"Exit Stage Death" is the sixth episode of the American murder mystery comedy-drama television series Poker Face.
After her friend is found dead, Charlie uncovers a plot where the owner's son ordered her murder to protect a powerful client.
Veteran TV actress Kathleen Townsend (Ellen Barkin) arrives at a mansion to visit her former co-star, Michael Graves (Tim Meadows).
Michael has married a younger woman named Ava (Jameela Jamil), who made a fortune by funding SheTrade, an online discount brokerage for women.
Kathleen begs Michael to reunite in a one-night-only performance of The Ghosts of Pensacola at a dinner theater to revitalize her career, and he reluctantly accepts after Ava convinces him.
During the performance, as castmate Rebecca (Audrey Corsa) delivers a monologue, the two stage an argument over their earpieces, overheard by the theatre staff, during which Kathleen rigs a spotlight to fall during the plane effect and Michael sabotages the trapdoor, removing the mat below and replacing the stop on the door with a piece of dry ice.
Before the performance, Rebecca confronts Kathleen and Michael with a script of the argument they had to secure their alibi, which she notes was plagiarized from an episode of Spooky and the Cop.
She also spots a feather from Kathleen's costume in the rafters and listens to the conviction in her voice when professing her love for Michael during the performance, making her realize they conspired to kill Ava.
After she exits, Rebecca (in character) tells Kathleen and Michael that her demands have doubled and they must pay her immediately, prompting them to leave the stage during her monologue.
Johnson stated that the series would delve into "the type of fun, character driven, case-of-the-week mystery goodness I grew up watching.
[4] The episode featured appearances by Ellen Barkin, Tim Meadows, Audrey Corsa and Niall Cunningham, who were announced to guest star in June 2022.
Club gave the episode an "A–" grade and wrote, "Poker Face does an excellent job of making the supporting characters feel lived in.
It's the most crucial yet challenging aspect of the show because the episodes don't open with Lyonne's Charlie Cale — who tends to enter the picture a good 15 to 20 minutes in — but with the killers and their victims.
Instead, it turns out the two Eighties mystery drama co-stars are only pretending to want each other dead so that they can secretly conspire to murder Meadows' wealthy wife.
There's a certain generosity to Poker Face, a show in which the central star is structurally excluded from at least the first third of every episode and, lately, feels like she's disappearing from the script altogether.
"[10] Sarah Fields of Telltale TV gave the episode a 3.5 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "Poker Face continues to play with tropes and subvert expectations in ingenious ways.