As soon as Margo Martindale walked away with the second season of Justified, it became inevitable. Her rich portrayal of the show’s second-season lead villain Mags Bennett is exactly the kind of turn that vaults a reliable character actor and veteran scene-stealer to the next level of audience awareness. It also sets into motion a more starstruck form of casting, where the performer will eventually be given the leeway and screentime to overact like crazy, based on the assumption that audiences will delight in their every outburst. Martindale was too busy, in-demand and skilled for it to happen right away, but The Sticky, a new series on Prime Video, makes up for any lost time, placing Martindale in a leading role and then having her scream, emote, swear and do that thing where a character saying another character’s name a lot is supposed to be hilarious.
Playing the Canadian maple syrup farmer Ruth Landry, the object of her scorn – the guy whose name gets repeated in place of the show having jokes – is Leonard (Guy Nadon), the greedy and seemingly corrupt head of a syrup governing body whose actual function is not fully or clearly explained during the first season’s six episodes. Leonard is after Ruth’s land, knowing she’s in a bind with her husband (whose name is on all the farm’s paperwork) in a coma. Ruth refuses to give up, storming into Leonard’s office, storming through the streets in her truck, swearing up a storm at anyone else in her path, and generally giving the usually nuanced Martindale the opportunity to turn every dial up to 10. She’s more subdued in later episodes than in the first couple, but by that point the show has more mostly unfunny business to deal with.
