The Taste of Human Blood
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Episode 4
- "I'm Moving Along" by Patsy Cline
| "The Taste of Human Blood" | |
|---|---|
| Poker Face episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 4 |
| Directed by | Lucky McKee |
| Written by | Wyatt Cain |
| Featured music | "Thank a Beer Drinker" by Eddie Montgomery & Montgomery Gentry
|
| Cinematography by | Christine Ng |
| Editing by | Glenn Garland |
| Original air date | May 15, 2025 |
| Running time | 51 minutes |
| Guest appearances | |
| |
"The Taste of Human Blood" is the fourth episode of the second season of the American murder mystery comedy-drama television series Poker Face. It is the fourteenth overall episode of the series and was written by producer Wyatt Cain, and directed by Lucky McKee. It was released on Peacock on May 15, 2025.[1]
The series follows Charlie Cale, a woman with the ability to detect if people are lying, who is now embarking on a fresh start after criminal boss Beatrix Hasp cancels a hit on her. In the episode, Charlie stays in Florida to help volunteers from an alligator sanctuary to release an exploited alligator from her social media-obsessed owner. When the gator is accused of killing the owner, Charlie sets out to find the truth.
The episode received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its humor and performances, although some were mixed over the episode's tone and plot conveniences.
In 2019, Florida police officer Fran LaMont (Gaby Hoffmann) is informed by Chief Hal Pendleton (John Sayles) that she has been nominated for Cop of the Year at the annual Florida Panhandle Cop Awards, or "FlopaCopa". Fran is indifferent, but Chief Hal encourages her to attend the ceremony, as it would benefit the precinct. At the ceremony, hosted by Matt Passmore, Fran loses the award to Officer Joseph Pilson (Kumail Nanjiani), who adopted a baby alligator rescued from a meth dealer.
Six years later, Joe has won the same award in all the ceremonies since and grown popular on social media as "Gator Joe", while Fran has grown increasingly frustrated by her many losses. Before the upcoming ceremony, Fran discovers that Joe has won again. Joe walks in to find her crying and gloats over his many victories. Incensed, Fran slips cisapride into Joe's power juice to induce severe diarrhea during the ceremony, but Joe collapses and dies from an overdose. She releases his alligator Daisy, giving her crystal meth to get her to maul Joe's corpse. Soon afterwards, the police find his body.
A few days prior, Charlie (Natasha Lyonne) is debating where to go next now that she is no longer on the run. Over CB radio, she talks with a man known as "Good Buddy" (Steve Buscemi), who motivates her to find a new "beginning" for her life. At an alligator sanctuary, she befriends one of the workers, Hutch (Shiloh Fernandez), who convinces Charlie to help his group liberate animals like Daisy. They infiltrate FlopaCopa and send Charlie to get Daisy from Joe's room. Unable to move her, Charlie leaves to steal Oreos from a storage room but returns to find Daisy gone. An officer begins screaming that Daisy killed Joe.
Police authorities surround the bathroom and plan to kill Daisy. A suspicious Charlie finds a trail of Oreos on the floor and the lock on the cage untied, indicating human involvement. Hutch's team leaves, since Daisy has tasted human blood and can no longer be saved. Fran learns that Joe posted a TikTok of their last conversation in the trophy room and deduces he had cameras in his glasses, which were swallowed by Daisy. When the police enter the room, they find that Daisy has escaped through the vents. Consulting pictures from the photo op with many bags of meth, Charlie realizes Daisy was drugged. She locates Daisy in the storage room eating Oreos. Bursting in, Fran agrees to help sneak Daisy out of the building.
While driving to a swamp, Charlie realizes that Fran is lying and stops her before she can shoot Daisy. Charlie remarks that she saw Joe running to the bathroom due to laxatives, which makes no sense as he knew he was going to win the award in a few minutes. She tells Fran to look in Daisy's eyes and understand her gentle nature. They free Daisy, who defecates the glasses. Fran confesses her crime to Chief Hal, who decides to bury it as it is "the most Florida Man shit of all time" and no judge would believe it. Nonetheless, Fran resigns to work at the gator sanctuary. Before leaving, Charlie exchanges one last look with Daisy, though she flees when Daisy appears to be drawn to her blood.
Production
Development
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 producer Wyatt Cain, and directed by Lucky McKee. This was Cain's fourth writing credit, and McKee's second directing credit for the show.[3]
Casting
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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 Kumail Nanjiani and Gaby Hoffmann, who were announced to guest star in July 2024.[6] The episode also includes an off-screen guest appearance by Steve Buscemi, who voices the character "Good Buddy" on the radio.[7] Lyone and Buscemi previously worked on the latter's directed-film Animal Factory, although Lyonne had her scene cut from the film. Originally, Buscemi was approached to direct an episode for the second season; while he had scheduling conflicts, he agreed to voice "Good Buddy" on the episode. Showrunner Tony Tost said that the character was inspired by the films Smokey and the Bandit and Every Which Way but Loose, and Rian Johnson suggested that the casting should "go where we're not expecting, with Steve Buscemi, kind of a consummate New Yorker, as this trucker."[8]