Ever since "The Pitt" premiered in January, the Max medical drama has been held up as an example of how streaming services can embrace the lost art of the procedural. Four months later, reinforcements have arrived in the informal campaign to preserve classical TV structure.

As Poker Face returns with a new batch of even-more-self-contained mysteries for Natasha Lyonne's Charlie Cale to solve, Johnson talks Columbo, the whodunit vs. the “howcatchem,” and how Steven Sondheim influenced the next Knives Out movie.

For Rian Johnson, the fun of Poker Face season 2 was figuring out how to give its lie-detecting lead new relationships.