Wild Cards Season 1 Episode 9 Review: Inside (Con)Man

Wild Cards Season 1 Episode 9, “Inside (Con)Man,” is an action-packed penultimate episode that tests Ellis and Max’s partnership.

Written by Marsha Greene and directed by Alexandria LaRoche, this episode constantly amplifies the pressure and tension when Max becomes one of the hostages during a bank robbery, and Ellis breaks the rules to help her.

The only breath-catching beats are fleeting from the teaser to the coda on “Inside (Con)Man.” The show gets its name with the wild cards it throws at Ellis and Max during this penultimate outing, which Vanessa Morgan and Giacomo Gianniotti handle with ease. Notably, their chemistry pulls everything together.

Wild Cards creates an authentic sense of panic around the bank robbery by taking a second to establish the characters who become hostages. It’s especially creative that those baselines primarily manifest through how well Max can read people.

While the Irma, Karl, and Tracy debacle is easier to spot, Max picks up on Mrs. Field’s and Mr. Simpson’s sweetest flirtations.

That element is specifically exciting for Riverdale fans. Mr. Simpson is portrayed by Alvin Sanders, who played Pop Tate on The CW’s Archie Comics-inspired teen drama. After Pop’s itself showed up in the background of Wild Cards Season 1 Episode 6, “Dead of Night,” this cameo is a cherry on top of the milkshake.

Regardless, “Inside (Con)Man” creates reasonable points of connection — outside of the established investment in Max — with the customers and staff before the robbers elevate the stakes. 

The interpersonal relationships extend well beyond those characters, too. Wild Cards leans into history repeating itself with Chief Li’s concerns about Ellis’s pattern of behavior. It’s an interesting chord to strike after Li opened up to Max about Ellis’s demotion on Wild Cards Season 1 Episode 4, “Strangers on a Wave.”

Because this season has yet to get to know Li outside of his role as Chief Li, that history with Ellis is one of the character’s biggest sticking points. 

So, yes, Li calls for Ellis to play by the book and not act out on his feelings over his partner’s safety, which are ones a boss should and would make. However, Wild Cards stacks the deck higher with the knowledge that Li wants Ellis to succeed, but Li can’t let him if Ellis keeps making decisions like these.

With “Inside (Con)Man” as Season 1’s penultimate episode, it brings that dynamic to a fever pitch even though the two characters barely share the screen. Instead, it brews in the background, like Max putting the details together about Tracy making Derek’s coffee with a specific milk.

The twist — or wild card — that Tracy is the mastermind is excellent.

After everything this consultant procedural throws at Ellis and Max this season, “Inside (Con)Man” makes it seem like this is a straightforward bank robbery. If anything, Wild Cards wants the audience and characters to ask if Max is the con person inside the room where it happens.

Yates, whose desk Max is playfully gunning for in the end, voices that concern, which is a fun way to play with the illusion of trust between the two women.

It’s especially gratifying for Ellis to shut down Max’s involvement after their couples therapy on Wild Cards Season 1 Episode 8, “Eternal Sunshine of the Therapized Mind.” Much of this debut season had Max pushing a partnership while Ellis resisted at every turn, so it’s a relief to see him lean all the way into it.

“Inside (Con)Man” is the most that Ellis and Max refer to each other as “partner” all season long. It almost causes a bit of a semantic satiation sensation in the scene when they question Tracy because they use the word so much.

Seeing Ellis and Max work together without sharing the screen until Act 4 is incredible. By keeping Max and Ellis separated for much of the episode, Wild Cards effectively builds the tension of how and when they will see each other.

Consequently, it’s a fantastic cliffhanger for Ellis to see Max at the end of Act 2.

That confirmation that Ellis is in her corner gives Max the extra boost to act more confidently in Act 3. She becomes the robbers’ emissary with her usual flair, which falters before she hears Ellis and Li telling her she’s doing a good job. 

It’s a subtle expression of how this group is growing stronger together.

Wild Cards makes that undeniable for Max and Ellis at the end of Act 3 when Max doesn’t think twice before running towards a shooter and finds Ellis shot. It’s a breathless, slow-motion sequence in which Vanessa Morgan brings her A-game.

Morgan is so fantastic that getting swept up in this potentially tragic moment with Max is simple. It’s easy not to take a breath until she does when she notices that Ellis is wearing a bulletproof vest. 

If there are any questions about whether Max and Ellis feel anything romantic or otherwise about each other, “Inside (Con)Man” confidently dispels those doubts.

The sequence of events when Max checks Ellis’s wound and they whisper secret developments in each other’s ears could be the most electrifying scenes if the cliffhanger of “Inside (Con)Man” didn’t exist. Sincerely, Wild Cards should get a five-season renewal based on Morgan and Gianniotti’s chemistry alone.

This penultimate episode forges something new between Ellis and Max — an unspoken trust that alludes to something more. It’s so big that they can’t even bring it up in their silent car ride back to Max’s house. That’s a big deal, considering Max loves to talk herself in and out of situations.

So, “Inside (Con)Man” doesn’t need to end on Ellis’s boat, like most of the other episodes, for this ship to sail. Even though Max’s probation and Ellis’s promotion remain a question, Ellis and Max’s partnership doesn’t for once.

But Wild Cards has another wild card up its sleeve: Max’s husband. It’s a perfect, jaw-dropping way to lead into the show’s first season finale. 

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Wild Cards airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

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