Peacock
Fans may have been surprised when Peacock canceled the Natasha Lyonne-led mystery series “Poker Face” after two seasons… but Lyonne wasn’t.
“We weren’t shocked!” Lyonne tells The Hollywood Reporter in a new interview about the abrupt end of “Poker Face.” She even terms it “news to some people” since she and co-creator Rian Johnson actuallly crafted the Season 2 finale, which aired on Peacock in July, as a series finale.
Lyonne points out that the finale was titled “The End of the Road”: “That should have been a little clue, folks. We literally threw the car off a cliff!” In the finale, Lyonne’s character Charlie Cale discovered her new friend Alex was actually a secret assassin, and she escaped before Alex drove her beloved Plymouth Barracuda off a cliff. (Check out our finale recap here.)
So why did “Poker Face” fold its cards? As Lyonne explains, she has other ambitions right now: “For me, baby’s gotta direct some movies. I’ve been talking about it long enough.” (She’s also set to write and star in a British sci-fi comedy, “Force & Majeure,” with “What We Do in the Shadows” alum Matt Berry.) But she supports the idea of Peter Dinklage taking over as the star of future “Poker Face” seasons (“Peter is also one of my favorite people of all time”), and she hints she might return as Charlie somewhere down the road: “Rian and I might just come back with a good old-fashioned, made-for-TV movie just like ‘Columbo’ would like to.”
Russian Doll is still alive, too
Netflix
Another of Lyonne’s famous TV roles might come back, too: that of time-loop traveler Nadia in the Netflix series “Russian Doll.” The show hasn’t aired since Season 2 debuted on the streamer in 2022, but Lyonne reveals to THR that an idea for a third season is still percolating in her brain. “Yes. I’m determined to do it” in the style of David Lynch, she says: “‘Fire Walk With Me’ and then ‘Twin Peaks: The Return.’ I’m determined to follow that model. I can’t tell you when I’m going to hit up Netflix. But it’s incoming. It’s in process.”
Lyonne adds that “I’ll have to go in and pitch it, I’m sure. We’ll see if they let me get away with it. But I don’t know if that will be in two years, 10 or 20, or 35.” In other words: Don’t hold your breath.
But it is nice to know that more “Russian Doll” may be on the way. After all, Season 1 hauled in a total of 14 Emmy nominations, including nods for best comedy series and best lead actress in a comedy for Lyonne. Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait 35 years to see it.
Are you hoping for Lyonne to return to “Poker Face” in a “Columbo”-style movie? Or would you rather see her in another season of “Russian Doll”? Let us know in a comment below.
