Apple TV
I have been watching Sugar on Apple TV Plus for a few weeks now, which has been a generally solid, if not somewhat unremarkable mysteries series starring Colin Farrell. The granddaughter of a high profile Hollywood producer is missing, and Sugar, as is his line of work, steps in to find her.
The story leads through some sleazy actors and seedy criminals, but there’s a strange undercurrent to the entire thing. But now, in episode 6, things have gone completely off the rails, in what I would argue is a good way.
All this time, there has been this odd network of people that Sugar is connected to. The “Polyglot” society where it seems like they’re united because they speak loads of different languages. It comes off like one of those “independent” spy agencies you sometimes see in thriller fiction. Or maybe something like the weird world of John Wick’s assassins with their coins and hotels.
Boy, it sure is none of that. Spoilers follow.
As it turns out these people, and in turn Farrell’s Sugar, are aliens.
I cannot express how bizarre this is in the context of the show. Again, this entire thing plays like a take on an old school noir thriller. While the concept of someone being a secret alien is not uncommon in say, the sci-fi genre, this is miles outside what you would expect from the series. Except if you were…looking closely.
There are actually lots of pretty strange things that happen over the course of the series that now all add up in hindsight, even if they weren’t outright saying “he’s an alien.”
Sugar
I think Sugar doesn’t just like old movies and old cars and old school manners, I think he has crafted his entire persona based on watching those movies as it has molded him into how to act as a human.
His desire not to perpetuate violence may be a moral conviction, sure, but it’s not just because he’s good at fighting, he has actual above-human abilities. This ranges from catching a fly in chopsticks early in the series to this week where he appeared to deflect a bullet with his hand (his watch, maybe?).
There’s his ability to calm down even extremely hostile dogs with a single pitched sound. There’s the fact that he said he can’t get drunk because his body metabolizes alcohol 50x faster than normal. I believe he didn’t have sex with Amy Ryan’s character not just because of chivalry, but because of...biology.
There’s his injury which required some sort of blood bag with very not-English text on it. There is his drug use which is not in fact drug use, but has to do with his transformation from human to alien.
Sugar
All of this has been there the whole time creating a strange “vibe” around this show, but never quite indicating things were going to get quite this weird. What I still can’t figure out exactly is why he’s taking missing persons cases around the world in the first place, or why his alien organization is apparently behind something as simplistic as the abduction of Olivia. But we have two more episodes to figure that out.
Just a deeply bizarre turn here for Sugar, but I kind of love it.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
