Rian Johnson breaks down 'Poker Face' Season 2's killer Stephen Sondheim references

I love that every episode you have that turn where you get to see Charlie becoming friends and like making all those human connections

It's fun because it, you know, it's a mystery show. But one of the things that I'm happy is built into the DNA of it is Charlie's not a cop

It's not her job to solve these crimes. So we have to find a relationship based motivation for her to want to get involved every week

that means that forces you to to find a relationship and to forge that over the course of it it's

necessary for the mystery um which is a great thing in the writer's room it kind of keeps you

honest and keeps it character based um and yeah and this season i mean with all the guest stars

we have i mean i love every single episode i love seeing her play off shot cat in one of the later

episodes and aquafina they're all in the same episode and they all know each other obviously

and our friends and you can just see them having so much fun playing this kind of delicious devious

triangle energy off each other it's really cool i want to know everything there is to know about you

oh yeah sure you don't mean that but uh flattered nonetheless this car this is she's a beauty i'm really really loving the the steven sondheim references

in episode three. Oh my God. Especially since Sondheim you know had that brief cameo in Glass Onion Can you tell me a bit about bringing his work into Poker Face and the impact he has on all the the Rian Johnson whodunnits Well he one of my you know he one of my favorite artists of all time But he also

has a real connection to the murder mystery genre. He was a confirmed murder mystery and puzzle nut

And he actually he wrote a play that was a murder mystery. And he also co-wrote The Last of Sheila

which Glass Onion drew a lot of inspiration from. So he has a lot of connection to the genre

And I, besides just being generally inspired by him constantly, I'll sneak him in anywhere I can in terms of reference

I also love that this episode has Richard Kind, who's worked with him and also John Mulaney

who with Richard Kind, they're both involved in the documentary now, company cast recording spoof

So I want to know, yeah, did you bring them in just for the Sondheim of it all? No, it was kind of a happy accident

I mean, Mulaney was one of the few people who in the writer's room, we were like, okay, we don't know if we can get him, but let's write this character as if we can

And so I think the Sondheim references maybe grew out of that

Also, Wyatt Cain, who wrote that episode, knows my love of Sondheim and shares it

And so I think Wyatt was just excited. But yeah, there's a scene in episode three that involves lip reading and Simon and Richard having a conversation

It's one of my favorite scenes in the entire series. It makes me very happy