Trickster: The Trick’s On Us

Smart, but underachieving teenager Jared (Joel Oulette) lives in Kitimat, British Columbia with his hard partying mother who has emotional issues.  His father is a recovering Oxy addict who is always strapped for cash.  To earn the money that he needs to support both his parents he deals drugs out of the drive through window at the fast-food place he works at.  Just ask for “Extra Salty” fries.  Unbeknownst to Jared, he is actually the son of a “Trickster”.

The first episode of this Canadian TV series based on the novel “Son of a Trickster” by Eden Robinson and which will air on the CW in the US, starts off with supernatural overtones, but is scarce on anything otherworldly until the end of the episode.  Maggie (Crystle Lightning), Jared’s mother, is seen screaming after a man who stole her baby (Jared).  The man, Wade (Kalani Queypo), turns and we briefly see his eyes are not human.  Maggie screams and Wade begins to bleed and falls to the ground.  Maggie grabs her baby and leaves Wade for dead.  Flashforward to the present day where Jared is a teenager trying to keep his crazy, dysfunctional family afloat.  Besides the beginning and the end, there is little supernatural elements in the first episode.  We are mainly getting to know “hero” Jared and his friend “Crashpad” (Nathan Alexis), a bullied plus size teen with mad gaming skills.

Jared, by any means, is not the sparkling pure white type of hero.  He is a partying teen who deals drugs.  As we get to know him though, we see that he is a good kid, stuck in a crazy family and he is only doing what he knows and what he needs to survive.  The hero shines through when he defends his long-time friend from being bullied.  It is a subtle scene unlike many teen dramas that over do the cliché.  Instead, it is just a couple lines as Jared sticks up for his friend.  The “hero” in him also shines in his love for his family, no matter how crazy they are.  His mother drinks with his friends, does all sorts of drugs, gets Jared fired from his job and commits insurance fraud.  And that is all in episode 1!  And he still has a tender familial love for her.

The casting for this show was excellent.  I often find that characters like Maggie and Jared are played in such a way that the audience ultimately doesn’t really like them.  They go too far into the “Anti-Hero” range that they become what they are supposed to be fighting against.  Trickster got the balance just right.  Joel Oulette plays Jared as a real person, flawed, but ultimately likeable.  He is someone we can root for, even if we are just rooting for him to survive a day at school.  And as crazy as Maggie is, she too has a certain sparkle that makes her fun to watch.  She is strong and overpowering, but at the same time vulnerable and a bit crazy.  Even “Crashpad”, Jared’s best friend, isn’t a cliched bullied boy.  He has his own strengths and a certain amount of confidence.  And his normal mother and boring homelife is used as a direct contrast to Jared’s insane household.

The first season is only six episodes long and I look forward to seeing how the story unfolds.