activists. They want to free Daisy, Joe's alligator, and release her back to the wild. The team puts Charlie on the case as a fresh face that can sneak into the award ceremony without being spotted. It’s evident that Charlie has no idea what she’s doing. Even though the team is guiding her throughout the process it’s a pretty cruel task on the part of strangers. And when she attempts to free the gator she must make a pit stop to fetch some Oreos. In those few seconds Daisy is released by none other than Fran for more sinister reasons.
Moments later Charlie meets Rusty (Ben Marshall), she pieces together that there’s no way this docile tik tok alligator acted with such aggression. She had to be manipulated to act that way. Upon further investigation at the table of drugs and guns, she realizes someone could have used meth to make her act out of control. In addition to spotting the trail of Oreos to the bathroom. Since Charlie never got that far, she knew it had to be someone with a motive. The more and more Fran lied, the easier it was for Charlie to get to the bottom of it.
Charlie is too stubborn in Poker Face season 2 episode 4
Strangely, the head of the activists Hutch (Shiloh Fernandez) tells Charlie that once they get the taste of blood, it’s over. They are supposed to be the ones protecting the animals not giving up when it gets too hot. Charlie knows nothing about gators or about rescuing them, but she was still the one who did it. The human lie detector knew Daisy had been framed and felt empathy while the others were fast to give up. Which was the whole point of them going. That was the only non-sensical part of the episode that bugged me.
At long last Fran weakly confessed to the crime. She did have a lot of remorse for killing her longtime nemesis. Even if he was a horrible person. Fran did try and turn herself in, but her chief wouldn’t allow it. As far as law enforcement knew, Joe died from the jaws of a gator. There was no reason to put a big stain on Fran’s career. Instead, she chose a different way to protect the community and went to volunteer at the gator farm. Living out the rest of her days to right a wrong.
As far as killers go in this series, this was not a truly exciting one. Though, if I were Cale, I would stop cornering people and accusing them of murder. She may have been gator bait if it wasn’t for Daisy protecting her. The deed is completed nonetheless. Until next Thursday for round five of Cale’s next murder mystery.
You can catch new episodes on Poker Face every Thursday on Peacock. New episodes will stream weekly through July 10.