[Warning: General spoilers ahead.]
Wild Cards is back for Season 2 Wednesday night on CBC (and streaming at 9 am on CBC Gem), picking up right after the Season 1 finale betrayal that found a reinstated Detective Cole Ellis (Giacomo Gianniotti) believing one thing while Max Mitchell (Vanessa Morgan) was working an entirely different angle. With Ellis still reeling from personal and professional hurt feelings, she surprises him (and her dad and Ricky) by returning to tell him she discovered a lead on his brother’s murder.
This season, they’re not getting away from each other anytime soon, and then they’re dropped into a new case that’s a little fast and furious as they join a crew of heist getaway drivers that includes guest star Marie Avgeropoulos to thwart a string of high-profile robberies.
Just before the holidays, I caught up with series stars Morgan and Gianniotti as they were wrapping filming to chat about the new season. Both were thrilled to have the series renewed. “I was so grateful when we got confirmed for another season. I have so much fun playing Max. She’s kind of like an alter ego for me, [plus] getting to work with Giacomo again,” says Morgan.
“I think we were both just ecstatic that fans loved it, most importantly, and that people wanted to see another season and see these characters evolve.”
Gianniotti was excited to build on the first season and get past the initial world building to and straight to the storytelling. “A first season of a show has a lot of heavy lifting and work to do because it has to explain a whole world. It has to introduce all these characters, and set up for an audience,” he says.
“So when you get to come back for a Season 2, you’ve kind of done all that heavy lifting. Now the audience completely knows the ins and outs of all these characters, the world. They don’t have to be spoon-fed all this information and you can just get right into telling amazing stories.”
“We get right into telling really great stories on a weekly basis with the cases that we’re solving and the amazing guest stars that we’ve brought on this season, like Martin Sheen and many others. We’ve really upped the ante on all fronts. And we have more episodes, which is exciting too. So we have a longer season for the fans. That’s more satisfying.”
Both enjoyed diving back into the undercover aspect, especially with the amped up twang of the second episode, which involves the attempted murder of a very valuable horse owned by Rose Pruett, the ranching matriarch (Ally Sheedy) at the head of a fractured family barely holding onto their ranch. “I love when I get to do some type of Southern character. I have fun with that and getting to show that depth of the character is also so much fun,” says Morgan.
“My character is very reluctant to go undercover with Max and sort of rolls his eyes, but Giacomo has a lot of fun doing that stuff with Vanessa, when she’s got some angle on how to get into a case. I love doing that stuff,” laughs Gianniotti.
“In episode two, we have a sort of Yellowstone episode that’s about ranches and families and land and all this kind of stuff. And so we go undercover there and we have sort of a cowboy/ranch hand theme. So you get to see [our] cowboy alter egos.”
With the Season 1 finale blowing up the relationship between Ellis and Max, they have to start over, and Gianniotti applauds that storytelling device. “I think there’s something that’s very genius about this show in terms of the setup for it. But what it unfortunately does is make a very difficult reset button every season, because why does this con woman continue to stay solving cases with this detective,” he muses.
“The writers have done such an amazing job this season in rebooting and figuring out a way to keep her there and to keep Ellis motivated.”
“I think by the end of the first season, there was a really big spark and romance between Ellis and Max. But after the betrayal, Ellis [wonders whether] the looks and feelings were all fake, all a con. Was it all a lie? And so season two is really about Max having to really fight to get back in Ellis’s good graces and to try to get him to trust her again the way he did in Season 1.”
“[Max] is really battling with, ‘Do I really want this life? What do I want? I’ve been doing this whole conning people and being on the run my whole life. Am I tired of that? Do I wanna maybe just slow it down with this cop and see what that has to offer?’ I think we both have sort of big journeys this season.”
Once Max decides to stay, she finally moves beyond her crash pad lifestyle, which Morgan says is a big step. “[She realizes], ‘I’ve never had this, I’ve never made something a home. I am committing to the police, but for how long?’ It’s almost like a sadness. This is what she wants so badly, but how long will she actually be able to keep this for,” Morgan shares.
“I was happy for my character that she finally got to experience that feeling that something was really a home for however long that lasts.”
Ellis also finds a way to make the home he inherited from his brother his own. “The boat is essentially a metaphor for Ellis’s character. It’s broken down, it has a lot of scrapes and bruises. It’s been through a lot and it’s not working really well and it’s not really ready to house a life. It’s also a symbol of his brother,” Gianniotti points out.
“I think the symbolism for the boat getting up and running again is sort of like Ellis getting up and running again, and him finding a purpose and a direction in life. So those things kind of work hand in hand throughout the season as he fixes up the boat.”
“Ellis also starts to fix things about himself and towards the end of the season we see a resolution between his brother’s killer and solving that case once and for all.”
Wild Cards premieres Season 2 on Wednesday, January 8th, at 8 pm/8:30 pm NT on CBC, and streaming at 9 am on CBC Gem. In the US, Season 2 will premiere on Wednesday, February 5th, at 8/7c on The CW. Here’s a sneak peek.
Photos and video courtesy of CBC.
