Wild Cards, Season Three, on CW

Say it isn’t so. Surely Max Mitchell, the thief and con artist forced to serve as a “consultant” to the Vancouver police hasn’t gone straight? Okay, it isn’t so, but she really wanted to. She was also ready to run off with Det. Cole Ellis, her on-again-off-again partner, whose will-they-or-won’t-they romantic tension never lets up. Unfortunately, she stood him up due to some unusually messy family business, even by her standards. Yet, she still hopes to remain a reformed crime-fighter in the third season of creator Michael Konyves’s Wild Cards, which premieres tonight on CW.

Ellis is back from his head-clearing Mexican vacation and fully cleared by Internal Affairs, so Chief Li immediately re-teams him with Mitchell. She wants to explain, but finds him strangely chill with regards to her apparent rejection. Frankly, she seems more distracted than Ellis as they work the case of a murdered pool player.

Mitchell has a right to be a bit preoccupied. During the season two cliffhanger finale, she discovered her supposedly dead mother Vivienne faked her demise, after stealing 98 million from Gedeon Varga, a Keyser Soze-like crime figure. Now, she is back, to beg for all the money from the big score Mitchell and her father George Graham pulled off at the end of season two. Of course, she’ll need to cover interest too, so Varga’s intimidating associate, Tomo Hayashi suggests a little job to clear their debt: stealing a big Hopey diamond.

Understandably Mitchell’s bestie Ricky Wilson is dashed resentful to find himself caught-up in Vivienne’s mess—and out several million dollars. Regardless, Mitchell has murders to solve, starting with the pool hustler in “Rack ‘Em Up,” written by Konyves and directed by Andy Mikita. Of course, we know from past episodes Mitchell is also quite the pool shark. In fact, it is rather fun to watch this episode riff on The Color of Money, when the victim’s stake-horse, a former hustler himself, emerges as a prime suspect.

“Quit Playing Games (with My Life),” directed by Mikita and written by Kristin Slaney, leans heavily into 1990s boyband nostalgia, or at least the idea of it. None of the guest stars are notable boy band alumni, but they can carry a tune okay, and look like aging idols. The mystery isn’t terribly written, but the real murder conspicuously stands out due to lack of subtlety in the performance and direction. Regardless, a lot viewers will relate to this episode. Plus, there is some decent comic relief from Amy Goodmurphy and Michael Xavier as somewhat rival Detectives Yates and Simmons.

Progress on Varga’s big caper moves slowly during the first three episodes of the season, but there is a bit of a role reversal, with Mitchell doing more of the torch-bearing. The third episode also boasts a truly Quinn Martin-worthy play on words: “M.D.-Ceased.” Too bad William Conrad is no longer with us, to announce it.

This is indeed a hospital-set homicide, wherein the doctors too obnoxious to work on House M.D. and Doc evidently transferred to the Vancouver emergency room. Perhaps instead of “who done it,” they should be asking why more of their colleagues weren’t murdered? Still, it is a decent case for 40-some minute Canadian network TV.

Vanessa Morgan and Giacomo Gianniotti continue to share appealing Moonlighting-style chemistry as Mitchell and Ellis. Likewise, it is still fun to see Jason Priestly chew the scenery as her grizzled ex-con father, George Graham, in a similarly ironic 1990’s nostalgia kind of way. Plus, Terry Chen nicely anchors the series as the eternally patient Chief Li.
Wild Cards has always had a bit of a Remington Steele vibe, combining cops and con artists, in a breezy package. It works, because of the co-leads’ charm. Recommended as a light-weight diversion, season three of Wild Cards starts tonight (1/26) on CW.