Streaming on: Sky / NOW
Episodes viewed: 10 of 12
With her signature BS detector and a “voice like a rusty clarinet”, casino worker and whodunnit-solver Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) is back in search of new mysteries to solve, making a very welcome return in Rian Johnson’s other detective-fiction franchise. This time around, Charlie is looking for somewhere to hide: on the run again, this time from Rhea Perlman's mobster, who wants her dead following the events of last season.
But a few things have changed this season. Lyonne’s inquisitive road-tripper is trying to quit smoking, for one, with dubious help from a cotton candy-flavoured vape. After directing and co-writing one episode in the first run, Lyonne also steps up to helm more instalments of this expanded 12-episode run. That calls for a bigger, somehow even more impressive guest list for Season 2, which duly includes Melanie Lynskey, Kumail Nanjiani, Giancarlo Esposito, Cynthia Erivo (x5, as quintuplets) and far too many others to list in full. (Although it’d be remiss to ignore Taylor Schilling and Adrienne C. Moore's reunion with Lyonne, following their Emmy-nominated work together in Orange Is The New Black.)
Charlie Cale is a deadpan masterpiece that only Natasha Lyonne could have come up with.
What hasn't changed, however, is the central format, which still opens each week with a crime that Cale then pieces together, Columbo-style. This procedural ‘howdunnit’ traverses the oddest corners of everyday Americana, with new mysteries set everywhere from Minor League baseball to creepy funeral homes and even a local police award ceremony, each functioning as its own mini world with a unique style and tone. Season 2 introduces us to a ’70s-style horror one minute and Daisy, the “Judy Garland of alligators”, the next.
Lyonne and Johnson clearly take inspiration from all kinds of ’70s American cinema, in fact, drawing on the visual style of greats like Robert Altman and Peter Bogdanovich, while Lyonne has gone on record to share that her performance is inspired in part by Elliott Gould in Altman’s The Long Goodbye. But Cale is ultimately a deadpan masterpiece that only Lyonne could have come up with: a curious, empathic and extremely laid-back creation who continues to ground each outlandish case with a likeable throughline.
The team behind Season 2 aren't so laid-back, refusing to rest on their laurels despite some much-deserved Emmy success last time round. A baseball-themed episode pitches entirely left-field with its visuals, for example, while a twist in Episode 3 redefines Cale's entire journey. The case-of-the-week format remains in place, mostly unchanged, but the serialised story that holds it together becomes more introspective and even existential, proving that the team's ambition isn't just limited to casting TV's most enviable guest list.
