Sugar Season 2 Still Doesn’t Need To Be A Sci-Fi Saga
Apple TV’s wild detective noir struggles to pay off its big sci-fi twist.
As the streaming bubble reaches critical mass and threatens to swallow us all whole, there’s an unspoken truth it’s time we all made peace with: there is such a thing as too high concept.
I get it, there’s only so many ways to stand out amongst the stampede of “smart” TV shows. Why not throw in a genre twist? Apple TV is the new poster child for this intersection, and all the wild and wonderful ways to elevate material that wouldn’t necessarily need it. But some stories — like Sugar, a vibes-y crime thriller returning to Apple for its second season — really do not need it. The series is a pretty blatant love letter to the Old Hollywood noir, fashioning its eponymous private eye (Colin Farrell, who also executive produces) into a modern Humphrey Bogart. It is also, bafflingly, a grounded remix of the Superman story, in that Sugar is an alien (one of many sent to Earth to observe the human race) searching for his missing sister in his downtime between missing persons cases.
That Sugar is an extraterrestrial immigrant is a very big spoiler from Season 1, but I feel no qualms in revealing it because, to this day, it has barely any bearing on the plot. In fact, it might actively be hurting the show — even as Sugar grows more confident in the twist it spent half of its last season concealing.
“What if Clark Kent was a cinephile who lived in Los Angeles and solved crimes?” should, on paper, be an interesting premise. But every time Sugar reaches for the stars (real or hypothetical), this larger-than-life story shrinks itself into a box of its own design. There are so many fascinating things that happen in Sugar — especially in this season, which tells the better of two very different missing persons cases. Farrell’s John Sugar is tasked with tracking down Ji Moon (Raymond Lee), the errant big brother of rising local boxer Danny Moon (Jin Ha). Before long, though, it’s less about locating Ji than it is about protecting him from an even bigger threat, which involves a local gang and a corrupt sheriff’s deputy, Lieutenant Vega (Tony Dalton).
If Season 1 told a glitzier tale, Season 2 takes Sugar and his Saville Row suits into the lion’s den, dropping him into the seediest reaches of the city and forcing him to survive with only his determination. Very little of it is made more interesting or dynamic by his being an alien, and it doesn’t help that Sugar is still unspooling the lore of that reveal with molasses-slow intent.
A better mystery and grimier stakes nearly save Sugar from another irritating retread.
After a mass exodus at the end of Season 1, Sugar is now the only member of his race left on Earth. Stranded, homesick, and seriously questioning his choice to stay in LA, our hero spends a lot of time making asides about his time in the galaxy, the “golden rule” that unites Earth morality with his yet-unnamed alien society. Sometimes his unique physiognomy comes in clutch — like in a truly hair-raising ambush on an LA street at the witching hour. Sugar can walk away from a hit-and-run and get up the next day after an alien blood transfusion; he can move things with his mind. And he probably has more skills up his sleeve, and strengths he hides to maintain his cover. But his true superpower is the same as it’s always been: his kindness.
Sugar might not be human, but his status as the Nicest Guy In Los Angeles is what makes him a true outlier — and a fantastic sleuth. He happily offers a job to the street-savvy Val (Sasha Calle) almost immediately after she jacks his car and charges him $500 to retrieve it. When he visits the grieving mother of a recently murdered gang banger, he notices that her home is in disarray and starts cleaning it without a second’s hesitation. He bonds with a security guard over Casablanca, and later uses that connection to ask a favor that breaks the Moon case wide open. You wouldn’t catch Bogie performing these acts of service, but Sugar sees the good in everything, and it’s by far the most refreshing aspect of this series. Perhaps that’s something that Sugar’s creative team — creator Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend), producer Simon Kinberg (of Fox’s X-Men saga and Apple’s own Invasion) — view as a literal manifestation of his alienness, but any attempts to connect those dots come off awkward and half-baked.
Sugar’s identity crisis hamstrings its ambitious second season.
The deeper Sugar wades into the case involving the Moons, the more captivating the series gets. But we’re yanked right out of that immersion with every reminder of Sugar’s Prime Directive. The words “BEWARE ASSIMILATION” occasionally haunt his steps as he forges stronger connections, and even begins a flirtation with his new neighbor, Charlotte (Laura Donnelly). Flashes of Rita Hayworth in Gilda flash across the screen the first time he sees her, so you know he’s a goner, self-restraint be damned. But the series once again takes way too long to explain why his crush is “not allowed.”
The show is still holding every interesting part of its sci-fi twist at arms’ length; even Sugar’s fascination with Classic Hollywood looks tacked on elsewhere. Despite efforts to synthesize the vision in Season 2, Sugar literally still feels like a detective story wearing an alien costume. It’s far too late to shed the pretense now, but for this show to soar, it needs to commit to everything it wants to be.
