Time for us to follow Charlie as she makes a big move to New York. Our favorite detective finds herself in an unusual situation once again, trying to find peace, and she’s sought out the biggest city she can. Of course, Charlie cannot avoid trouble, and soon enough, she’s back in the thick of a murder investigation.
Poker Face – “A New Lease on Death” Recap
Ann St. Marie (Lauren Tom) and Madeline (Awkwafina) meet with a lawyer to begin adoption paperwork. While Ann is Madeline’s grandmother, Madeline can only assume the rent-controlled apartment if Madeline is her legal daughter. Otto (David Allen Grier) cleans up graffiti outside the apartment and makes a snide comment about their cheap living, thanks to the rent control.
Ann goes to a farmers market, where she meets Kate (Alia Shawkat) as they reach for the same plum. There’s an instant connection between the two, and they discuss poetry. Two weeks later, Madeline walks in on Ann and Kate being intimate. Thinking Ann was being attacked, Madeline was ready to use her mace, but seeing her grandmother naked, she accidentally sprayed herself in the eyes. After talking about her bisexuality as a younger woman, Ann tells Madeline that Kate is moving in with them.
In the following weeks, Madeline hears Ann and Kate continuing to be intimate. She takes Kate’s wallet and gives money to a friend to run a background check on her grandmother’s new girlfriend. Madeline confronts Kate about her background, including her time in jail and three warrants for her arrest. Madeline tells Kate she needs to leave and break up with her grandmother. Kate bargains for one day to let Ann down, and Madeline agrees.
When Madeline leaves, Kate sets up a trap in the laundry room. When Kate returns to the apartment, she asks Madeline to spend a minute alone with Ann, but to complete the breakup, she needs Madeline to grab the laundry. When she gets downstairs, the trap goes off and combines bleach with descaler, creating chlorine gas. The trap leaves her stuck in the laundry room with the gas.
Charlie confirms the Good Buddy’s (Steve Buscemi) New York apartment address. As she enters the same building where Ann lives, Otto confronts her about subletting Good Buddy’s apartment. Charlie tells him she’s here to watch the plants and heads to the local bodega. While there, she meets Kate and calls her out on a scam she’s trying to run.
When she returns to the apartment, Otto tries to catch her. She runs down the hall and ducks into the laundry room, which locks behind her. Inside, she meets Madeline, who knows how to get the door off the hinges. She invites Charlie to watch Jeopardy, and they discuss Michael Clayton. She also meets Rico, a local librarian who lives in the building.
Charlie works for a remote job (as a CAPTCHA technician) when a woman (Patti Harrison) asks if she wants a free coffee. Charlie accepts the “black coffee,” which is actually a very specialized coffee, but appreciates the gesture. When she returns to the building, she finds out about a “toxic incident” with Madeline.
Charlie goes to Ann’s apartment and meets Kate at the door. Charlie catches Kate in a lie about her “engagement” to Ann but is shut out of the door before she can give condolences. Downstairs, she speaks with Otto while trying to get into the apartment, and the two realize something was wrong after he fixed the laundry room door. While Otto would have been furious with her for the rent-control scheme, he didn’t kill her. He recognizes that a new handle was put on the door, giving Charlie a lead.
Ann continues to mourn with Kate, who discovers that Ricardo was the one who performed the background check. She confronts him in his apartment with a knife. While she does, Charlie speaks with the bodega clerk, who confirms that Kate bought the door handle. She goes upstairs to ask Ricardo about Kate, but Kate notices her asking questions. Ricardo and Charlie are interrupted when the fire alarm is pulled. As he leaves the building, Kate threatens him again. Charlie tries to confront Kate, but she brushes off our detective.
Later, Kate returns home to discover Otto is showing the apartment to other tenants. Ann cannot live in the apartment after Madeline’s death, and despite Kate’s objections, she refuses to stay. Kate tells Ann she wants to be married now, and when she rushes off to get the paperwork, Charlie rushes to tell Ann about her suspicions.
Ann confronts Kate about Charlie’s accusations, which causes Kate to come after Charlie. Kate sees Charlie sitting on the balcony of the apartment and pushes her over the side, only to discover Charlie set up the situation. The firefighters set up an inflatable cushion on the ground, allowing Charlie to land safely. Ann has her lawyer filming on his phone, and they reveal they discovered Kate’s plan. Charlie says goodbye to Ann as a new tenant describes their new vision for the apartment.
Is “A New Lease on Death” worth watching?
Yes, “A New Lease on Death” is another fun episode for Poker Face, in part because we get an excellent performance from Alia Shawkat. While the premise is rather light, Shawkat owns the episode as a psycho hiding from the law, hoping to steal an apartment from a nice older lady.
While the Awkwafina performance is fine, it delivers enough comedy in the cold open to work. It’s a shame we don’t get more Lyonne and Awkwafina (when she’s at her best), but there’s not much to the performance beyond that. Most of the emotion lies with Tom, who is not only funny early in “A New Lease on Death” but brilliant in its final third as she runs a counter scheme on Shawkat. Grier is also excellent in comedic relief, which is almost disappointing. We could easily have seen a whole episode built around him.
It was a little strange that Patti Harrison shows up briefly in the episode (she gives Lyonne the coffee). She is already confirmed to be in the next episode, so it’ll be curious to see why Harrison popped in, but she’s usually a very funny actress. Her time as an ensemble member of I Think You Should Leave has helped raise her profile, so we’re excited to see how she fits into next week’s Poker Face.
Adamma Ebo directs the episode well, but most of her best work comes early in the episode when Shawkat and Tom meet. That sequence is exquisite, but most of “A New Lease on Death” is straightforward from there. The director of Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul knows how to focus on the internal struggles of her characters, but the teleplay does not give us a lot to work with on that front. Instead, Shawkat is a very externally expressive character, which does not allow Ebo to showcase her talent.
It’s a fun episode, but not a perfect one. While it might be a surface-level episode, Poker Face seems impervious to bad episodes. It’s got too many good performers popping in and out of the series and is too fun for them to skate by. Instead, it has become clear that even when Poker Face takes a step back, it has a very high floor.
“A New Lease on Death” airs on June 19, 2025. Poker Face releases new episodes every Thursday.
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