Genre Heist, Dark comedy, Crime thriller
Created by Brian Donovan & Ed Herro
Directed by Michael Dowse & Joyce Wong
Starring
Margo Martindale as Ruth Landry
Chris Diamantopoulos as Mike Byrne
Guillaume Cyr as Remy Bouchard
Gita Miller as Teddy Green
Guy Nadon as Leonard Gauthier Sr.
Mickaël Gouin as Léo Gauthier Jr.
Suzanne Clément as Detective Valérie Nadeau
Mark O’Brien as Charlie
Meegwun Fairbrother as Gary Montour
Jamie Lee Curtis as Bo Shea
No. of series 1 No. of episodes 6
Production
Executive producers Brian Donovan, Ed Herro, Jonathan Levine, Gillian Bohrer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jason Blum, Chris Dickie, Jeremy Gold, Michael Dowse, Lauren Grant, Josée Vallée, Bruno Dubé, Chris McCumber
Production companies Sphere Media, Comet Pictures, Megamix, Blumhouse Television, Amazon MGM Studios
Network Amazon Prime Video Release December 6, 2024
The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist (vol de sirop d’érable du siècle –literally, theft of maple syrup of the century) seemed as both unlikely and quintessentially Canadian as anything you can imagine. Over a period of several months in 2012, perpetrators stole about $19 million (Canadian) in maple syrup, housed in 600 pound barrels. Incredibly, it wasn’t the first time someone did that: in 2006 perpetrators (a different set, probably) made off with a couple of million dollars worth. That first one depleted the strategic reserve, and the ensuing warm winters made for a maple syrup shortage in Canada, somewhat akin to Saudi Arabia running out of sand. You would think they would learn, but no.
The Sticky is “The absolutely not true story of the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist.” If that disclaimer sounds familiar, think “The names have been changed to protect the guilty.” It’s not the only element that will remind you of the classic Coen Brothers’ movie, Fargo. It has the same recipe of idiosyncratic characters caught up in an increasingly absurd and violent web of insane circumstances—and like Fargo, it is howlingly funny and utterly unforgettable.
Ruth Landry (Margo Martindale) is a maple tree syruper. (Yes, that’s the word for her occupation.) She taps her grove of maple trees in late winter/early spring (when nights are below freezing and days are above freezing), renders the sap down into syrup, and sells that to the growers’ association. It’s a big industry throughout much of eastern Canada, but the heart of the industry is Quebec.
She has no choice but to sell to the Association. Like most such, its role is to both assure a market and keep prices stable, especially since winters are becoming less reliably cold in that region.
However, the Association head has a corrupt scheme to force the growers to sell, giving him a monopoly on groves in the region. (This part also has a basis in history, although whereas this association appears to be a small outfit serving a county, the real-life correlate was a big operation serving the entire province, and became corrupt and wound up in a bitter power struggle with its own syrupers, who eventually won.) Ruth, weighed down by an incapacitated husband and debts, is the most obvious target.
Ruth loses her temper, cuts down her biggest tree, drives into town towing the tree, and in a deft display of precision driving, skews her pickup around on the ice street, causing the tree to rocket through the front doors of the association. (This is all in the first episode: they pack a LOT into thirty minutes!). The battle is joined. An American con artist gets wind of this and senses an opportunity.
The entire series was shot outside of Montréal and Saint Eustache, and during harvest season. Most of the cast are also Canadian. For all the growing absurdity, a firm sense of reality underlies the entire production, making it more surreal. All that was missing was the Minnesota accents, but you can find those just across the Ottawa river.
Jamie Lee Curtis is a guest role in the final two episodes, and all but steals the show as a Boston gangster.
The ending makes it fairly clear that there is more to come in this series. But there is a huge loose end as the credits roll, and if you’ve been paying attention, you be wondering “What happened to character X?” Stick around for after the credits. Trust me, it’s worth the short wait.
In these grim times, this show is a joy, and it’s nice to know that even when Canadians try to act crazy, the result is still saner than American politics are.