Sugar - season 1 (2024) review
“Sugar (do do do do do do), oh honey honey (do do do do do do)…..” mind you this song isn’t played in the show but I’m glad I was reminded of this banger.
Plot: Private detective John Sugar investigates the disappearance of Olivia Siegel, the beloved granddaughter of Hollywood producer Jonathan Siegel. As Sugar tries to determine what happened to Olivia, he unearths Siegel family secrets, old and new.
Nicolas Cage recently got confirmed to be cast in Prime’s live-action Spider-Man spin-off series Noir where he’ll be playing the web-swinging PI, and as much as I’m excited to see Cage brood in black-and-white, there’s currently a perfectly enjoyable noir detective series on Apple TV+ that I haven’t heard anyone talk about. Especially due to its flabbergasting mid-season plot twist that is so laughably out-of-left-field that I’m not sure it’s a good or bad thing. But let’s discuss…
Taking inspiration from the likes of LA Confidential and Chinatown, this neo noir show plays as a greatest hits album of all the tropes of the genre. The first two episodes especially are super enjoyable, through Farrell’s narration, to the slow piano music to the use of black-and-white and crisp cinematography, the entire thing just felt like a vibe. A super cool vibe. Naturally Colin Farrell is a perfect casting choice to play the charming private investigator. He’s got that likeable face you feel you can trust, but enough going on in his expression to give him that element of mystery. Also Farrell looks great in a suit. One has to respect a man that can wear a suit well. Ask Barney Stinson. So the first two episodes are truly awesome. The script wasn’t anything groundbreaking, with Farrell’s inner monologues featuring lines you’d easily find in other neo-noir movies/shows, but just as a collective package this thing felt ace in its first two episodes. There’s also this glossy pastiche of old-school movies that are referenced throughout, reflecting John Sugar’s passion for film and the Hollywood setting. However after that the show slows down, with the central mystery of the missing girl stretched out with pointless baggage around it to fulfill the series episode count. Honestly, this would have worked better as a film rather than a series.
Now in regards to the aforementioned plot twist. I haven’t been so snortingly contemptuous of a reveal since that 2019 fishing thriller Serenity starring Matthew McConaughey that pulls of a ‘bait and switch’ times two with its ending that is so ludicrously random and out of nowhere that I recall truly gasping at the cinema. It’s a terrible twist, but also for a movie that otherwise was utterly boring and bad, that narrative shock at least gave me somewhat of a thrill. So with Sugar at the end of episode 6 a certain reveal happens, that in a way completely changes the entire series. Though one could argue there were a couple of clues in earlier episodes that could have somewhat suggested this twist, in reality I do believe this reveal was a bit of a cheat. It’s an unearned way to grab attention and get a “WHAAAA???” reaction out of the audience, and I thought it came off as a cheap shot. Granted though it gave the meandering show a little boost of energy to the end of the season, but felt so out of place. If the reveal happened earlier, then the show would have had more time to play up to its weird premise.
Sugar is very much a series that is carried by its lead performance (and an adorable doggo), and though the beginning of the season was a strong start, it lost its narrative direction shortly after until that baffling twist that again, I can’t decide if it’s good or bad, but I’m leaning more towards the latter. A good twist needs to have the correct appropriate set-up. The twist in Sugar was more like the showrunners going “psyche - gotcha!”
