Last Looks (Poker Face)

In Yulee, Florida, a film crew is shooting a low-budget horror film set in 1973 at a funeral home. Owner Fred Finch (Giancarlo Esposito) is annoyed by the chaos and that all the lights cause an outage in the morgue. Fred's wife, Greta (Katie Holmes), is thrilled by the film crew's presence, but Fred is incensed to learn that she forgot to inform a family that they had to reschedule a funeral for their grandmother due to the shooting. Greta asks Fred for a divorce so she can move to Miami per a crew member's suggestion. When he suggests having a baby to save their marriage, Greta admits that she has felt trapped since they got married.

After the crew wraps and leaves, Fred lures Greta into the living room, where he kills her. He cremates her body, putting the ashes in an urn. The crew comes in the next day, cleaning up her blood along with the fake blood and taking the urn with them. After the crew leaves, Fred delightedly continues with his activities in the funeral home, turning Greta's remains into a vinyl of "Sleep Walk".

A few days prior, Charlie is approached by location manager Tommy Sullivan (Kevin Corrigan), who asks to use her Barracuda for a film set. Charlie agrees and is also cast as a background corpse in a casket. During a break, she meets Greta, who relates her unhappy marriage and her desire to become a makeup artist. As a woman offers her a job in Miami, Fred pulls her aside for failing to reschedule a funeral. Later, Charlie runs into Fred, who reveals that he earns extra revenue by turning dead people's remains into keepsakes for their loved ones. That night, Charlie gets drunk with Greta and the film crew, then takes her home, promising that they will leave for Miami together in the morning.

The following day, Charlie is told by Fred that Greta left with the rest of the film crew already. Using the crew's call sheet, she arrives at their new location to question her whereabouts. While Tommy is unable to find her, he agrees to help Charlie. They sneak into the funeral home, where Charlie spots blood on a light bulb. As she retrieves it, she is confronted by Fred. Charlie notes that while filming, the bulb would have been protected from blood splatter by a sheet of white silk. She deduces that he killed Greta after she asked for the divorce, and demands that he say that he did not kill her. However, Tommy arrives—Greta had just texted him that she was in Miami.

Fred feigns an emotional breakdown, causing Charlie to apologize and console him. In his office, Fred shows that he keeps deceased family members' remains in different parts of the room. When Charlie goes to the bathroom, she hears Greta's phone ringing and realizes Fred had sent the message when she finds it in a drawer. Fred drugs her and locks her in a casket, planning to cremate her. Charlie tips the casket over to escape and throws her vape cartridge into the fire, causing an explosion that injures Fred and sets the house ablaze. Charlie tries to drag him out, but a devastated Fred refuses to leave his family and Charlie flees alone. As she gets into her car, she is held at gunpoint by Beatrix Hasp (Rhea Perlman), who instructs her to drive.

The series was announced in March 2021, with Rian Johnson serving as creator, writer, director and executive producer. Johnson stated that the series would delve into "the type of fun, character driven, case-of-the-week mystery goodness I grew up watching."^[2] The episode was written by co-executive producer Alice Ju and main lead actress Natasha Lyonne, and directed by Lyonne. This was Ju's third writing credit, Lyonne's second writing credit, and Lyonne's second directing credit for the show.^[3]

The announcement of the series included that Natasha Lyonne would serve as the main lead actress.^[2] She was approached by Johnson about working on a procedural project together, with Lyonne as the lead character.^[4] As Johnson explained, the role was "completely cut to measure for her."^[5]

Due to the series' procedural aspects, the episodes feature several guest stars. Johnson was inspired by the amount of actors who guest starred on Columbo, wanting to deem each guest star as the star of the episode, which allowed them to attract many actors.^[5] The episode featured guest appearances by Giancarlo Esposito, Katie Holmes, Kevin Corrigan, Kathrine Narducci and Sherry Cola, who were announced to guest star in July 2024.^[6][7]

Filming for the episode began on July 1, 2024. While it was the first episode of the season to be filmed, it was the second to air.^[8]