‘Bridesmaids’ of cop shows lets it roll
‘Pretty Hard Cases’ takes honest, funny look at female friendship
If it was up to a particularly diligent border guard, Adrienne C. Moore might never have made it over the Canadian border to star in the TV series “Pretty Hard Cases.”
“I swear one day, Meredith, we have to do a sketch on my border patrol officer,” American actor Moore says to Canadian actor Meredith MacNeill, the other lead in the CBC comedydrama about a pair of 40-something women detectives. “I mean, she was Inspector Gadget. I drive up and she’s like, ‘Welcome, bienvenue. What are you doing?’ And I was like, ‘I’m here reporting for work,’” says an animated Moore, whom most viewers would recognize as inmate Cindy in “Orange Is the New Black.”
But the guard was suspicious that Moore was coming from New York and her rental car had Virginia plates.
“She wasn’t having it,” MacNeill, one of the creators and stars of “Baroness von Sketch Show,” interjects on our Zoom call.
“She was not having my American self,” continues Moore, “even to the point where she asked, ‘So what are they gonna do when you bring them COVID?’ as if to say I’m gonna bring COVID to my set.”
Luckily, Moore made it to Toronto and completed her 14-day quarantine without incident, although she was convinced border agents had followed her to her rented house. She called MacNeill, who helpfully suggested leaving a bottle of wine outside for them.
Moore and MacNeill, whom Moore calls “Mer Bear” at one point, banter throughout the interview like old friends, which is fitting since “Pretty Hard Cases” was born out of a friendship between two women.
The show (which originally had the name “Lady Dicks”) was co-created by Tassie Cam- eron and Sherry White, who both have solid track records in the Canadian TV industry. Cameron has been a writer and executive producer on series like “Flashpoint,” “Private Eyes” and “Mary Kills People,” and created shows like “Rookie Blue” and “Ten Days in the Valley.” White’s writing and producing credits include “Saving Hope,” “Orphan Black,” “Frontier,”
“Little Dog” and the film “Maudie.”
“Sherry and I have worked together for years,” Cameron said on a Zoom call with White. “We did all six seasons of ‘Rookie Blue’ together and have become really close friends. We really wanted to explore the dynamics of female friendship, especially women in their 40s, who are further along in their careers, set in their ways, sometimes argumentative, (who have) strong opinions.”
And they wanted to put women like that into a police milieu.
And they wanted it to be light and fun, to capture “the kind of hilarity that we feel when we work together,” Cameron said.
Mind you, it would be a stretch to call Det. Samantha Wazowski, MacNeill’s character, and Det. Kelly Duff, Moore’s character, friends — at least in the first two episodes.
Sam is a by-the-book member of the guns and gangs squad whom Kelly initially calls “a Karen.” (Sam prefers “Marie Kondo, cleaning up the streets one day at a time.”) Kelly is a drug squad member with a more creative approach to policing and a knack for undercover operations.
While an odd-couple pairing is not a new TV convention, our screens aren’t exactly chock-ablock with series that feature teams of female detectives.
“My favourite cop show with female leads is ‘Scott & Bailey,’ but (it’s) a very different tone from our show, much more serious,” said Cameron.
“We would always say (ours) was like a ‘Bridesmaids’ cop show, like a more honest, funny look at female friendship, and we couldn’t find any examples for TV series in that tone at all,” added White.
Both Moore and MacNeill say they appreciated playing real women with issues and flaws.
“A lot of the time when you see a professional woman onscreen you don’t actually see a lot of the vulnerability,” said MacNeill. “The thing I found was most exciting was (Cameron and White) allowed the vulnerability to be there and the selfdoubt and, like, just because you are at the top of your game at your job, that your personal life does spill over.”
Moore also appreciated that Sam and Kelly aren’t in competition with each other, except perhaps in their ideologies.
“Sam’s character is very by the book, rules and regulations, law and order. You know, she literally had a five-step plan. Kelly is more like, ‘Hey, we just go roll and see how this is,’ ” Moore said.
“What I think is so beautiful about how their relationship unfolds this season is that they need a little bit of each other. They need a little bit of that five-step plan and they need a little bit of that ‘we gonna see how it rolls.’ ”
While the onscreen partnership takes time to jell, Moore and MacNeill took to each other right away.
The actors were Cameron’s and White’s top picks for the roles — although they never imagined they’d get both of them — and when they did their chemistry read “it was like they were separated at birth,” Cameron said.
“We had such a wonderful time,” said MacNeill, calling that first reading “one of the highlights of my life.”
“It’s been an incredible journey to film the show with these women,” added Moore. “They were stellar, navigating such difficult waters (the shoot took place during the pandemic) and still creating.”
MacNeill said she’d been apprehensive about getting the role right, but “because I was working with Adrienne … it really fell away because it felt like such a partnership.”
“We spent every minute together and, like, most lunches,” she added. “She calls me ‘tuna trailer’ because I only ate tuna for the longest time and it stunk really bad, but I still made her eat in my trailer.”
“Hey, she had me eating tuna by the end of the season,” said Moore.
“Pretty Hard Cases” debuts Wednesday at 9 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem.