Jared encounters creepy doppelgängers, a talking crow, and a nosy woman (Gail Maurice) whose skin seems to barely hang on to her body. He’s a mystery figure whose return to Kitimaat coincides with peculiar occurrences. But the novel’s title hints that Jared’s real dad is the trickster who goes by Wade, played with cunning magnetism by Kalani Queypo. Jared’s dad is purportedly Phil (Craig Lauzon), a gentle but needy father who bashfully has his handout. But each episode reveals more about her pain and her strengths. We regularly see her having conversations with thin air. Crystle Lightning is electrifying as Maggie, a mom who drinks hard, loves harder and has a ferociousness about her that keeps everyone on their toes. His skittish mom Maggie on the other hand storms into the party and becomes its gravitational centre. Jared is the responsible one who drinks or gets high quietly at a party. He also cooks MDMA on the side to support his family. He keeps his head down, squeaks by at school and works a fast food drive-thru. Jared doesn’t pay much attention to the divisive plant or the pipeline workers roaring through his community. Oulette’s Jared is a teen from Kitimat, B.C., where an under construction LNG plant is planning to receive the Coastal GasLink pipeline. And beneath his furrowed brow are eyes you can get lost in. He’s got a jaw line and pecs that call attention like rare rock formations. The newcomer is exactly the kind of heartthrob to anchor a show for YA fans. The six-part first season stars Joel Oulette. Robinson is currently writing the final novel in the Trickster trilogy, and Latimer is already writing the second season. Her trademark wicked-cool style and energy pulses and throbs through this series. That’s a taste of what co-creators Michelle Latimer and Tony Elliot bring to this CBC adaptation of Eden Robinson’s book Son Of A Trickster.

Replace the British accents, Hogwart’s decadence and John Williams’s music box score with Indigenous folklore, a grim sense of humour and an aesthetic and swagger that suits a Snotty Nose Rez Kids video. And both are about young boys absorbing personal traumas and discovering their inherent power and purpose. Both are coming-of-age tales with supernatural elements. The comparison might seem reductive but the parallels are there. Trickster is a scrappy, bare-knuckle answer to the Harry Potter series.

Eden robinson trickster