Sugar: Season 1

This is a really bad poster. They must have let the intern do the key art that day. Or thought the show wouldn’t fly. Honestly, Apple TV+ seems to not really give two shits about promoting their shows, so perhaps they think this is just fine. Weird considering they’re such an advertising and promotional juggernaut when it comes to their products. And put such thought and care into packaging. Of course the show itself looks fine. It even looks good at times. Sure, it’s completely up its own ass, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy artsy, self-referential detective noir that feels the need to add a layer of complete ridiculousness on top of its insular weirdness.

But from jump there is something desperately off about this show. To the point I turned to Ms. Hipster and was like “if this guy turns out to be a fucking ***** or something, I… I just can’t…” And, lo and behold, the dude, Sugar (Colin Farrell), turns out to be a fucking *****! And when this reveal comes about, I paused the show, looked at her, and literally mouthed “oh shit” at her. Like we couldn’t just have a straight-forward mystery/detective noir show and felt the need to interject an absurd second layer that took this show from a pretty dreamy-looking, classic whoodunit to an example of the symptom of modern TV where they can’t just leave well enough alone.

Now… this twist does kind of, sort of explain some of the dumb shit that baffled me up until the reveal. First, this private detective, Sugar, who is apparently the best dude on Earth at tracking down missing people, driving the most conspicuous vintage convertible Corvette any low-profile-seeking person has ever driven. A car he can’t even park places for fear someone will steal that shit because it’s so nice. A car anyone would notice tailing them — mostly because he always has the top down and is clearly visible to anyone looking in their rearview. He also has these flashes in his head — or so we’re maybe, kind of led to believe — of old movie clips. Movie clips that seemingly have very little to do with what’s going on. It’s confounding. A gimmick that doesn’t at all work, and just seems like some writer recalled the goofy HBO series from the early 90s, Dream On, and was like: hey, what if we use old clips from the film library to show us what Sugar is thinking? Or where he gets his overwhelming sense of right and wrong? It’s unclear what the point is, and I imagine if there’s a season two, they’ll dump that silliness.

Anyhow, it’s really tough to talk about this show without talking about the “twist” that happens at the end of episode six of eight episodes. But suffice it to say that the whole plot you thought you were supposed to care about — which, truth be told, is completely convoluted and unnecessarily complicated for a find-the-kidnapped-grandaughter-of-the-rich-guy plot — is just a feint. Though James Cromwell, as the most non-Jewish Hollywood producer named Jonathan Siegel ever, does play a good rich patriarch type. Nate Corddry is appropriately annoying as the sketchy former child actor nepo-baby. Amy Ryan from The Office is actually great as Sugar’s lady friend / partner in crime, though the show is kind of all over the place with her character and her feelings toward Sugar’s evasiveness about his background and propensity to be both very kind and also incredibly stoic around extreme violence. Farrell plays the part very well — though it’s definitely one of his super-even-keel performances. Quiet, almost. A lot of acting with his eyebrows and hands. Which works for what he’s trying to do.

Overall I’d say I enjoyed the show for the vibes and the lead performances, but wish they’d scaled back some of the plot. Streamlined it, especially with the aforementioned parallel twist plot that’s layered on top of our primary plot, which kind of becomes the secondary plot. There were spots where I mostly gave up trying to track who was related to whom and whose mom wore what dress in what secret pictures that were found in whose wardrobe, which were placed there by such-and-such person to blackmail the original photographer… Ugh, it’s so frustrating not being able to say what’s up with Sugar. I’ll tell you what, I’ll spoil it below the trailer video. That way I can get it out and you can go see it for yourself and also wonder what the hell these people were thinking. It’s insane.

He’s an alien! A blue-skinned fucking alien. No, it’s not in the trailer. Not even a hint. He has a shaky hand, but so did Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan. I hated it then, I didn’t love it in this. But that stupid shaky hand didn’t lead me to believe he was going to be from outerspace. And, yes, I may have guessed it anyway, but that was more like “what would the most absurd thing be right now?” And there he was staring at himself in the mirror, a blue creature in a modern noir. Because our brains and television is broken.