To an American like me, the fact that our neighbor to the north is home to a government-controlled maple syrup cartel feels both quintessentially Canadian and also kind of ridiculous. The strict regulatory control is necessary, I suppose, given that Quebec’s maple syrup industry produces the vast majority of the world’s supply, and the way it works involves a federation maintaining a quota system that’s intended to keep prices stable. It’s this system that forms the backdrop of Prime Video’s new heist comedy The Sticky, starring Margo Martindale, who decides to fight back against the country’s bureaucratic maple syrup system to pull off the heist of the century.
The six-episode series, which includes Jamie Lee Curtis as a guest star and executive producer, debuts Dec. 6 on Prime Video. About The Sticky, which has also debuted with a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score following the first few reviews that have come in, Prime Video adds that it was inspired by a real-life heist that made international headlines in 2012 and saw more than $18 million worth of maple syrup stolen from Quebec’s national reserves.
That heist was actually one of the most infamous thefts in Canadian history, a crime that would go on to inspire books and documentaries. In terms of the theft’s scale, around 3,000 tons of syrup were stolen, equivalent to some 70% of the annual production for Canada’s strategic reserve.
In The Sticky, Martindale plays Ruth Landry, “a tough, middle-aged maple syrup farmer who turns to crime when the bureaucratic authorities threaten to take away everything she loves.” She teams up with a hot-tempered Bostonian mobster (Chris Diamantopoulos) and an easygoing French-Canadian security guard (Guillaume Cyr) to carry out the heist on Quebec’s maple syrup surplus in this Fargo-like comedy that feels like something a fan of the Coen Brothers would like, thanks to its dark humor and quirky characters.
The show makes for a quick and pleasant binge, with Collider noting that: “The story is never overly complicated, the pacing is quick, and you can’t help but root for many of these characters … Maybe it’s that Canadian hospitality, but this show serves as the perfect binge-watch for this holiday season.” To learn more about the real-life maple syrup heist, meanwhile, check out Season 1, Episode 5, of the Netflix docuseries Dirty Money which offers a deep dive into the crime. Vanity Fair also has a great read, titled: “Inside Quebec’s Great, Multi-Million-Dollar Maple-Syrup Heist.”