In 2011, a group of thieves stole more than $18 million worth of maple syrup from Quebec’s strategic reserves, and that daring crime serves as the basis for The Sticky. Nonetheless, Prime Video’s six-part series, premiering Dec. 6, states upfront that it is “absolutely not the true story of the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist”—rather, it’s an imaginative comedic take on the robbery.
If never laugh-out-loud funny, Brian Donovan and Ed Herro’s show is a quirky and spirited lark that maintains a requisite degree of suspense and silliness throughout its brief maiden season. Moreover, in the dependably great Margo Martindale, it boasts a lead actress capable of making even the craziest and goofiest of scenarios believable.
In a work shed, two police officers responding to a disturbance find a dead body in a giant barrel of syrup. This individual is Orval Steeks (Jason Cavalier), although before we can learn about him, The Sticky leaps backwards 48 hours to fixate on Ruth Clarke (Martindale), who learns from a visiting official that her maple syrup business is being shut down due to her being an “unlicensed operator”—the byproduct of the fact that Ruth’s farm is technically in the name of her husband Martin (Joseph Bellerose), and he’s presently in a coma and being tended to by his wife in their home.
This is merely the newest reason for Ruth to loathe Leonard Gauthier (Guy Nadon), who runs the Quebec Maple Association, and whom just about every farmer detests for being a predatory, untrustworthy cretin. The only person that likes Leonard is his son Leo (Mickaël Gouin), and even he eventually comes around to seeing that his pop is a jerk and a crook.
When a trip to Leonard’s office results in more hostility, Ruth cuts down one of her trees, chains it to the back of her truck, and swings it into the front door of the Quebec Maple Association. This is personally satisfying to Ruth but it doesn’t remedy her dire need for money, and her only options become increasingly low-ball offers for her property from Leonard.
At the same time, security guard Remy (Guillaume Cyr), who’s Leo’s friend, fails to convince Leonard to increase his staff; instead, he’s rudely disparaged and dismissed by his boss. Remy is infuriated, and since he’s already working with Orval to steal a barrel of syrup a month from the warehouse he guards—all by himself, and without the aid of cameras—this latest snub motivates him to begin thinking bigger.
Providence smiles upon Remy when he’s out to birthday dinner with his dad and, in the bathroom, he overhears local hood Mike (Chris Diamantopoulos) talking to his Boston crime-boss compatriots. Seizing the day, he proposes to Mike a grand syrup heist that can be accomplished in three nights and net them a fortune.
Despite presenting himself as a somebody, Mike is really just a bagman and errand boy for his superiors, with his main job being to diligently tend to his godfather’s favorite plant. Thus, he sees Remy’s plan as a means of establishing himself as a legitimate player. Given that Mike was also very close with Martin and is still in close contact with Ruth, he makes her the third member of their crew, and they set about figuring out how to pull off their outlandish theft.
In its blend of the absurd, the amoral, and the downright homicidal, The Sticky has a tone that’s a little bit Coen Brothers, a little bit A Simple Plan, and Martindale frequently holds it together through sheer bravado. Bitter, sarcastic, and pragmatic all at once, her Ruth is a no-nonsense entrepreneur who’s unwilling to back down from bullies and ultimately willing to perpetrate multiple offenses to get what she needs.
Her outsized personality is ideally complemented by Diamantopoulos’ Mike, a shady creep whose psychopathic streak feels like his way of overcompensating for his loserdom, as well as Cyr’s Remy, an oafish man-child who’s eager to gain the respect he’s been denied. Together, they’re a likably ramshackle trio, and while their banter is rarely uproarious, it’s combative enough to keep things lively.
With each of its six installments running no more than 30 minutes, The Sticky wastes little time on inconsequential asides. Still, the introduction of big-city Detective Valérie Nadeau (Suzanne Clément) does little to add to the proceedings, considering that her alternately contentious and warm rapport with Officer Teddy Green (Gita Miller) is largely tangential to the primary action.
Directors Michael Dowse and Joyce Wong don’t over-stylize the series, capturing a sense of their frosty, rugged setting and its colorful inhabitants with straightforward proficiency. Donovan and Herro’s show is pleasurably snappy, full of unexpected right-turns and detours, including an amusing late appearance from Jamie Lee Curtis (with short black hair, a scar across her cheek, and a walking cane) as a figure from Mike’s past who has little patience for his nonsense but significant interest in his illicit scheme.
The Sticky is somewhat slight and its attempts at setting up a second season are, in light of its seemingly self-contained tale, surprising. Yet it never loses momentum or outstays its welcome, and its humorous characters appear capable of sustaining additional chapters, some of which will undoubtedly concern the fallout from the heist and Mike’s efforts to outrun the nefarious forces hot on his tail.
In the present, however, the series is economical and engaging, as well as farcical without being outright cartoonish; for all its scuffles, freak-outs, and racing about, it maintains at least one foot in reality. Donovan and Herro nail the proper register for an endeavor such as this, and so does their cast, led by Martindale in a wool hat, flannel shirt, big coat, and scarf—an ensemble that’s praised by Curtis’ heavy as “tough farmer aesthetic.”
In a streaming universe of shows stretched to almost laughably thin degrees, The Sticky’s fast-and-loose treatment of its tale—and its true-crime subject matter, which played out very differently than it does here—is a breath of fresh air. Pleasant and unburdened by any delusions of grandeur, it proves the value of telling a wild, off-kilter tale well.
