Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Pretty Hard Cases, a new IMDB TV comedy that comes via the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, tracks the on-the-job exploits and topsy-turvy personal lives of two female Toronto Police Department detectives. Written and co-produced by television world veterans Tassie Cameron and Sherry White, PHC blends an absurdist, talky bent with police procedural melodrama and jokes aimed at the shifting cultural attitudes toward police, women as police, woke culture and allyship.
PRETTY HARD CASES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: “I gotta make a change,” Detective Wazowski is saying as she sits in her unmarked police vehicle. “A bold move. Yep, I’m gonna cut my hair.” As she muses frantically over the relative attractiveness of long hair versus short, a fellow detective suddenly pops up from the back seat, as if from a nap. He fumbles to clarify that he’s not devaluing Wazowski or reducing his colleague to her physical traits — he just thinks long hair is attractive. “Look at Miss Piggy. She’s a pig. But a pig with long hair…”
The Gist: Pretty Hard Cases is a comedy inside a cop show, aiming to pull laughs and some contemporary dramatic flair out of its two protagonists’ experiences as they learn to work together as detectives with differing philosophies, not only on police work but in their personal lives as fortysomething women. Meredith MacNeill of the lauded CBC/IFC comedy program Baroness Von Sketch Show co-stars as Samantha Wazowski, a slightly frazzled, always by-the-book detective in the guns and gangs unit; her new partner is sharp, loose cannon drug squad detective Kelly Duff, played by Adrianne C. Moore of Orange Is the New Black and 30 Rock. The two are thrown together when it becomes obvious, through a blown stakeout played for laughs, that they’re circling the same bad guys from opposing angles. Watch out, Stockwood gang — Duff and Wazowski of the Toronto PD are onto you.
At first, inter-departmental tribalism and the detectives’ respective reputations hamper that old cooperative spirit. But as they delve into the drug case at hand — they’re putting the arm on various street-level players in the hopes of traveling up the food chain to the Stockwoods — Duff and Wazowski learn more about each others’ police work M.O. and various personal proclivities. Sam, whose commander (Karen Robinson, playing the put-upon boss cop with the requisite harrumphs and exasperated glares) references “that annoying thing you do” and who another cop refers to somewhat derisively as “that ruler stick,” is nevertheless dedicated to sound investigative work. And Kelly, jaded and savvy in the ways of crooks and social media, brings a strong intuitive sense to her craft. By the end of episode one, the detectives have sought each other out for an after work drink, and are even driving into the station together. This Pretty Hard Case partnership is off to a pretty good start.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The familiar dynamics of the police procedural are ripe for comic riffing, as the sitcoms Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Angie Tribeca most recently proved. But the zingy, conversant humor of Pretty Hard Cases recalls the absurdist vibe of 30 Rock, too, while its notes of good-hearted melodrama point back to Scrubs.
Our Take: Pretty Hard Cases moves through its 45 minutes at a peppy rate, with lots and lots of asides, one-liner drop-ins from ancillary characters, and bits that bend back on themselves. As Detective Wazowski, MacNeill is forever using too many words, or always saying the mental part out loud — Sam is always overthinking it, to the point of overdoing it. Detective Duff, cooler under pressure but always harboring a wariness behind her eyes, looks at her new partner as a bit of a project, but can also see through the quirks to the solid cop inside. This oil and water dynamic sets up well both the procedural side of Pretty Hard Cases and its comedic soul. “You’re a law & order cop,” Kelly tells Sam, and it’s clear that we’ll learn more about Wazowski’s trusty and very anal-sounding five point system for crime solving. Duff sees herself as living and working on the “serve & protect” side of things, and while grey areas are an important navigational tool for her work, it also seems to be a place her colleague Keegan has abused, perhaps with her knowledge. (To serve and protect whom?) PHC weaves the jokes into these characters’ everyday conversations in such a nimble manner, some of them fly by without resolution. But a lot of them stick, and the banter, buttressed by the supporting cast, strengthens the burgeoning chemistry between the two leads. There’s certainly enough here to stick with.
Sex and Skin: When Wazowski arrives home to discover her high schooler son Elliot has thrown a party, she asks a girl sitting on the couch in her underpants where her clothes are. “They’re upstairs drying, I was in the pool.”
“I don’t have a pool.”
Parting Shot: In a Toronto food truck court, Duff meets up with Keegan, a surly and currently suspended fellow detective. As Metric rises on the soundtrack (“I tremble/They’re gonna eat me alive…”), Keegan asks for Duff’s assurance that she’ll back him upon his reinstatement. Her mouth says yes, but her frown suggests this is problematic. Wazowski, meanwhile, is at home having “Taco Wednesday” with her Elliot. Her gaze is one of consternation as the teen, lost in his phone, eats with headphones on. “I tremble/They’re gonna eat me alive…”
Sleeper Star: Karen Robinson, as Unit Commander Edwina Shanks, and Dean McDermott as Detective Barry Hamm, as well as Al Mukadam as Detective Taai Nazeer, offer early promise for the supporting players on Pretty Hard Cases. The fine Canadian-American actor Kim Coates (“Tig” from Sons of Anarchy) is also set for an upcoming five-episode arc, and Coates is always a value-add to any cast.
Most Pilot-y Line: “I’m like Marie Kondo, cleaning up the streets one gang at a time!” This line from Wazowski comes soon after Duff calls her a Karen, and PHC derives even more humor from Sam’s manic white lady energy — she wears prim, smart pantsuits, she drives a prim, lime-colored Smart Car. Duff, meanwhile, cruises the streets in a 1969 Mustang fastback, candy apple red and the spiritual descendant of a long line of bold TV detective rides, from Mannix to Spenser: For Hire.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Pretty Hard Cases crams little jokes into the margins and loves a good comedic call-back as much as it does moments of police procedural status quo. Take it all together, and there’s a lot of promise to its characters, premise, and rapid-fire vibe.
Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges
