Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Episode 9 of Poker Face.Last week’s episode ofPoker Facehad us spending time withacting powerhousesCherry JonesandNick Nolte, who played two artists with different versions of a troubling and deadly secret from an incident on a film set decades prior. Nolte’s Arthur wanted revenge and Jones’ character wanted more death to solve her problems. Spoiler alert, her past came back to haunt her. Literally. This week, Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) finds herself in the middle of motel madness.
Bike, Drink, Golf, Repeat
Episode 9, daintily titled, “Escape from Shit Mountain,” is directed by the show’s creator and head writerRian Johnson. This episode starts off bitter. We are in the snowcapped mountains of some cold and remote place, in the lavish cabin of the bitter Trey Mendez (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). He shouldn’t be bitter, because he seems to have everything he could desire and more. Alone in his luxurious pad, he spends his days doing an intense bike workout, chugging a deliriously green health shake, hitting golf balls at his virtual setup, driving recklessly using VR, and ending the day with some fine and (likely aged) liquor next to his electronic fireplace. And he does this all while giving off intense crypto-bro vibes. He only leaves his pad to grab his food delivery that’s routinely dropped off by a very cold delivery driver. Well, at least Trey tips him nicely, right? Wrong. Trey is a stingy man who does not believe in tipping.
And this delivery boy is rightfully fed up! On one of the endless drop-offs, he decides to leave the sad bag of food a little further away from the fence than normal, meaning Trey has to exert himself, and he is unhappy. We learn that he is not lazy, he’s actually on house arrest. If his foot leaves the premises, the authorities will be alerted, which does in fact happen when he reaches for his food. He makes it inside and drinks as he watches the weather report about the looming storm. His ankle monitor stops working and the police call and tell him that even though the storm knocked out the power for their security system, he’s still on parole. Something says that Trey is not going to obey the rules.
Yeah, he literally makes every possible wrong decision. He drives drunk in his sports car on the icy and snowy roads andends up hitting a pedestrian. Panicked, he drags the body and puts it in his trunk, calling his pal and local inn employee Jimmy (David Castañeda) to help him out. Given Jimmy’s reaction, it seems like he is sick of helping him get out of the messes he gets himself into. Now, after years of not seeing each other, Trey thinks he can waltz back into his life and ask for a favor? He says he needs “the spot,” and Jimmy obliges. They drag the body and drop it down a hole at the foot of a tree and cover it in leaves. Problem solved?
The two decide to talk things out inside the cozy and rustic inn. Jimmy is bitter that Trey left him after what happened between them, and that he didn’t have to work as hard for what he has as he did. Also, Trey has been back in town for six months and hasn’t reached out. Trey tries to explain that he’s on house arrest and took the blame for this insider trading situation at work, but Jimmy is upset. He says he “sees” her everywhere, and is constantly haunted by what happened. Right as Trey is about to leave in a huff, the quaint motel is rocked by an intense knocking at the door. The roads are bleak, so who is possibly knocking? They open the door and see what appears to be the limp body of the person they just dropped down the spot. Somehow, this person seems to be alive, and the duo doesn’t know what to do. Right then,Charlie pulls up, and they request her help.
Magic Mountain Turned Sh*t Mountain
So how did Charlie end up at the motel? Well, we go back to sunny springtime, with Charlie driving through a beautiful park. She wants to on her travels, but then she comes across a beautiful man in the beautiful park who offers to show her around. They hit it off, spending their days fishing, camping, and enjoying their natural surroundings. Charlie actually starts to work at the park handing out flyers. She quite literally yells into the open air, “I’m never leaving Magic Mountain!” That is, until the harsh wintry February rolls in.
Charlie is now trying to get some money by cleaning the windshields of customers at a gas station who didn’t ask for her services. She wants to leave and make her way to Denver, but the entire journey ahead seems rough. The gas station owner wants her to stop scaring the customers. Charlie slips on the ice and hurts her back, and a woman named Morty (Stephanie Hsu) who Charlie refers to as a “hacky sack” offers her drugs to ease the pain. Morty needs a ride, and Charlie agrees to give her one for a free tank of gas. They hit the road, narrowly avoid hitting a deer, and bond over their nomadic lifestyles. They get stuck in the ice and Morty offers to stay and keep watch while Charlie goes back to the gas station on foot for help. Charlie absolutely does not agree to that, as Morty has already tried to get away with stealing her wallet.
Morty agrees to go get help, and Charlie stays with the car. Now night and Morty nowhere to be found, Charlie gets out of the car and looks around for any signs of her. Right at this moment, she’s hit by a speeding reckless driver (Trey!) and is launched into the air. Charlie wakes up in “the spot” horrified and clinging to life. She makes her way to the motel quite disoriented and then Morty arrives at the scene with the car.
Charlie is pretty sure she is dead, but Trey and Jimmy warm her up by the fire and attempt to convince her otherwise. Fortunately for them, Charlie can’t remember what happened (except that she shared a deep connection with a deer) and thus doesn’t recall seeing Trey behind the wheel. Trey hopes that this memory loss is permanent, so they don’t have to answer any questions about their whereabouts and get into deeper trouble. Trey is also stressed because he has to be back in his house by the morning so the cops don’t think he left during the power outage. Charlie refers to her “stabby stick” that she found while in the woods, though Morty points out that it’s a human bone she was using to knock on the door, not a stick. Trey and Jimmy panic, as that bone belongs to the body they threw in their spot some time ago. There’s a lot happening.
Based on the metal pins in the bone, they conclude that it belongs to someone who had an accident. Maybe, an accident on the slopes. This then triggers a memory of a “missing person” flyer that they have been seeing everywhere. Trey and Jimmy reluctantly hand over a flyer they kept hidden, which Morty thinks is because they are trying to keep the reward money possibility for themselves. Trey tries to keep the “hero” persona going by letting them stay in over for free to throw them off the scent, but Charlie is skeptical. She notices his ankle monitor and is just starting to think this entire thing is suspicious. Morty rifles through their stuff (she’s a kleptomaniac, cut her some slack) and is adamant that they will not be splitting the reward money with those guys.
Charlie starts to remember that the place she woke up—that hole—is pretty hard to find. It’s no coincidence that she was dumped and left for dead in that spot, she thinks, because what are the odds that she would be shoved in the same spot where another dead body was buried unless it was on purpose? It couldn’t have really been a classic “hit and run” because all the roads are closed. They attempt to use the phone, but the line is dead from the storm. That means that when Trey “called” the cops before, he was just pretending.
RELATED:‘Poker Face’ Renewed for Season 2
Missing Person, Found Problems
In a motel room, Trey and Jimmy bicker about what to do next. Trey wants to “take care of them” and Jimmy wants Trey to pay them off. Trey freaks when he sees Morty walking outside to the infamous spot, and goes to confront her. Morty finds a skull (likely that of Chloe Jones) and also notices that the footprints near the spot match that of Trey. She pulls a gun on him and tells him that she knows he killed Chloe, and he calmly tells her that he will do what she wants. In the motel, Charlie notices a picture from a snowboarding trip with Trey, Jimmy, and Chloe. Trey agrees to give Morty his Lamborghini, the one he was driving when he hit Charlie, if she agrees to remain quiet about it all. She does…at least that’s what she tells him. Still not sure if he can trust her, Trey smashes her head against the steering wheel. Crunch.
Inside, Jimmy opens about up how they knew Chloe. She used to date Trey, but they were all good friends. She was known in town for her impressive snowboarding skills and people thought she was going to the Olympics. Then, the pressure got to her and she allegedly left town. Charlie wants to know more, but Jimmy doesn’t want to talk about it. He gets emotional and regrets not being there for Chloe when he should have been. Don’t feel bad for him, though, because he drugs Charlie. Trey isn’t exactly making smart decisions, either. He erases Morty’s phone of all evidence of “the spot” and then pushes her and his car off a cliff.
Is Charlie Dead?
Charlie fools everyone! She never swallowed the drugs because she knew that he lied when he told her it was ibuprofen. Trey returns and talks to Jimmy outside, and Charlie eavesdrops. Everything starts to fall into place for Jimmy when Trey says that “another girl went crazy on him” and that he caught Morty stealing his car. Hmm, what did he mean by “another?” Maybe Trey was the problem, and not Chloe or Morty. The pair heads inside when they hear a commotion inside, and Charlie tries to convince Jimmy that Trey murdered Morty. Jimmy asks Trey if Chloe “went crazy on him” or if she really had an accident. Did Chloe have a bad reaction to drugs and fall, or did Trey kill her when she became too much for him? The more he asks, the more Trey lies, and Charlie calls b*llshit. Trey shoots Jimmy in the head and then stabs Charlie in the chest, and throws them both in “the spot.” Could Charlie be dead?
Before driving home in Charlie’s car, Trey throws a bloodied rag into the fire and drinks the end of a drink on the table without realizing Charlie left the “ibuprofen” in there. He makes it home before the cops said they’d be checking on him and thinks he is totally getting away with it. The only problem is that Charlie managed to snatch the ankle monitor and was holding it in the spot. Somehow, Charlie is also still alive, and wakes up in a Denver hospital with the wristband reading “Jane Doe.” Charlie’s believed to be dead, and she might as well be becauseCliff (Benjamin Bratt)was waiting to make his move in the hospital parking lot.
