It’s been almost a year since the last episode aired of season five of Fargo, the best crime drama on television since Breaking Bad, and I miss it every day. While Breaking Bad still stands as my favorite show of all time, Fargo has rapidly risen to be among my all-time faves, with season after season of crime-filled dramatic brilliance from creator Noah Hawley.
While there can be no true substitute for Fargo, I am always looking for something to scratch that itch between seasons—which take way too long to come—and right now there is The Sticky, a light, somewhat silly but certainly entertaining Fargo wannabe that doesn’t come anywhere close to the gravitas or quality of its illustrious inspiration, but is just charming enough to win me over.
Starring the great Margo Martindale, The Sticky is a new short-and-sweet (pun intended) 6-episode series on Prime Video about a maple syrup farmer who schemes to steal syrup from the
Canadian Syrup Association, who she feels is ripping off the small-town farmers in their rural Quebec town. Martindale’s character, Ruth, teams up with a bumbling security guard and a small-time mobster to try to pull off the heist, which, of course, hits multiple obstacles, including the cops, who are just a step behind them.
The series is funny and fast-paced—it has to be, when the whole story is told in six half-hour episodes—and dark when it needs to be. There’s nothing original here and everything feels ripped off from something else, whether it’s Fargo or Breaking Bad or every heist film ever, but that’s totally not the point. This is brisk and silly, a crime drama almost mocking itself, yet never reaching over too far into campiness (except when one specific famous guest star goes over the top, but that’s not the show’s fault).
So, if you’re looking for a show that won’t require a long investment, will engage you ever so slightly, will amuse you and keep you entertained and not force you to think too much—or really at all–I recommend The Sticky, aka Coens, Canadian style.