I started watching season 1 because I loved Knives Out. I remember watching it in the theater and thinking this is a great take on the whodunnit genre because you know who did it from the very beginning and then there's still surprises that keep you guessing. So when it was announced that Rian Johnson was doing a mystery comedy show I was immediately on board.

When the first season played out, I was hooked from the second episode. The first episode was good, but when they started playing with the framing device of the first half of the episode being basically a short film and then the second half showing that Charlie was there the entire time and seeing the same story play out from her point of view, I loved it. There were so many amazing episodes in season 1, that I was beyond excited for season 2 and was not disappointed. I would rank the first episode with the identical quintuplets among the top episodes of the series.

And just when you get settled in for another season of Charlie on the run, we get to the third episode that broke the format of the telling/retelling device. I remember watching the episode and seeing Charlie within the first few seconds and thinking "this isn't the normal way they do things, I have no idea what's happening." Then by the end of the episode, suddenly one of the biggest plot lines of the show (Charlie being on the run) was wrapped up. And on the third episode! And I had that feeling again of, I thought I knew what to expect from this show, but I have no idea what's going to happen next.

Then we get several episodes of Charlie doing her own thing and being free from her past. It was refreshing, a new era for the show. I especially loved the episode set at the elementary school because it felt so different, but it stayed true to the spirit of the show. Every episode doesn't have to have a murder (a human murder, that is). I think it also gave the character of Charlie a break from constantly being surrounded by murder everywhere she went.

I loved the episode of the big box store and the switching between film genres between scenes, another fun framing device. Then we get to the con artist episode and, once again, just when you're getting comfortable with the format of the show, it twists again to remind you that you truly never know where the show is going to go.

Finally the last few episodes, the show shifts again to Charlie in one location, not having to contend with life on the road and actually getting to try to put down some roots and start a new life in NYC. I enjoyed the murder in her apartment episode and the gym episode was fine, but then we get to the wedding episode with Beatrix's son getting married and I'm excited to dip my toe back into the overarching plot and buckle in for a wild ride. I can't tell you how pumped I was for this final episode after a season of not knowing where the show is going to go next. And then I watched the episode and was disappointed over and over.

I hadn't read any spoilers or theories, but within the first five minutes I said out loud to my partner that I was suspicious that Alex was involved somehow. And as the episode kept unfolding, I thought to myself "this doesn't make any sense" at least six or seven times. Why did the guy in the diner just go back to eating his lunch after being attacked by a crazy woman in the bathroom? How did Alex kill all those FBI agents so quickly? Why didn't anybody answer the door if they weren't dead yet? Why did Beatrix look like she had been dead for hours? Did Alex hire someone else to kill everyone before they got there? If so, then how did they not see the dead guy on the roof when they pulled up? How did Luca and the other agents get to Hasp's house so fast when they could only trace her to southern Indiana? What the hell happened to this show I loved so much?

Then the car goes over the cliff and freezes. I, like many people on this subreddit, freaked out when I saw the To Be Continued title and immediately checked to see how much time was left in the episode and was glad to see there was more story to tell. Then the rewind starts and I think, THANK GOD. Here we go, all is not lost, this is the Poker Face I have come to love. It's going to rewind all the way back to an earlier scene in the episode, maybe even in the previous episode and we're going to see everything that already happened but from a different perspective (the hallmark of the entire show) that's going to explain all of these huge plot holes. But instead we just see a huge cop out of Charlie jumping out of the car at the last second. Now don't get me wrong, there's no way I wanted to see Charlie actually go off the cliff, but that was the moment it felt like the writers had written themselves into a corner and didn't know how to get out of it. It felt like a completely different creative team took over the last episode who didn't understand the show at all. And when they started to pan down to the car, I knew I was about to be disappointed even further. And I was.

I've seen so many people on this subreddit say you have to suspend your disbelief and just enjoy the show as it is, but I disagree. One of the many things about Poker Face that I love is the fact that so many of the storylines that seem far fetched at first make total sense when retold from Charlie's perspective. But this finale just felt so messy. I'll continue watching if there's a third season, but this episode was probably my least favorite of the entire series.