–This article contains SPOILERS until episode 6 of ‘SUGAR’–
Sugar seemed like a series prone to becoming a quiet happy place within the catalog of Apple TV+. At least for those viewers with the appropriate taste to consider a happy place a police intrigue set in Los Angeles, starring Colin Farrell as movie detective and splashed by constant references to classic film noir whose images are even inserted within the narrative.
The story is simple and recognizable. Like the charisma of its protagonist, John Sugar (Farrell, in his record slaughtered lamb with soul of fucker instead of vice versa): a researcher deeply fond of cinema and extremely good at what he does. He not only exercises the detective trade with the finesse of a violinist converted into a boxer, but he is nicer than the old pesetas. Notice how he addresses everyone by name.
While investigating the disappearance of the granddaughter of a legendary Hollywood producer (James Cromwelltotemic), as usual Sugar will unravel a much murkier skein of the dark side of the great city of Los Angeles, with questionable allies as magnetic as the naivety femme fatale on the rocks interpreted by Amy Ryan.
In short, the series created by Mark Protosevich showed all the ingredients of a cinephile-crime delight. To savor as if it were that whiskey that does not make the protagonist drunk, whose ices collide in the glass with the brio of the images of Fernando Meirelles (the Brazilian director signs five of the eight episodes) agitated by the editing of Fernando Stutz. Until the end of episode 6 reveals the surprise twist that can change everything.
‘Sugar’: end of episode 6
During the previous six episodes John Sugar’s exceptional expertise could have raised suspicions, coupled with his particular way of processing alcohol, that peculiar way of sleeping or that at a certain point he confessed to Melanie (Amy Ryan) that he had “a huge secret.” But the end of episode 6 clears up that doubt specifically about the protagonist, perhaps raising hundreds more.
As we see in the last moments of the episode, after getting one of his mysterious injections, John Sugar is not human. What we see in his image reflected in the mirror is the discovery that he is actually an alien or, at least, a particularly strange being: with Na’vi blue skin and a head as shaved as Doctor Manhattan.
As viewers try to digest the implications of this revelation that ends in a radical cliffhanger until next week, in People have published statements of Simon Kinberg, one of the executive producers, ensuring that this shocking turn of events was about to cost him Sugar existence because no platform wanted to swallow this swerve towards science fiction when they were offered the series.
“A lot of people were excited about the script. They loved it because Mark Protosevich wrote a beautiful script and John Sugar is an original and charming character,” says Kinberg. “But in many of those meetings they were afraid of this revelation. They believed that the combination, or rather the mixing of genres, was too risky. In many places they asked us why it couldn’t just be a detective series, that she was already very good like that.”
Finally, it was Apple TV+ where Sugar He found a home without problems or concessions. “We felt that if we eliminated this we were taking something away from John Sugar, the character,” Kinberg continues. “So it wasn’t easy to convince everyone, but Apple were the ones who most supported this vision that no one else shared. Now I think that once people see the episode they will be unable to imagine the series without this element” .
The first season of Sugar It is made up of eight episodes, so there are two more to see how Apple TV+ viewers respond to the big reveal. That will determine the chances of the platform deciding renew the series for a second season or not.
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