Here is a factual statement for dear readers: Twelve years ago, Canada saw its biggest heist, the “Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist.” If the name brought a hint of amusement to you, along with the usual apprehension one gets from seedy crimes like robberies, then Amazon Prime’s “The Sticky” (season 1) would be the perfect choice for you. The “Fargo”-coded dark comedy, featuring a motley crew of characters portrayed by an equally diverse cast, is maddeningly hilarious and delightfully entertaining. With half-an-hour-a-piece six episodes, the season (which one would hope to be first of, at the very least, two) zooms through its cold crime-drama premise with oddly fitting circumstantial humor and zany dialogues. All signs of a great dark comedy.
The Sticky (Season 1) ‘Prime Video’ Recap:
Introducing the Players: A Battle for Maple Syrup and Redemption
The series opens with a quick but effective introduction of our three main lead characters. Ruth (Margo Martindale) is a hell-raiser Maple Syrup farmer who immediately goes to loggerheads with local Maple Association head, Leonard Gauthier (Guy Nadon). Leonard is portrayed to be the classic grade-A scumbag. His greed and general nature to swindle his neighborhood farmers make him the perfect villain to be hit by our protagonists. Leonard even bullies his son, Leo (Mickael Gouin), and sees him as a rival to his position.
This becomes clear as we see Leonard deriding Leo for hiring Remy (Guillaume Cyr) as the only security guard for the Association’s warehouse that stores all the barrels of freshly harvested maple syrup. As Remy hits 40, his father, Maurice, celebrates with unrestrained exuberance, while Remy wrestles with the sinking feeling that his chance to achieve something truly meaningful is slipping away. His recent humiliation by Leonard spurs him to be more bold. Remy has been stealing from the Association, one barrel a month, with help from a local dubious character, Orval Steeks. Now, Remy feels the need to take a few steps further.
A Bold Plan for Canada’s Sweetest Heist
So, the next time he gets to a restaurant, he is enamored by a sharply dressed man. A man, who has connections with the Boston Mafia, but has been living as a glorified errand boy in this part of Canada. Mike Byrne (Chris Diamantopoulos) is a volatile character who can smuggle his way into anything. At least that is what Remy’s impression of Mike is. Mike is also known to Ruth. United by their common urge to do something wild against Leonard (in Mike’s case, it is mostly just the urge to do something wild), the trio of Ruth, Mike, and Remy forms the crew that plans to do Canada’s biggest heist: steal millions of dollars worth of maple syrup from the Association.
The Sticky (Season 1) ‘Prime Video’ Ending Explained:
Chaos, Curveballs, and Unlikely Alliances: The Tumultuous Journey of “The Sticky” Trio
“The Sticky” keeps us on the edge by throwing one curveball after another to our leading trio. Ruth, Mike, and Remy could not execute a single plan successfully as situations continuously change, forcing them to adapt and change their plan. Whether it is Remy suddenly getting a newly-appointed security head to report to in the Association, or Mike succumbing to his crazily foolish personality, the trio could not stick to their original plan. Mike killing Orval Steeks (presumably to reduce the number of shares of the loot) sets everyone on the path where this single act comes back to bite everyone. For instance, this murder puts Remy on edge and brings a homicide detective, Nadeau (Suzanne Clement) to the town. Mike’s willingness to kill Gary, Remy’s new security partner/boss, puts him on the radar of the police.
This alerts Mike’s Boston mafia contacts. To make matters worse, we get the enigmatic cameo from Jamie Lee Curtis as Bo Radley. Bo is a fifty-something woman who walks with a cane. But she is one of the fearsome sharpshooters that the mafia could send. Bo takes the trio hostage. But she gets swayed by their enthusiasm for hitting the maple syrup jackpot. Not only does Bo join them but gives them the idea to make the heist bigger. However, as if on cue, Bo slips from the balcony and seemingly dies anti-climactically.
Can the Trio Pull Off the Sweetest Heist Despite the Odds?
The trio decides to go ahead anyway, despite all of them having personal setbacks. Remy’s father, Maurice, discovers the three stealing the syrup and gagging Gary. The disheartened old man leaves them. However, not before Mike, with his usual destructive ideas, plants the murder weapon in Maurice’s car.
After Maurice leaves, Ruth has to make one last change of plan to accommodate the sudden uprising of the farmers against Leonard. As the drunken farmers start to march towards the warehouse, Ruth makes Molotov cocktails out of syrup bottles and ignites Leonard’s passion project, the visitors’ center. With one final move, the heist becomes successful as the trio departs with tankers full of syrup, with a tied-up Gary sitting in the back seat.
What Would Happen to Remy’s Dad?
Mike’s last cheap shot to implicate someone else in Orval Steeks’ murder hits the right spot as the police find the murder weapon, a bloodied baseball bat, from Maurice’s car. Maurice immediately confesses to the murder and asks Nadeau to arrest him. Maurice, being the protective father he is, thinks he is protecting his son as he assumes it is Remy who has killed Steeks and forgot to throw the murder weapon away. Now, it took a lot from Remy to forgive Mike for killing Orval. However, this move by Mike is sure to trigger Remy to go after Mike. What Remy would do when the news hit him, is a tantalizing question that “The Sticky” saves for the next season.
Is Bo Alive? And Does She Know Martin?
One of the key reasons for Ruth to go against Leonard is to save the farm to have enough money to keep her comatose husband, Martin, alive. On the heist day, Ruth felt Martin squeeze her hand. A sign that could mean he is waking up. However, her sister, who is also the doctor, tells her that this could also be a sign of Martin finally giving up and dying. As Ruth, along with Remy and Mike, drives away with the loot, she calls her sister to learn Martin is stable.
However, we have a shocking mid-credit scene that entirely changes the dynamic of Martin. It involves Bo. The last time we saw Bo, back when we presumed her to be dead, was when Mike was shoving her body in the freezer. However, later, Mike could not find the body there. This hints at the possibility, which gets confirmed in the mid-credit scene, that Bo has survived.
The mid-credit scene shows Bo arriving at the hospital to meet Martin. With a gun pointed at the comatose man, Bo says it is time the two of them have a chat again. Does it mean Martin already knew Bo? This, in turn, could mean Martin was perhaps more aware of the Boston mafia than he has let Ruth on. This is an intriguing possibility, which surely tells that “The Sticky” has definite plans to stick around for one more season.
What Does It Mean for Season 2?
If we get another season, which we should, there is plenty to unwrap. The actual event of the “Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist” has the perpetrators get caught within the next six months. It is to be seen what happens here. The obvious questions surrounding our leading trio are there. But so are the questions surrounding Bo and Martin. Then we have Leonard and his corruption. With him throwing his son, Leo, under the bus, one can see Leonard having very few friends going forward. Even if our leading trio does not get away with the robbery, it would be poetic to see Leonard getting brought down by none other than his son.
The Sticky (Season 1) ‘Prime Video’ Review:
Created by Brian Donovan and Ed Herro, “The Sticky” flows like water from a jet spray, not like maple syrup from a bottle. The opening scene features two suburban police officers finding a dead body in a barrel of maple syrup. The discovery was not made before one of the officers had a chance to taste the syrup, right from that barrel. This is what “The Sticky” was going for. The intention to create a bonkers crime-comedy filled with people making ludicrously regrettable decisions is apparent from the get-go. Moreover, the series does not let go of that tone. It hammers on the same, with the consistent gusto and intensity of a roller-coaster ride.
The quickfire introduction of the Margo Martindale-led crew is followed by one morbidly funny event after another. Sharply edited and neatly collated, each episode is teeming with comically tense situations that the characters find themselves in. One shining example of such depictions would be a scene where our ragtag trio of Ruth, Mike, and Remy throws all their weight on the roller shutter door of a storage place to ensure the police outside could not open it. The officers, led by Suzanne Clement’s Nadeau, have to surmise that the door is jammed somehow.
Read More: Why the Cult British Heist Film ‘The Italian Job’ is Still Worth Watching?
Speaking of the trio, “The Sticky” is a Margo Martindale show. The veteran character actress brings her absolute a-game in this mad heist story. With her vicious combination of snark and rage, she is the perfect lead. And she is ably supported by Guillaume Cyr’s lovable buffoon, Remy, and Chris Diamantopoulos’s unhinged Mikey. Especially when Ruth is fighting her righteous fight, it becomes the job of the duo of Remy and Mike to keep the hilarity on the up. Remy saying lines like “Mike, you know like eight people in Canada and you are trying to kill half of them” just about sums it up for the two. “The Sticky” ends its first season with a fine cliffhanger ending, with just about enough room to go for one more season. And why not?
