“Sloppy Joseph,” the title of Poker Face Season 2 Episode 6, is quite clever and comedically horrifying at the same time. Our hero lie detector, Charlie Cale, has to face off against an elementary school student with a superiority complex. You couldn’t see this one coming.
Poker Face Season 2 Episode 6 Cast
The cast of Poker Face Season 2 Episode 6, like every episode, has some familiar faces (or voices) joining Natasha Lyonne as Charlie, the raspy-voiced, quirky, and fun investigator. Steve Buscemi can be heard talking to Charlie over the CB Radio, as in past episodes. He’s Charlie’s sounding board, known as Good Buddy. Margo Martindale is the principal of the prestigious private school. You may recognize her from her appearances in Days of Thunder as Donna, Dead Man Walking as a nun, and as the mother of Hilary Swank’s character in Million Dollar Baby.
David Krumholtz is the custodian and father of Elijah. You might remember him from Oppenheimer, The Santa Clauses, Harold & Kumar, and, for the Serenity/Firefly fans, as Mr. Universe. Adrienne C. Moore is Ms. Dee, the classroom teacher, and a very kind-hearted person. You probably know her best for her role as Cindy Hayes in Orange is the New Black on Netflix.
The Murder Mystery
Every episode of Poker Face Season 2 centers around a murder mystery. Poker Face Season 2 Episode 6 is no different, except that it isn’t a human.
Charlie has come to a private school to work as a lunch lady. (There’s the first “sloppy” reference for sloppy Joes.) There’s a particular kid in the school, Stephanie Pearce (Eva Jade Halford), who is an overachiever. She must be the best all the time, and usually, that’s the case. But not when Elijah (Callum Vinson) wins the classroom spelling bee and starts catching up to her in gold stars.
Little Elijah loves doing magic, and he also loves the class gerbils, especially Joseph (wait for it). The talent show is coming up, and after spying on Elijah and seeing that his magic is good, Stephanie decides to sabotage him. The trick involves putting Joseph Gerbil inside a bag on top of a box, then pulling a hidden string to drop him inside. To prove the critter has disappeared, Elijah strikes the top with a cartoonishly large mallet.
Somehow, the little girl gains access to the principal’s keys and enters the custodian’s room. She uses this access to engineer a distraction, gaining access to Elijah’s magic trick before he performs it. As a result, the trick goes wrong and Joseph Gerbil, who was supposed to disappear into the box, remained in place. The result was messy (“Sloppy Joseph”) and created chaos. Picture children screaming and adults heaving.
Elijah was going to face upset classmates and possible expulsion until Charlie stepped in. She isn’t letting it go. She finds out Stephanie has been blackmailing the principal. This girl has everyone scared of her. But not Charlie. She catches Stephanie in the act of planting stolen money in the custodian’s coat and turns the tables on the girl. Everything works out for Elijah in the end. But Charlie gets one last message from Stephanie before she leaves. Dun dun dun!!!
That’s a Wrap!
There are some light spoilers for Poker Face Season 2, Episode 6, below, but enough details are left out to make it a fun watch for you. It was heartwarming to see a happy ending for Elijah. And the specter of Stephanie has a years-long lead. Will the show last long enough to see Stephanie again? We’ll have to keep watching to find out. That’s one vicious kid!
New episodes of Poker Face Season 2 are released each Thursday on Peacock.
See you next week!
