GoKawiilIn this day and age, it can be a tough sell to convince someone to watch a slow-burning detective series on a streamer when there are so many fast-paced programs vying for your attention. I get it; I do. But sometimes a show comes along that breaks free from the preconceived notions that can come with a genre, while also celebrating it. There's one series, particularly, that comes to mind that ticks those boxes -- and it's currently streaming its second season on Apple TV.
Sugar stars Oscar and Emmy nominee Colin Farrell as private investigator, John Sugar. On the surface, it looks and operates like a modern-day noir detective show, but something supernatural is happening if you look a bit deeper.
I am going to spoil something about the series right now. It needs to be done if I'm going to discuss the new episodes with you. So, if you're not caught up on season 1, you've been warned.
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Colin Farrell stars in Sugar on Apple TV. Apple TV
John Sugar is an alien: a blue extraterrestrial, a bright-eyed being not from this planet. And yep, he still looks better in a suit than I do.
This sci-fi story twist was revealed in 2024, when the show's first season was brand new. While this creative swing disrupted expectations of the noir genre, it didn't overshadow the story or the case he was striving to solve in those episodes. It added to it, like icing on a cake that didn't necessarily need it but benefited from the sweetness nonetheless.
Through the show's initial run, Sugar was searching for his missing sister, and his need to find her and reconcile that grief fueled his work as a private eye. Season 2 opens by closing that storyline, and follows Sugar, who, after the events of the first season's finale, is allegedly the only member of his clan left on Earth. Without family or community, Sugar returns to the work that gives him purpose: finding missing people.
His doorway into our culture was movies -- old Hollywood black-and-white movies, to be specific -- and it's through that glamorous, dramatic, stylized lens that he sees our world. However, this perception is regularly disrupted by the harsh, violent, brutal realities that accompany his work.
Jin Ha stars as Danny Moon in the second season of Sugar. Apple TV
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