Fun to watch smart women run the show

The show: Frankie Drake Mysteries, Season 1, Episode 2 The moment: The “communist” meeting

In 1920s Toronto, a factory owner who employs mostly women fears he’s being overrun by communists. He hires a private investigator, Frankie Drake (Lauren Lee Smith, whose shoulders never stop wiggling), to find out. Frankie’s PI partner Trudy (Chantel Riley) poses as a factory employee, befriends the company chatterbox, Zelda (Zoe Cleland), and attends a meeting of the women’s peace co-operative.

“They’re the agitators Mr. Scanlon was so desperately looking for,” Zelda says, walking home. “They weren’t trying to burn anything down or ruin society.” “Just some women who are looking for a better place to work,” Trudy says.

“Their roots are in the suffragette movement,” Zelda says. “Getting the vote was everything to them. Now they’re trying to change the world through peaceful means.”

OK, the messaging in this series is sometimes like being hit in the head with a rolling pin. But it’s fun to sit back and watch women in flowy pants, print dresses and head wraps run their own show; Frankie’s team also includes a wisecracking morgue worker (Sharron Matthews) and a morality cop (Rebecca Liddiard).

Series creators Carol Hay and Michelle Ricci, veterans of Murdoch Mysteries, know that Toronto the Good was only good for certain people. They’re giving the overlooked a chance to sashay. Frankie Drake Mysteries airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on CBC. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.