Mitchell was impersonating the owner of a safety-deposit box when she was collared, but since the force was preoccupied with the “Infinity Thief,” Ellis, a demoted boat patrol officer, was called in to book her. While waiting to be processed, she overhears a briefing regarding the Infinity Burglar, who has been targeting the mayor’s biggest donors.
In the spirit of “it takes a thief,” Mitchell volunteers her services to catch the Infinity Thief, in exchange for her freedom. Of course, that is not happening, but the hapless Ellis still gets caught up in her amateur sleuthing. When they uncover the investigation’s first lead, the politically canny commissioner semi-officially assigns them to the case, with vague promises of reinstatement and leniency if they get further results.
Naturally, they have trust issues, but Ellis grudgingly admits Mitchell has insight into this crime. In fact, she knows the only fence who can handle the readily identifiable pieces they are looking for. Not surprisingly, he is “Caviar Stan,” a Russian with diplomatic immunity. Give Canadian television a point for being willing to cast regime-friendly Russians as bad guys. To get close to him, they will need an invite to his private poker game. Mitchell’s dad George Graham can arrange that, even though the legendary crook is currently behind bars. Clearly, he will regularly provide criminal insight for their investigations, but he also has his own agenda.
The first two episodes provided for review are competent light-comedy procedurals, like a somewhat less noir Remington Steele. However, the brief lip-service to wokeness introduced in episode two, “Show Me the Murder,” by the unfairly arrested prime suspect, will alienate the show’s target demo. The regular viewers for Wild Cards will be older than me, so Mitchell’s praise for Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote is far more on target.
The pilot, “The Infinity Thief,’ is the better episode of the two, because the Russian angle provides a greater sense of danger and the murder involving twin art dealers taps into classic mystery archetypes. “Show Me the Money” follows a fairly routine investigation of a sports agent’s murder. Since this is Canada, presumably, most of his clients are hockey players and professional curlers, but an MMA star plays a pivotal role in the drama.
On the plus side, Vanessa Morgan and Giacomo Gianniotti already start to develop some decent bickering-bantering ambiguously romantic chemistry in the second episode. She plays up Mitchell’s flamboyance without getting annoying, while Gianniotti is so earnest as Ellis, viewers will respect his integrity, even though we can tell it will make him the butt of endless jokes in future episodes.
If you’re over sixty, you will probably enjoy Wild Cards. If you’re Gen X, Priestly will make you feel old. The majors are quite charismatic, especially Morgan, but the stories are still rather simplistic. Okay as background television, Wild Cards starts airing Wednesday night (1/17) on CW.
