Poker Face Season 2, Episode 11 Review: I'm Excited For What's Next After An Unresolved Mystery-Of-The-Week Sets Up A Thrilling Finale

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Poker Face season 2, episode 11.

Poker Face’s latest episode follows on from last week’s game-changing development with a fresh twist on the formula. Season 2, episode 11, “Day of the Iguana,” brings back Patti Harrison as Charlie’s new friend Alex, and the mystery is less about getting justice for the person who was killed and more about saving Alex from being framed for it. This penultimate episode feels like the first part of a two-part season finale. It brings everything back around as Charlie takes a gig at a wedding where the groom turns out to be Beatrix Hasp’s son, and Simon Helberg’s FBI Agent Luca Clark is in attendance.

The first acts of Poker Face episodes usually take a bit of time to build up to the killing, but “Day of the Iguana” features a murder in the first two minutes — and it might be the creepiest kill in the entire series. As Justin Theroux is getting ready for a wedding, a fake chauffeur sneaks into the house wearing a pair of giallo-style black gloves and chokes him with his own bowtie.

The killer vacuum-seals the body and compresses it until it’s reduced to a bloody mush, then assumes the victim’s identity with a Mission: Impossible mask. It’s no wonder this episode was directed by X’s Ti West.

When Alex Is Framed, Charlie Is Emotionally Invested In Solving The Case

She Doesn’t Want Her New Friend To Be Blamed For A Crime She Didn’t Commit

The killer poses as his victim to infiltrate the wedding. It’s a fun acting challenge for Theroux, who has to play two different characters with the same face (and the same glass eye, pulled off with seamless VFX). Theroux’s professional hitman, dubbed “The Iguana,” is there to assassinate Hasp’s son. When he finds Alex working as an oyster shucker, he decides she’s the perfect patsy. The Iguana stabs the groom in the eye with Alex’s shucking knife, drugs her, and stages the murder scene to look like she did it.

It’s not just the FBI that’s hunting down Alex, which would be bad enough; she’s also got the Iguana on her tail, and since the victim was a powerful mob boss’ son, the Five Families are coming after her, too.

Charlie is always committed to clearing innocent people’s names and identifying the real culprits out of a strong sense of justice. But in “Day of the Iguana,” she has a real emotional investment in uncovering the setup, because the patsy being framed is her friend. The stakes have never been higher. It’s not just the FBI that’s hunting down Alex, which would be bad enough; she’s also got the Iguana on her tail, and since the victim was a powerful mob boss’ son, the Five Families are coming after her, too.

“Day of the Iguana” is a unique confluence of cinematic and literary inspirations. Setting a murder at a wedding is very old-school whodunit; it plays like one of Agatha Christie’s Poirot novels. But the mythical hitman character is clearly a nod to Day of the Jackal, with the zanier spin of having him don a convincing mask to embody another man. The episode also contains one of Poker Face’s only direct references to its biggest influence, Columbo.

“Day Of The Iguana” Has No Closure, But Sets Up An Exciting Finale

The Stage Is Set For Next Week’s Season Closer To Be A Climactic Thriller Ride

After Charlie is introduced, it takes a while to get back around to Alex being framed. When Charlie is reunited with Alex and they get to work clearing her name, there’s only 10 minutes left. As it became clear that one episode wouldn’t be enough to resolve this story and it would end on a cliffhanger, I was reminded of Jerry Seinfeld’s bit about to-be-continueds on TV: “There’s like five minutes left, and suddenly you realize, hey, they can’t make it! Timmy’s still stuck in the cave! There’s no way they wrap this up in five minutes!”

Poker Face releases new episodes on Peacock every Thursday.

Poker Face usually resolves its mysteries of the week, well, within the week. But with sky-high stakes, returning characters, and a victim we already care about, this one is worth stretching out to a couple of episodes. It might be a bit unbelievable that Hasp, a notorious criminal hiding out in witness protection, would be careless enough to post a picture on Instagram with her address in plain sight. But it’s an exciting setup for next week’s finale to feel truly climactic.