In the sixth episode of “Poker Face,” we see Charlie visiting another town and solving yet another mystery. This time, she found herself working for a man named Phil in a theater where the play, “Ghosts of Pensacola,” was going to be performed by the same actors who had done it 30 years earlier. It was supposed to be a houseful show, but an unexpected tragedy struck, and an innocent person lost her life. People saw it as an accident, but Charlie knew that it was not the complete truth. So, let’s see if Charlie is able to solve the mystery and find evidence to incriminate the perpetrator.
Spoilers Ahead
What Was Michael And Kathleen’s Plan?
Michael Grave and Kathleen Townsend had once worked together on a TV show called ‘Spooky and the Cop’, but things went sour between them over time. Michael married a successful entrepreneur named Ava, which improved his financial health, and he could afford a swanky lifestyle that was otherwise just a dream. One day, surprisingly, Kathleen came to visit him and seeing the ostentatious villa, she presumed that Ava must have had family money because she knew that Michael was not so well off. Michael told her that, contrary to her beliefs, Ava was a self-made woman who had founded an online discount brokerage for women called ‘She Trade’.
Kathleen and Michael hadn’t talked for three years, and Michael knew for sure that Kathleen desperately needed something from him; otherwise, she wouldn’t have made an effort to come all the way to meet him. Kathleen told Michael that they had performed “The Ghosts of Pensacola” together 30 years before, and she wanted to do it again with him. She told Michael that there were people with deep pockets who wanted them to collaborate once again and were also fans of their show, ‘The Spooky and the Cop’. That theater play had earned some of the best reviews ever, and Kathleen wanted to prove to the world that she still had flair left in her. She wanted to create the same magic they had created 30 years ago. She said that she was fed up with playing stereotypical roles as she was aging and there was a lack of diversity in characters that were being offered to her. She tried to convince Michael in every way possible, but he was stubborn, and just didn’t want to work with her. An infuriated Kathleen stomped out of the mansion, cursing both Michael and Ava.
After Kathleen left, Ava told Michael that maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to work with Kathleen once again. She told her husband that she knew how he craved to be in the limelight at times and that doing a play, which was loved by so many people, could get him that. Michael bought into it and started going to rehearsals. In reality, neither of them was telling the truth, and their intentions weren’t as noble as they were portraying. Ava was lying when she said that she wanted Michael to do the play for fame. She actually wanted him to get so frustrated while working with Kathleen that he would stop dreaming of taking up any acting jobs in the future. Kathleen and Michael, on the other hand, had something more sinister on their minds.
Kathleen and Michael fought throughout the practice runs, and even on the main day, they couldn’t resist that impulse. During the play, Kathleen had to fall from a shaft, and the stage manager, Phil, took all the necessary precautions so that the stunt could be performed safely. He had placed a mattress just beneath the shaft, and it had been tried a few times in the trial runs. On the main day, when the third actor, Rebecca, was giving her monologue, Michael went downstairs, removed the lid of the shaft, and replaced it with a cylindrical piece of dry ice. He removed the mattress and quietly came back up on stage.
Meanwhile, Kathleen went upstairs to loosen the bolt on one of the hanging lights and then came back and took her position quietly. Strangely, their mics were on during this time, and they were constantly speaking over them as if they were in front of each other and having an argument. When Michael returned to the stage and began speaking his lines, the light fell just beside him. At this point in time, it felt like both Kathleen and Michael were trying to kill each other, but that was not the case, as they were conspiring to kill a third person. When the light fell near Michael, Ava came running on stage, and she stepped over the shaft, which opened instantly as it was not bolted, and she fell down. Ava died on the spot, and Phil was accused of being negligent and passing out while on duty.
‘Poker Face’ Episode 6: Ending Explained: How Did Charlie Find Out That Michael And Kathleen Were The Real Culprits?
Kathleen and Michael met backstage in the green room, and that’s when we learned that they had plotted to kill Ava together so that they could inherit her empire and spent the rest of their lives together. Rebecca learned about it when she discovered that the argument that they were having was actually a conversation taken from an episode of season 6 of The Spooky and the Cop. She realized that they had that argument on the mic so that they could cover up the murder, and she threatened them to give her 5 million dollars to keep her mouth shut. Meanwhile, Charlie, who had been working in the theater itself, had started snooping around. She found that there were a lot of coincidences that had led to the accidental death of Ava. Charlie was the kind of woman who didn’t trust in coincidences, and that is why she felt that something was not adding up.
Meanwhile, Phil was drowning in guilt, convinced that Ava had died because he had passed out that day after drinking since the morning. Charlie, like any reasonable person, first thought that Kathleen was the target, and she went and informed her about it. Charlie noticed that Kathleen’s response was very odd, and that is why she started looking into the details once again in the hope of finding some evidence. She noticed that on the day of the accident, smoke was coming out of the shaft, so she went and checked the box in which the dry ice was kept. She held a piece of dry ice in her hand, and it was then that she realized that it caused a burning sensation and often left a mark. Later that day, she saw a similar burn mark on Michael’s hand, and she realized that it was he who had unbolted the shaft. She went to check the light area and found a piece of fabric that was attached to Kathleen’s shoe, and she knew instantly that she had misjudged the situation completely. She came down, and she tried to inform Rebecca about the situation, when it dawned on her that all three of them were part of it.
In the 6th episode of the series, “Poker Face,” we saw that Charlie had a plan in mind, and she placed a microphone in the green room, knowing that Michael and Kathleen would say something that would incriminate them. They confessed to their crimes unknowingly, and the police came to arrest them. Kathleen was an actor, and she knew that everything in the world could be used as inspiration. She knew that they had signed their own death warrant and doom was inevitable, and that’s why she told Michael that they should use it as inspiration and put on a performance that the people present would remember for an entire lifetime. Charlie had a knack for knowing when somebody lied, and that day, seeing them perform, she knew that their grief was real. Kathleen moved everybody with her monologue and then intentionally jumped off the shaft, which in all probability, ended her life as she didn’t want to be caught and end up in prison.
In the upcoming episodes of “Poker Face,” we will see Charlie solving many more mysteries and helping the victims get justice wherever she goes. We won’t deny that the entire pattern is becoming a bit mundane, and is not able to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. The template would have still worked if the identity of the accused had been concealed until the end of the episode, like in a whodunit. We hope that the makers break the pattern and bring some element of surprise in the upcoming episodes, as otherwise, they would lose out on the entertaining buildup that they had been able to create in the beginning of the series.
