The following contains spoilers for episode 4 of Poker Face.Episode 4 of Natasha Lyonne's cozy murder mystery show Poker Face featured some surprisingly addictive heavy metal songs. Series creator Rian Johnson enlisted authentic musical help to make it hit even harder. Except it turns out that the expert isn't even a metal musician. But apparently, that didn't hold him back from writing something genuinely catchy.
The episode in question, titled "Rest in Metal," sends viewers onto the tour bus of one-hit-wonder metal band Doxxology (alongside Chloë Sevigny as lead singer Ruby Ruins), who are desperate to recapture the magic they once felt. Certainly, one of the endless possibilities viewers can expect from Poker Face. After the freelance drummer they hired for their tour writes a song destined to become the next big hit, the rest of the band murders him to ensure the new track's rights will stay with them and bring them back to the top. While the new hit doesn't turn out to be as original as they initially thought, their story and music seen in the episode were, and it was thanks to a genuine rocker.
For the episode, Johnson brought in John Darnielle of the indie rock band the Mountain Goats as a musical consultant and the fictional band's guitarist. Speaking recently with Vulture, Darnielle explained how he ended up on Poker Face, his first acting role. "I had no ambitions in that direction at all, but I've known Rian," he established. "Rian ordered a copy of my zine in the '90s, Last Plane to Jakarta, and he ordered a T-shirt. We only did one run of T-shirts ever, and Rian was a Mountain Goats fan." Johnson and Darnielle were fans of each other, eventually becoming friends, which kicked things off.
He continued, describing how his connection to rock music fan Johnson helped things along. "I was probably bugging him about something and he texted, 'Want to talk to you about this TV show I'm doing with Natasha Lyonne. It's basically Columbo with her as the detective. Doing an episode with a metal band on tour. May seek your musical expertise.' It just sort of spiraled from there." This eventually moved to Darnielle joining the episode as an actor, playing music he'd helped write specifically for the show (along with Jamey Jasta of the band Hatebreed).
This included the band's previous one-hit-wonder "Staplehead" and the less catchy tunes heard in the episode like "Merch Girl" and another that served as a humorous confession played by Darnielle's character, Al. This one allowed him to flex his songwriting chops from his 30+ years (and counting) with the Mountain Goats. "'I'm gonna buy a new guitar/neck inlaid with pearl / to pay my passage to the afterworld,' that was me," Darnielle said, reciting the lyrics he'd written for the scene. "'Crawl up through the afterbirth and wander lonesome on the earth' — if you don't know that’s the Mountain Goats, you don't listen to a lot of Mountain Goats."
This is just one example of the intricate details one can expect in Johnson productions from Looper to Poker Face and beyond. It's clear he and Darnielle put genuine effort and care into crafting the one-off characters and backstory seen in episode 4, and the excellent music just shot it all up from fun to incredible. If this is any indication, viewers have plenty of surprises to look forward to as Poker Face continues.
Poker Face releases new episodes every Thursday on Peacock.
Source: Vulture