In this day and age, it can be a tough sell to convince someone to watch the slow burn series of detectives on the streamer if there are too many fast-paced programs vying for your attention. I get it; I agree. But every once in a while a program comes along that breaks from the preconceived notions and adds a genre, while being celebrated. There’s one series, in particular, that comes to mind that ticks those boxes — and it’s currently airing its second season Apple TV.
Sugar stars Oscar and Emmy nominee Colin Farrell as private investigator, John Sugar. On the outside, it looks and functions like the present day a noir detective showbut something supernatural happens when you look deeper.
I’m going to spoil something about the thread right now. It has to be done if I’m going to talk to you about the new episodes. So, if you weren’t caught up on season 1, you’ve been warned.
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Colin Farrell stars in Sugar on Apple TV.
John Sugar is an alien: a blue extraterrestrial, a light-eyed person not from this planet. And yes, he still looks better than me.
This a sci-fi story The twist is revealed in 2024, when the first season of the show is brand new. While this creative shift has disrupted expectations of genre noirit didn’t close the story or the case he was trying to solve in those episodes. It added to it, like icing on a cake it didn’t need but enjoyed the fun nonetheless.
At the start of the game, Sugar is searching for her missing sister, and her need to find her and reconcile that grief fueled her work as a private eye. Season 2 opens with the conclusion of that storyline, and follows Sugar, who after the events of the first season’s finale, is allegedly the only member of her family left on Earth. Without family or community, Sugar returns to a job that gives him purpose: finding missing people.
His entrance into our culture was the movies — old Hollywood movies in black and whiteto clarify — and it is through that glamorous, majestic, stylish lens that he sees our world. However, this view is often disturbed by the brutal, violent, brutal realities associated with his work.
Jin Ha stars as Danny Moon in the second season of Sugar.
Episode 3 airs on Apple TV on Friday, which means Sugar is still focused on the missing persons case this season. The man she wants is Ji (Raymond Lee), the criminally minded brother of a promising boxer, Danny Moon (Jin Ha). His investigation puts Sugar in all kinds of dangerous situations, including a gang scene, which revolves around the series in familiar territory for those who miss shows like The Shield or The Wire.
This tidbit adds a new layer to the series and is a great reminder that Los Angeles is an important character in the show. Like another LA-based show, The Lincoln Lawyer, Sugar often includes sequences where Farrell is dressed up for nine months, driving his convertible through the streets of the city, where the landscape changes from a tourist-filled spectacle to a crumbling and crumbling wasteland, and back again, as it does when you drive around these parts regularly — which I do.
Season 1 introduced voice-over narration, with Farrell delivering an internal monologue to inform the story. Stylistically, it’s a common device used in the detective noir genre and could easily bring the show down to cheeseball territory, but it worked in its first run of episodes and continues to be a great addition to new episodes.
That shouldn’t be surprising, considering the quality of the actor delivering these lines.
Colin Farrell is magnetic as John Sugar, soft-spoken, open and stoic. His work as a secret alien eye is the exact opposite of the work he does Oz Cobb on Penguinwhere he disappeared into the role of a brash, loud crime boss of Gotham City through the use of heavy prosthetics.
Colin Farrell and Shea Whigham star in Sugar on Apple TV.
His vocal parts, accompanied by clips from classic Humphrey Bogart films, guide the sugar-fueled emotional journey. He is far from being human, but he cannot satisfy humanity. The camera work, full of Dutch angles and other stylistic elements, helps inform the series and respect the noir genre while also reinforcing the idea that John Sugar is an extraordinary man, living alone in an extraordinary world.
Heck, I would go so far as to say that John Sugar is the kind of way I can imagine that Clark Kent would have appeared, if he had always been released, loved movies and never decided to put on a Superman costume to share his powers with the world.
Farrell’s Sugar is always looking, looking, attracted by the people around him. You are a hollow creature still searching for a purpose. So, you’re working to get people — I mean, I think there’s a potential conversation about how cinema benefits and connects humanity, but I digress.
Laura Donnelly stars in season 2 of Sugar on Apple TV.
Yes, Farrell is the No. 1 reason. 1 to give the show a watch. But the supporting cast is worth your time, too. Shea Whigham’s turn as Sugar’s Big Lebowski-style mentor, Tom, adds a similar dynamic to Elliott Gould’s The Lincoln Lawyer. Laura Donnelly’s daughter, Charlotte, keeps Sugar on her toes. Sasha Calle brings some street smarts as his new assistant, Val, and Tony Dalton’s always good, this season’s badass, Ray Vega, does an unnerving job without chewing up the scenery.
Trust me, space can be easily chewed up here, and it’s very attractive to enter, I assure you. Sugar is a science fiction series that would still be firing on all awesome cylinders if only it were a brooding detective story. Everything is excellent from the writing and cinematography to the growing emotions and diverse performances of its cast.
But it has that supernatural DNA, to be sure. And that makes it another unique, interesting, must watch on the Apple TV list.