One cameo in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery might have secretly set up Rian Johnson's upcoming series, Poker Face. The sequel to Rian Johnson's 2019 hit Knives Out released with a one-week limited theatrical run on November 23, 2022, before streaming on Netflix on December 23, quickly receiving critical acclaim for its innovative and original storytelling, with Daniel Craig's performance as private investigator Benoit Blanc being praised. Set during the COVID-19 pandemic, Glass Onion sees Blanc caught up in a tech billionaire's murder mystery party that soon takes a dark turn, starring the likes of Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, and Kate Hudson.
Rian Johnson seems to have perfected his design of intricate and complex stories with the Knives Out movies, featuring all-star ensemble casts in wildly different mysteries, with the captivating Benoit Blanc always at the center. Johnson will soon be putting these skills to the test with a new series, Poker Face, set to be released on Peacock in January 2023, just weeks after Glass Onion's Netflix debut. Poker Face will see Russian Doll star Natasha Lyonne portray Charlie Cale, a casino worker with the remarkable ability to know when people are lying, who solves mysteries in a case-of-the-week format. Now, Johnson has seemingly connected the Knives Out franchise with his upcoming project, thanks to one Glass Onion cameo.
Natasha Lyonne's Glass Onion Cameo Sets Up Poker Face
Rian Johnson chose to acknowledge the COVID-19 pandemic in Glass Onion, which sees Benoit Blanc confined to the comfort of his bathtub during the lockdown, in which he remotely plays video games with a group of friends via video calls. He is shown playing Among Us in a scene that features a few of the many cameos in Glass Onion. These include a posthumous appearance of acclaimed composer and lyricist Steven Sondheim, former NBA player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the late Murder, She Wrote star Angela Lansbury, and Orange is the New Black's Natasha Lyonne. The latter is set to star in Johnson's Poker Face.
The appearance of Lyonne among these other legendary figures was curious, though, in an interview, Johnson revealed that Lyonne's Glass Onion cameo connects to Poker Face. Johnson confirmed Lyonne is playing a version of herself in Glass Onion, adding, "she’s in hair and makeup as Charlie in her trailer in between setups on the set on the set of 'Poker Face.'" Lyonne will portray an amateur detective in Poker Face who goes on the run and comes face-to-face with some famous faces, including the likes of Jameela Jamil, Tim Blake Nelson, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Are Glass Onion & Poker Face In The Same Universe?
Though Glass Onion and Poker Face exist in the same universe, it's not in the way some viewers may expect. While there could be interest to see Lyonne's Charlie team up with Benoit someday, Johnson clarified that "in the world of ‘Glass Onion,’ ‘Poker Face’ is a show that his friend Natasha is shooting." Therefore, Poker Face and all of its characters are entirely fictional in the Knives Out universe, but that doesn't mean meta connections can't be made to the Peacock series, especially if Benoit becomes a big Poker Face fan to support his friend, Natasha Lyonne. While Rian Johnson sets to work on Knives Out 3, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and Poker Face will continue to prove the filmmaker's dominance of the whodunnit genre.