In the first episode of Poker Face Season 2, we saw that Charlie was on the run from Beatrix, causing her to switch jobs and jump from town to town. Eventually, she landed a position at an apple orchard, where she befriended one of the former stars of Kid Cop Night, Delia, with the other stars being her identical siblings, Cece, Bebe, and Amber. When news of their mother Norma’s death reached Delia, she took Charlie to her house because she didn’t want to deal with her sisters on her own. Of course, it wasn’t a simple wake, as Amber had killed their secret fifth sister, Felicity, and assumed her identity (because they all looked alike) after learning that Norma had made Felicity her sole inheritor. After a lot of trickery, Charlie obviously figured out that Amber was lying and had her arrested. The inheritance money was divided amongst the remaining members of the family, thereby allowing them to finally live comfortably. Delia even invited Charlie to become her roommate, but with Beatrix’s men on her tail, Charlie had to hit the road again. The second episode of Poker Face Season 2 brings her to the doorstep of funeral home owner Fred Finch and his wife, Greta.
Spoiler Alert
Fred Kills Greta
Episode 2 of Poker Face Season 2 opens at the Finch and Sons Funeral Home, where a movie is being shot. While Fred, the current owner of the establishment, is busy preparing the corpse of a member of the Hoppenstammer family, his wife, Greta, is enthusiastically interacting with the film’s crew, especially the make-up department. That’s because Greta loves being around people who are alive, while Fred loves the dead. But since the dead don’t exactly pay that well, Greta has convinced Fred to allow this production to use the house, as they’ll pay the Finches handsomely when they have wrapped up filming. Unfortunately, Greta fails to strike a balance between enjoying what the crew is doing and remembering her duties as Fred’s colleague, and she forgets to inform the Hoppenstammers that their grandmother’s funeral has been delayed. This leads to a big verbal battle between Fred and Greta, which leads to Greta announcing that she wants to divorce him, take her half of the money (from the inheritance), and go away with the film crew to pursue her dreams of being a professional makeup artist. To that, Fred says that they should have a baby because that’ll solve everything; Giancarlo Esposito’s delivery is obviously amazing, but Katie Holmes’ reaction to Fred’s proposal is really funny. It’s clear that Greta has sacrificed years of her life to support Fred’s family business, but she doesn’t want to anymore.
Instead of reciprocating Greta’s contribution to his life, Fred chooses to use the set where a murder scene is being shot to kill her. After cremating her body, Fred drops the remains that don’t turn to ashes in the prop urn, which is then carried away by the crew when they are cleaning up the funeral home since the shoot is over, and integrates the rest of Greta’s ashes into a custom vinyl record of Santo and Johnny’s “Sleep Walk.” It’s a service that Finch and Sons Funeral Home offers where they incorporate the deceased’s remains into an item of the family’s choosing, thereby allowing them to keep the dearly departed close to them in an aesthetically pleasing way. In addition to all that, Fred makes it seem like Greta has left him and gone to Miami with the film crew. On the surface, it looks like a perfect crime because all the evidence of Greta’s murder has been essentially erased, and Fred will get to honor his family’s legacy for as long as he is alive. However, little does Fred know that the human lie detector, Charlie, befriended Greta before she died, and she won’t stop until she gets to the bottom of her mysterious disappearance.
Charlie Is Skeptical About Fred
While getting batteries for her e-cigarette, a member of the aforementioned film crew spots Charlie’s iconic Plymouth Barracuda and asks if it can be rented because they are in need of what’s called a “picture car.” When you are making a period piece or any movie or show that involves items that have gone obsolete, you can do three things: make them from scratch by looking at reference photos, buy vintage stuff, or rent them for a while. Building something from scratch is expensive, and so is buying from a vintage car dealership. Renting old stuff that is in use gives it the lived-in, organic look, and also, it’s cheap. Apologies for the tangent on this small detail. Since Charlie is always low on cash, of course she accepts the deal, and that’s how she ends up at Finch and Sons Funeral Home. In addition to getting paid for her car, she also gets to play a corpse. By the way, in the opening scene where a photojournalist is documenting a murder, you must’ve noticed some mysterious smoke emanating from the casket behind which the girl is hiding. The way it’s contextualized as Charlie smoking her vape is hilarious. Anyway, during lunchtime, Charlie meets Greta and then immediately hits it off as the former greatly empathizes with the latter’s awful marriage life.
By the way, Fred marrying Greta after her parents died in a traffic collision is all kinds of creepy. I mean, Greta came to Fred’s funeral home to cremate her parents, and Fred used her vulnerable emotional state to trap her. And given the two characters’ age gap, their relationship seems all the more inappropriate. However, it’s only after conversing and partying with people from the film crew and Charlie that Greta realizes that her life isn’t over and she should live it to the fullest. Charlie likes Greta so much that she promises to personally drive her all the way to Miami and help her make a fresh start. Unfortunately, that never comes to pass, as Greta is killed by Fred. When Charlie confronts Fred about Greta’s disappearance, he says that his wife has probably “left with the film crew,” which is technically true because her remains—barring the stuff in the vinyl—have actually departed with the production. Hence, Charlie fails to see through that lie. However, since Charlie sees that Fred can’t say anything concrete about Greta, and she is miffed about the fact that Greta didn’t ride with her to Miami, she continues to dig into the matter.
Fred Is Dead
At the end of Poker Face Season 2, Episode 2, Charlie, along with the guy who hired her for her car, Tommy or Tony (I couldn’t quite catch his name properly due to the absence of subtitles), breaks into Fred’s house to look for evidence regarding Greta’s disappearance. While trying to avoid getting caught by Fred, Charlie hides in an open casket and notices a tiny drop of blood on one of the bulbs in the lamp on the ceiling. When Fred catches Charlie red-handed roaming around his house, he demands that she justify her presence there even though he specifically told her to stay out of the building until she found somebody to cremate. So, Charlie explains her theory on why she thinks that Fred has murdered Greta, which is absolutely correct because she is really good at this. However, her conjecture falls apart when her partner-in-crime reveals that he has just received a text from Greta saying that she is having a gala time in Miami. So, Charlie has no option but to apologize profusely to Fred and leave.
That said, on her way out, Charlie hears Greta’s phone ringing inside Fred’s desk, and she realizes that that last text wasn’t from Greta but from Fred, who was pretending to be Greta. Unfortunately, before Charlie can act on this, Fred knocks her out, puts her in a casket, and prepares her to be cremated. Thankfully, just when she is about to be burned alive, Charlie regains consciousness, escapes from her confines, and triggers an explosion by throwing her vape into the electronic furnace. As the funeral home goes up in flames, Charlie tries to get out of there, as does Fred. Since Fred chooses to burn with his beloved abode, Charlie lets him be and gets in her car with the intention of leaving the place in her rearview mirror. That’s when she is ambushed by none other than Beatrix, who holds her at gunpoint and forces her to drive to the place where she has to act as her personal lie detector, and Charlie has no option but to comply. The shot of the burning funeral home, the moon in the sky, and Charlie’s Plymouth Barracuda is oddly haunting and beautiful. It’s quite fitting for Fred to go down like that, but it also makes you think how different his and Greta’s lives could have been. Both of them were clearly talented, and yet, Fred chose to drag both of them down into the underworld. And for what? Legacy? That’s all gone as well. So, folks, don’t marry when you are grieving, and don’t hold your partner back when you clearly know they are talented; it’s all going to end badly one day or the other.
