Arguably the best subgenre of the crime procedural is the type where an extraordinary civilian becomes a crime consultant and is paired with a rule-following detective. Castle‘s Rick Castle (Nathan Fillion) was uniquely qualified due to his years of experience writing crime novels. Psych‘s Shawn Spencer (James Roday Rodriguez) was a successful fake psychic because of his photographic memory and a lifetime of honing his observational skills. High Potential‘s Morgan Gillory (Kaitlin Olson) is an excellent consultant because of her High Potential Intellectual condition.
Even the biggest fans of this subgenre may not have heard of one of the best iterations of it on TV right now. Now in its third season, CBC Television’s Wild Cards is a fun and silly crime procedural that follows this model of an unlikely consultant working to solve crimes for the local police department. Wild Cards is a hidden gem with compelling weekly cases, a great central partnership, and an excellent balance of suspense and comedy.
What Is the Mystery Show ‘Wild Cards’ About?
Wild Cards starts off with the arrest of an expert con artist named Max Mitchell (Vanessa Morgan) when she takes over a housekeeping job for the day and winds up breaking into the owner’s bank vault. Max doesn’t just scam for the sake of it, though; she is prone to taking on a Robin Hood-type role of stealing from the rich and helping the poor. Her motives don’t matter to the local police, and Max is arrested and brought in. With everyone important too busy that day to focus on her, they give the case to former detective Cole Ellis (Giacomo Gianniotti), who was demoted to being a “water cop” a while back after one of his cases ended disastrously. Max takes an interest in one of the cases that’s being investigated when she’s brought in, and she starts listening in and formulating her theories.
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Later, Max uses her one phone call to call Ellis from her holding cell. She has started coming up with her own theories, and due to her unique background as a daughter of two con artists, Max can pick up on little clues that even the best detectives miss. Ellis is the one from the department that Max trusts, so they follow a lead together. Because the case has hit a wall, and they’ve had the most success yet, Ellis is allowed to work the case with Max as a consultant. When that goes well, the police commissioner (Karin Konoval) strikes a deal with Max and Ellis: for two months, they can do a trial run of solving cases together, whether it be small cases that the rest of the department doesn’t want, or tricky cases that nobody else can crack. If this goes well, Ellis can officially become a detective again, and Max can stay out of prison. Thus begins the unlikely yet surprisingly successful partnership of two wildly different people.
‘Wild Cards’ Is a Fun Procedural With a Delightful Main Duo
Wild Cards is an incredibly entertaining series that sees Max and Ellis solving a different bizarre, specific, and suspenseful case each episode. In one episode, Max and Ellis investigate the murder of a small-town butcher with a tangled love life and a strange supernatural connection. In another, they wind up helping Ellis’ ex (Veronica Long) with a case where an accountant who’s become vital to the mob is abducted. An especially odd case sees them investigating a set of stalker notes sent to the cast of Max’s favorite vampire TV show, only for one of the actors to then be found dead. The cases are all very specific and clever, with twisty killer reveals, particular details that only Max can pick up on, and a connection to the show’s deeper theme of exposing and taking down systems of injustice.
At the center of Wild Cards is the main partnership between Max and Ellis. Ellis is very strict about following the law and doing things by the book, even after he was unfairly demoted due to being framed for a crime that he did not commit. He has every reason to have grown jaded, but he still cares about his job and wants to do things the right way. Max, on the other hand, has had to fight for everything her whole life. She doesn’t let this bring her down, though. Max scams and cons with enthusiasm, determined to always do what she believes is the right thing, even if she’s not necessarily doing it the right way.
Max and Ellis’ dynamic as opposites is a lot of fun to watch, and Ellis starts to open up to Max about his unfair demotion, as well as the murder of his brother. Max opens up to Ellis about her unconventional upbringing and her mother’s death, and she even lets him get to know her father (Jason Priestley), who has been in prison for a long time. While working as partners, Max and Ellis develop a real friendship, and there’s even a delightful potential slowburn romance brewing between the two of them as well. As Max and Ellis work together to solve different local crimes each week, they also start to dive into multiple investigations that become overarching mysteries for the series. Wild Cards is full of suspenseful twists and turns that any procedural fan will love, but it is the compelling dynamic between the two main characters that makes the show the perfect binge-watch.
Wild Cards airs Mondays at 8:00 P.M. EST on the CW.