Poker Face
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This series has a gift for identifying and excavating the gloomiest corners of American life.
There are few milieu more depressing and less sympathetic than the plight of the once and almost famous.
He has no sense of chill or hygiene, but he has his own equipment and thats enough.
The act is in shambles anyway.
Guitarist Al played by John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats can only write awful screeds about his awful divorce.
Eskie (G.K. Umeh) moved back in with his mom to afford online law school.
But Ruby doesnt want to die a sad nostalgia act.
She wants to be electric again.
Next time this year, she wants Krampus, a shitty new band, to be opening for Doxxxology.
They were metal gods once; they can be metal gods again.
Gavin, however, is just along for the ride.
The band rigs his amp to electrocute him while theyre performing live onstage.
Smoke slowly escapes Gavins dead lips.
Motive, means, opportunity.
Check, check, check.
They burn Gavins original copy.
If theyre at all worried hes played it for anyone else, they dont mention that aloud.
Which brings us to how Charlie slots into the broader picture.
A few days before Gavins death, Ruby hired her to come along on tour as a merch girlslashroadie.
(Find a side hustle that pays cash, Marge once told her.)
Or at least she wants to.
She wants to see the good in people, even a barefoot slop honus like Gav.
Shes on hand when he puts his bare foot to his booby-trapped pedal.
Shes watching when he dies.
Charlies always nearby when death is.
Single-serve ketchup, a french fry sleeve.
Gavin collected the words to Sucker Punch like he was populating the landfill of his own mind.
This one tune could save Doxxxology from another 40 years of mediocrity.
Still, Charlie cant drop it.
Its one of those moments where everything becomes clear at once.
Also, hes been singing a new song hes writing called You Cant Un-murder Someone.
Before she can right this particular wrong, though, Cliff turns up at the show.
The stone-cold professional whose lifes work is to track and apprehend Charlie?
By the time she learns shes famous for the day, her four hours are up.
They get a small taste of the good life.
And it turns out their downfall was overdetermined.
Turns out Gavin didnt so much write the music to Sucker Punch but borrow it from theBensontheme tune.
And Charlies learning new tricks, too.
But about this development Im of two minds.
Ruby wont just go down for Gavins murder, shell become famous for it.
