on 7/25/2026, 4:47 pm
Some interesting theses about the show whose first-season twist was a counterintuitive alienation effect that left many in the dust. Season two is taking its time to evolve, but the mood has deepened along with the lead character (with some arresting backstory about John Sugar's early days on Earth making for a charged sequence in Episode 5).
After much praise for how SUGAR moves toward a post-neo-noir mode of redemption, the author cuts to the chase:
Even so, we have reached the fifth of eight episodes without knowing to what extent the series truly has a destination.
Chuy’s phone, the diagram found in Ondaatje’s house, and Vega’s suspicions must quickly produce something larger than another collection of clues. The love of noir sustains Sugar, but it cannot indefinitely replace the development of the plot.
I continue to go along with it because I love being in that universe. I love the music, the car, the films, the melancholy, and, above all, John Sugar.
He is the kind of character I would genuinely like to sit down and talk to. Perhaps that is both the show’s greatest strength and its greatest risk: I enjoy the detective’s company so much that I am almost willing to follow him without knowing where we are going.
Almost.
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