Flirty return of holiday rom-com meets cosy mystery

Peter Mooney says there are two surefire ways to have chemistry on set.

“You have to either really like your co-star, or strongly dislike your co-star, and Sarah and I really don’t like each other,” says the Winnipeg-born actor (Rookie Blue), which earns a laugh from his Mistletoe Murders co-star Sarah Drew (Grey’s Anatomy).

“Not at all,” she adds.

They’re kidding, of course. Drew and Mooney have happily returned to the fictional town of Fletcher’s Grove for Season 2 of their Hallmark holiday mystery based on the hit Audible podcast.

Drew stars as Emily Lane, the owner of a year-round Christmas shop called Under the Mistletoe, but this gumdrop slinger also happens to be a gumshoe, and has taken it upon herself to investigate local murders. Mooney stars as Det. Sam Wilner, who obviously has some issues with this.

Cue the banter — and the romantic sparks.

“We’re so lucky. We have so much fun on set, we laugh so much together and that goes right into when we’re rolling. I think we can drop in and connect to whatever moment, whatever is going on between Sam and Emily,” Mooney says.

“But I think through it all, there is a current of the fact that we have a blast on set, and I hope we bring the audience in on that, that they get to pick up on a bit of the fun we’re having.”

“I always tell people I come home from 10 weeks in Toronto with Peter with a new set of abs because I’ve been laughing so hard,” Drew adds.

Drew was immediately attracted to the project when she got to the end of the script for the first episode of Season 1, which premièred last year.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, sign me up. This is like Veronica Mars or Alias,’” she says.

Indeed, Mistletoe Murders represents a bit of a tonal departure from your usual Hallmark Countdown-to-Christmas fare.

Mooney, for his part, liked the opportunities afforded by the holiday rom-com-meets-murder-mystery mashup.

“Just the smashing together of the two genres, the murder mystery and the Christmas, you’re already in a world where you’re having two kinds of sandboxes to play in at the same time,” Mooney says.

The show fits snugly in the “cosy mystery” designation, a sub-genre of crime fiction in which the gore is not at the fore, so to speak. Cosy mysteries often take place in small towns, involve a local busybody and there’s typically a resolution.

Doesn’t sound so different from a Hallmark Christmas movie, come to think of it.

Drew believes people gravitate towards both holiday rom-coms and cosy mysteries because of how uncertain the world is right now.

“So turning on the TV and being like, I want to watch something that has a resolution. I want to take a journey. I want to feel some things, but I want to come to a place where everything is OK at the end — we relish that. We want it, it’s aspirational, and it’s what we hope for and want in our lives,” Drew says.

Both the TV show and the podcast, which stars Colbie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother) in the role of Emily and Raymond Ablack (Degrassi: The Next Generation) as Sam, were created by Ken Cuperus.

Mooney hasn’t listened to the podcast at all in an effort to go into his character fresh; Drew has listened to some just to get the vibe. But both exist as separate entities, she says.

“They’re totally different mysteries, and they completely diverge from each other in character development, too.”

Drew, who also serves as executive producer on the show, is excited for fans to see Season 2, which premières Friday at 7 p.m. on the W Network.

“I really feel like Season 2 is even better, like, richer and more layered than Season 1. And I know fans are going to be pretty excited because I know a lot of them were really hoping for more Emily backstory, and we deliver on that,” Drew says.

“And people love the romance between Emily and Sam, and it gets even deeper and more layered and more complicated and, I think, lovelier in Season 2.”

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca