May 09, 2025

What to stream: 'Poker Face,' 'Black Bag,' 'Train to Busan'

The Fred Astaire-Cyd Charisse musical 'The Band Wagon' is also new to Max.

By Kristin Hunt
PhillyVoice Staff

Screenshot/YouTube/Peacock

Natasha Lyonne returns as amateur detective Charlie Cale in Season 2 of 'Poker Face.' The first three episodes are now streaming on Peacock.

The raspiest voice on television returned to Peacock this week.

Natasha Lyonne's amateur sleuth is solving new murders in Season 2 of "Poker Face," which began streaming Thursday. The detective show promises another stacked guest-star slate, including John Mulaney, Rhea Perlman, Method Man and Cynthia Erivo, who plays about half the cast in the season premiere.

There's mystery afoot in "Black Bag," too. The 2025 thriller about a pair of married spies leapt from theaters to streamers earlier this month. Viewers craving something a bit older can catch the 1950s musical "The Band Wagon" on Max, or enjoy a budding genre classic, of the foreign horror variety, on Netflix.

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'Poker Face'

Human lie detector Charlie Cale stumbles her way into a new pile of cases on the second season of "Poker Face."

The Peacock detective show, like "Columbo" before it, starts each episode with the actual crime and then watches its heroine (Natasha Lyonne) put the pieces together. Since Charlie is a wisecracking transient on the run from the mob, the characters and circumstances change constantly. But her ability to tell when someone's lying – which she neither understands nor cares to comprehend – never wavers.

The latest season starts with a bonkers premise: The quadruplet child stars of a hit cop show are all grown up, and their horrible stage mother is on her deathbed. A last-minute revision to her will reveals a fifth sister and new complication to the inheritance. All of the siblings are played by "Wicked" star Cynthia Erivo, taking the pop culture twin trend to wacky new heights. Her premiere episode and two more are available now on Peacock, with new installments dropping Thursdays.

'Black Bag'

Also new to Peacock is "Black Bag," the spy thriller that played theaters earlier this year. The title is a frequent phrase in the household of married couple George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn St. James (Cate Blanchett); they're both British intelligence agents, so they invoke "black bag" when they can't discuss a work project. But that separation of work and home life gets more complicated when George's superiors ask him to investigate a leak – and Kathryn is one of the suspects.

For a spy movie, "Black Bag" is fairly bloodless. Instead, the sparring is mostly verbal. George's investigation draws in two additional couples from work, sowing mistrust and paranoia in each partnership. What begins as a specific question – can you trust someone who deals in deception for a living? – becomes a much broader probe into relationships and marriage. It's a pretty fun puzzle, bookended by two dinner parties from hell.

'Train to Busan'

We've had zombies in a mall ("Dawn of the Dead"), a British pub ("Shaun of the Dead") and an abandoned amusement park ("Zombieland"). It was only a matter of time before the undead boarded a train and, unfortunately for the passengers of the KTX high-speed rail, it's theirs.

In "Train to Busan," the 2016 South Korean horror film that spawned a franchise, the infection spreads soon after the doors close in Seoul. A group of survivors led by divorced dad Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) and his daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an) try to outmaneuver the growing horde of zombies, even as the situation worsens across train cars and station stops. Will they make it to Su-an's mom in Busan? Stream the movie on Netflix to find out.

'The Band Wagon'

Craving a classic musical? One of Fred Astaire's best, "The Band Wagon," is on Max as of May.

The 1953 movie pairs him with Cyd Charisse, the actress best known for catching Gene Kelly's hat with her foot in that fever dream sequence from "Singin' in the Rain." This time, she's a classically trained ballerina, and Astaire's a song-and-dance man looking for his next Broadway hit. They clash in all the predictable ways – she thinks he's a hack, he thinks she's a snob – while coming together on a new production.

As with all the great MGM musicals, you don't have to know much more than that. "The Band Wagon" features some all-timer numbers, including a murder mystery ballet that inspired Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" music video. (Maybe that's why the sequence syncs so perfectly to his song.)