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 as a farmer 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 enjoy, 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.”
