Dead Man's Hand

"**Dead Man's Hand**" is the first episode of the first season of Poker Face. It is written and directed by Rian Johnson and premiered on January 26, 2023.

## Synopsis

When a close friend of hers meets an untimely end, Charlie Cale, a casino cocktail waitress with an uncanny knack for identifying lies, is determined to unravel these mysterious events -- even if it endangers her own life.

## Plot

Natalie cleans the rooms at the Frost Casino until she arrives at the Presidential Suite. She knocks and when there's no answer, enters to begin cleaning. She stops when she sees an open laptop, approaching it with horror. She leaves the room, collects herself, then gets her phone to take a picture of the screen. She leaves before the man inside can see her. Once in the stairwell, she tries to call someone but there’s no answer. She walks through the casino to tell Mr. LeGrand what she found. He escorts her upstairs where he calls in a code red. They show the evidence to their boss, Sterling Frost Jr. Sterling is in shock since it’s the Caine suite, though Natalie is sure of what she saw and knows this is a big deal. Sterling adds this isn’t just beyond moral revulsion but illegal, so now they’re going to do what they have to do. She worries about her cart and checking out, but Sterling tells her not to clock out as they’ll handle all of it. They’ll be there for her, making sure she feels safe going home to her husband. He discreetly deletes the photo from her phone, instructing her not to tell anyone about this until they contact the FBI. When Natalie leaves, Sterling decides to handle it without his father. He gives Cliff orders.

Cliff walks down to the safe, removing a handgun. Natalie gathers her belongings as Cliff leaves the casino, setting off the metal detector. Natalie leaves the casino, ignoring the goodbyes of a worker taking a break. Cliff pulls up to a trailer and bangs on the door until the man inside answers, ultimately executing him when he opens the door. Cliff then turns up the volume on the TV and waits behind the door for Natalie to come home. The second she walks through the door he pulls the trigger. He then stages the crime scene to make it look as though the man shot Natalie and then himself. Cliff calls Sterling to tell him it’s done.

Charlie scrolls through her phone and then leaves her rusty trailer, greeting John-O outside. He offers to cut her into some old Playboys in mint condition, but she has to go to work soon. She asks where he got them, as he’s not supposed to break into places anymore - she doesn’t want to bail him out again. When Charlie’s car won’t start she calls Natalie to ask her for a ride to work. On the way, Charlie brings up a child porn ring on the dark web run by Russia. Natalie doesn’t see why she reads the news when she can’t do anything about it. Charlie’s doing something about it right now by tweeting.

The girls scan their keycards and then empty their belongings into buckets so they can pass through the metal detector, chatting as they do. Natalie states she’s fine, but Charlie knows she’s bullshitting - when she hears bullshit she says bullshit. Natalie’s sunglasses set off the metal detector twice, so Charlie takes them off as it’s a pound of chrome on her face. She stops when she sees the black eye underneath, cursing the son of a bitch responsible. She tries to follow Natalie, but her cell phone sets off the detector.

The female employees talk in the locker room about what incited the violence. Natalie was knitting when their Apple TV showed a gallery of photos from her husband Jay’s phone cloud. Among them were dick pics, and she questioned who he was sending the pictures to. He denied it and then hit her. She locks her locker and Charlie hopes she kicked him out. Natalie says she did, but Charlie knows it’s bullshit.

Charlie gets to work serving the casino, chatting up customers, and sipping drinks. She’s on the roof when a man tells her the “big guy” wants to see her, looking up at the highest floor when she asks “big guy who”. She heads up to the top floor, texting Natalie that she’ll be late since she’s getting fired but will Uber home. She tells the receptionist that she’s here to get fired.

Sterling opens the doors to his office and invites her inside, offering a seat and a drink. She thinks she knows what this is and he should just do it. His dad gave him the casino about three months ago, though Sterling corrects that he just manages it. Charlie figures that’s how long it took for him to tell Sterling about her. He confirms that’s true. She thinks now that he knows about her whole thing he’ll do the smart thing and fire it. She never understood why he kept her around. Sterling thinks his dad liked her, but that’s not the story she knows. He decides to start there, telling a once upon-a-time-in-Denver story about when a milquetoast collection of the best poker players in central Colorado met at a Fairfield Inn suite off I-25 for a mid-stakes ring game. A young woman from out of town was at the table. She had plenty of cash so they let her play. Three hours later, she mopped the floor with each and every one of them, which wasn’t anything special. But this had been happening in Cheyenne, in Rapid City. The same young woman cutting a haphazard path across the middle of the country. Never in any big games, never in corporate-owned casinos, but always the same result. She didn't lose and word spread quickly because, as Charlie knows, gamblers talk. But as far as anyone could tell, she was playing straight, yet she played with almost supernatural infallibility. As if she was seeing through the cards. So when she showed up at the Frost Casino and snuck into a tournament, his father Sterling Frost Sr. was interested. He secretly watched her play for two days, sitting in the crow’s nest ten hours a day by himself to study her. When his dad figured out what she was doing, he couldn’t believe it. It was impossible, insane, but there was no other explanation. Charlie, unphased, goes to the bar to get a drink while Sterling confirms the rumor is true. He also confirms she hasn’t gambled since, but she attributes that to his dad putting out the word that she played dirty. He said it himself, gamblers talk, and to this day, no podunk penny game in the country will take her by in. She’s blackballed. But, he didn’t break her fingers when he had her brought into that back room, noting that he’s a scary guy. He called her kid, told her it was “a real mess, kid”, and then gave her a job at the casino. Sterling believes he gave her a job to keep her in a cage. He thinks she has a gift that his dad made sure she’d never use again. He asks if she’s pissed, but she’s not. Hearing him tell this story, it’s as if she was the Cincinnati Kid, methodically fleecing her way across the country until her plan was thwarted. But she was a dumbass. She figured out she could do this thing, and it worked, so she did it for a while. She figured it wouldn’t last, and it didn’t. She’s doing fine now, she likes her life, and her job, and while she’s bummed he’s firing her, she’ll find another job and probably like that one, too. She’s still pretty much a dumbass but she’s doing just fine. He tests her quickly with a deck of cards, proving that it’s not a physical reaction giving him away, but that she can just tell something is off. He tries to test her ability to know his next move, but she laughs as she’s not a soothsayer. She can’t predict the future, there’s nothing mystical about it, just if someone is intentionally lying, she can tell. He’s not firing her, but instead, allowing her to work with him and use her gift to get very, very rich. He needs her answer by the end of the day tomorrow as it’s time sensitive. He answers a call from the lobby informing him about some dunk on the casino floor shouting for his wife. Charlie quickly asks who the man is shouting for.

Down in the casino, Jerry is shouting for Natalie and causing a scene. Charlie runs out to stop him, but he’s belligerent. Two security guards slam him onto the table. She spots a gun, which Cliff grabs from Jerry’s ankle holster. They drag Jerry out of the casino and Cliff puts the gun in his office on the way out. Charlie assures Natalie they got him. Natalie explains that he sent her crazy texts all morning but she had her phone off during her shift and didn’t see it. The manager gives her the rest of the day off, asking if she has somewhere safe to go. Charlie insists Natalie’s staying with her tonight.

Back in the trailer, Charlie tells Natalie to get a restraining order against Jerry but she can't as it’s his house. She can’t divorce him because she signed something that means she can’t have it. She can't afford to be out on her ass right now, either. Charlie offers to let her stay with her but she can’t. She hugs her friend, joking that Charlie must have been a knight in a past life.

Sterling and Charlie watch Caine, the Moby Dick of the Frost Casino whales, from the crow's nest. He asks if she can tell Caine’s bluffing from up there, and she correctly says he’s not. Sterling explains how Caine is doing private pickup games in his suite even though they comp everything for him at the casino. That’s why they’re going to fleece him. Back in Sterling’s office, they make a plan to set up cameras in Caine’s room with a shill inside. She thinks she can do her thing over video. The game is in 48 hours, but she wants to make sure that his dad okayed it. He insists it's his name on the door, but she doesn’t want to piss off his dad again. He answers a call from Ginger and asks for 20 minutes, sending her off on the private elevator. Once she’s gone, he opens the door and greets Cliff and Natalie.

Charlie waits up in the crow's nest drinking beers as she waits. She checks her phone to see a missed call from Natalie and tries to call her back, but she doesn’t answer. Sterling eventually comes in and asks what it’s like to know the truth all the time. She only knows if something is a lie and outside of poker, it’s not as useful as he might think. The real trick is to figure out why someone is lying. He answers a call from Cliff that it’s done, taking a seat as Charlie asks if he’s alright. He asks where they were. She asks if he’d kill her if she pulled out and he chuckles, knowing she’s scared of his dad. His dad gave him this job because he trusts him, but Charlie calls bullshit. He admits he got the job because his dad thinks he’s a screw-up and he’s made that clear to everyone. He can’t live as a failure in his dad’s shadow for the rest of his life. He swears to God that he’d rather die. He’s going to give her 1.5 million to help him out, regardless of the take that night, and she can disappear after if she wants. She shakes his hand and agrees to do it.

Charlie wakes up the next morning to a headline - “LOCAL WOMAN SLAIN” - and a picture of Natalie attached. The article says it’s a murder-suicide committed by Jerry Hill.

The girls talk in the locker room about Natalie’s last shift and how odd she acted. Charlie confirms from Michelle that Natalie left a little after eight, checking it against the time of Natalie’s missed call to Charlie at 7:56 pm. However, she usually gets off a few hours later. The police are about to cut the lock off Natalie’s locker, but Michelle intervenes as she knows her combo. Charlie gets a text from Sterling that it’s time to get to work.

Sterling didn’t realize they were close and she confides that Natalie called her last night. She spirals over why Natalie might have called her, but Sterling tells her not to blame herself. The room they’re in is identical to Caine’s. Charlie can’t shake why Natalie would leave at 8 instead of 9. Charlie already talked to her manager, Louis, and learned she never clocked out. Something happened that scared her enough to call Charlie for help and then basically run. Everyone is assuming Natalie’s husband called her, but Charlie knew Nat kept her phone off during her shift. Whatever spooked her wasn’t a call, and it wasn’t Jerry. Sterling sighs that her husband was an abusive lowlife, then clarifies they’re in a time-dependent operation and he needs her focused. They decide to put the cameras in the bases of the lamps to account for eye lines and angles.

Charlie leaves work in her barracuda and drives to the country sheriff's office. She shows Sheriff Parker the missed call from Natalie, hoping that she can see her friend’s phone. He can’t help her and wonders why she thinks her phone would be in, as she describes it, a little jail. She finally remembers the words “evidence locker”. Once the coroner's determination is official, her property is sent to her next of kin, probably her mom. She looks at a photo of Jerry holding the gun. Sheriff Parker has been working in this county long enough to see domestic abuse escalate like this in a pattern. Charlie knows there’s a lie in the story but just has to find it. Parker assures her the case isn’t closed and he’ll go over everything again. If she can give him something he can use, he promises to use it. But asks that she trust them to do their job as she’s not a cop.

That night, Charlie answers a call from Sterling. He heard from Sheriff Parker that he’s questioning everyone again, which isn’t good because they’re in the middle of an operation. She knows but explains that Jerry kept his gun in his inner right thigh, so he was left-handed and couldn’t have shot himself with his right hand. He told Parker that she was distraught and shouldn't spend more time on this. She’s surprised he just tells the cops what to do and they just do it, asking how that works, but he chuckles that he’ll see her in the morning. When he hangs up she grumbles that she's not a cop.

Charlie has John-O pick the lock to Natalie’s house. She finds Natalie’s tablet but the facial recognition doesn’t work. She tries it on a photo of Natalie but that doesn’t work either. She can’t guess the password to the tablet.

By morning, Charlie still hasn’t cracked the code and wanders down the street to the convenience store to buy beer. As she’s entering her pin into the ATM, she realizes that she uses the same code for everything. She calls Michelle for Natalie’s locker combination, which successfully opens the tablet. Charlie then sees the clouds in the background of the screen saver and thinks about “the cloud” that Natalie mentioned her photos being in. Upon checking the gallery, Charlie finds the photo that Natalie took on the day of her murder.

She drives to the casino with the tablet and shows it to Sterling and Cliff. She knows it’s Caine’s room because of the high ceilings. She thinks Caine had her killed and framed Jerry to do it. She wants to call the FBI to bust him, but Sterling wants to clean him out first to hit him where it hurts. With a guy like him, it’s the money. They just have to wait one more night while they rig the cameras.

She heads downstairs where the bartender guesses her usual, but she decides on a coffee instead. She chats with a fellow casino worker when the TV starts to play footage from Frost Casino from when Jerry showed up looking for Natalie. Charlie watches as she takes a sip of coffee.

Later, Charlie hurries into an elevator with Cliff and speed talks about Cliff letting Jerry go the day he showed up at the casino. He asks if she’s on coke but it’s just coffee which is making her spazz out. Cliff explains they didn’t press charges and couldn’t find Natalie to ask what she wanted. Charlie gets confirmation that Jerry didn’t come back to the casino after he was released.

Charlie watches live video footage of Sterling and Cliff gambling to confirm she can do her thing over video. He explains how everything will work that evening and the clicker she’ll use to indicate truth and bullshit. Cliff will swoop in if anything goes bad. She asks what his call was about when they were in the crow’s nest and he said everything was okay. That was a lie and she wants to know about the call. Sterling remembers the call and that it was Cliff on the line. He asks what she thinks it was about. She’s sure it was some random security thing, blaming her questions on being distraught and caffeinated. When she’s gone, Sterling closes the door to talk to Cliff about the situation. He compares her to Michael Weston from Burn Notice and that she won’t let it go. Sterling refuses to pull the plug on the operation and will deal with her and the photo no matter what it takes.

Caine gets into his limo and leaves the hotel. Cliff knocks on the Presidential Suite to ensure no one’s home, using this chance to switch out the lamps with the ones that are bugged. Sterling stands on the rooftop looking over the city. The gambling group waits for Caine in the lobby, but he’s a no-show. Cliff finds Sterling and they both worry about where Caine and Charlie are. Charlie shows up 20 minutes late, and Sterling is glad Caine had a late dinner. Cliff leaves to check on the rest of the players. Sterling explains how things will work but she’s quiet. She doesn’t have an elegant way to segue into the Natalie situation so she just does. Natalie did the right thing when she saw something awful, and Sterling had Cliff kill her for it. She tells him to look her in the eye and say bullshit if it isn’t true. When he doesn’t, she presses on. There’s only one reason she would take a picture of Caine’s laptop, and that’s to turn him in, to show someone, like the police. But she didn’t show the police, she tried to call Charlie but she missed it. So Charlie figured that Natalie came to him and Cliff that night. Sterling scoffs that’s a lot of accusation based on figures. Charlie, however, was figuring this morning when she saw the TV footage and now, she knows. Jerry had his stupid pearl-handled pistol when he came to the casino, but when he passes through the metal detector on the way out, it doesn’t go off. This means he didn’t have it when he left, and she already knows from Cliff that Jerry didn’t come back to the casino. Which means the night of the murder, was right here with Cliff. Sterling looks over to Cliff, who returns to the room. Sterling circles Charlie as he pokes holes in her story, making her appear unreliable with all her figuring and half-thinking. He has Cliff take her phone in case she’s recording to get a confession, but she wasn’t. He concocts a plan to paint her as a distraught, drunk, flakey employee that he had to let go. Before he could stop her, she took a flying leap off the balcony which is tragic. Cliff asks if she’s going to walk outside to make it easier, but she's not. Because she wasn’t recording their conversation just now, but she was this afternoon. Cliff, who still has her phone, plays a portion of their conversation to prove it. Sterling laughs as there’s nothing criminal about cheating in a private poker game. Even if there were, he owns the cops. Charlie isn’t trying to convict him because she’s not a cop. A wise man once told her that if you want to hurt someone, you hit ‘em where it hurts. She didn’t send the recording to the cops. Sterling realizes she sent it to Caine and the men run out to the Presidential Suite, which is vacant.

Charlie follows with a smirk. She sent it after the rehearsal and he’s in the air by now. Every one of his whales, every big roller in the world, all the medium ones, most of the small ones, they all know that Sterling Frost Casino plays dirty. He’s officially blackballed because gamblers talk. Cliff laughs as he takes a seat. Sterling sees a call from his dad that makes Cliff laugh even more. Sterling walks outside, onto the railing, and jumps off to his death. Charlie curses as Cliff glares at her. She takes off running and he shoots after her, hitting her once in the side. She runs into the stairwell and Cliff calls a code blue to lock the entire hotel down. Charlie is bleeding heavily but hears guards on the lower levels. Armed with a fire extinguisher, Charlie walks into a hotel room where Jen is working. She tells the woman to take care of herself and then jumps from the fourth-floor window. She speeds off in her car as the police head to the casino.

Charlie stops at a diner. She types out an email to Sheriff Parker, the FBI, CIA, and Oprah titled “the truth” which contains the photo Natalie Hill took in Kazimir Caine’s hotel room. She’s trusting them to do their job. She orders a beer and then answers a call from an unknown number. On the other end is Mr. Sterling, who tells her it’s a mess. There wasn’t enough of his son to even identify. It’s a fucking mess, kid. He let her off once and gave her a good life. She asks what happens now. He wants her to tell him where she is. She might as well because there’s not a corner in this country small enough for her to hide in. No off-the-grid's off-the-grid enough for her to hide from him. He’s a tough old bastard and he’s got some years left, and he’s gonna spend them finding her. He’s gonna hit her where it hurts. When he does kill her, finally, she can thank him. He asks her if he’s lying, and she hangs up.

Charlie goes to the outskirts of town and smashes her phone with a rock. She takes a swig of her beer and then throws her phone to the side of the road. She drives out of town.

## Cast

### Guest Starring

* Adrien Brody as Sterling Frost Jr.
* Dascha Polanco as Natalie Hill
* and Benjamin Bratt as Cliff LeGrand

### Co-Starring

* Michael Reagan as Jerry Hill
* Kerry Frances as Michelle
* Jeremy Lawrence as John-O
* Tom Ukah as Louis
* Thursday Farrar as Ginger
* Eddie Gorodetsky as Kazimir Caine
* Larry Floyd as Ben
* Eric J. Black as Casino Manager
* Eric R. Williams as Nick
* Ashley Austin Morris as Debbie
* Carol Jefferson as News Anchor
* Jeffrey T. Bernstein as Valet Captain
* Ted Griffin as Dale McClintock
* Laura Linda Bradley as Diner Waitress
* Becky Chong as Jen

### Uncredited

* Ron Perlman as Sterling Frost Sr. (voice)

## Gallery

### Videos

Poker Face - Exclusive Look at Natasha Lyonne & Adrian Brody in Episode 1
## Trivia

* Released on January 26, 2023 alongside Episode 2, 3, and 4.
* The script for this episode was written in 2020 before creator Rian Johnson's 2022 film *Glass Onion*.
* This was the second episode to be filmed, following "Escape From Shit Mountain".
* The exteriors were filmed six months after the rest of the episode in Laughlin Nevada.
* Guest star Adrien Brody previously worked with Rian Johnson in his film The Brothers Bloom.
* Guest star Dascha Polanco and star Natasha Lyonne previously worked together on the series *Orange Is the New Black*.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Rian Johnson's Twitter thread about the episode.