Alone at last, in the best and worst of ways, John Sugar takes a case. In fact, he takes two. It’s okay, he’ll make time.

Apple TV have quietly built a roster of absolute heavyweight TV shows in the last few years. Ted Lasso, Slow Horses and Widow’s Bay in particular have hit very big but Sugar, in a way that’s very appropriate for its main character, has also been quite the hit. Also thematically appropriate is the mystery of how to talk about the show for new viewers. Apple TV is a paid service and its possession is not a universal given, so with that privilege in mind I have three options for you if you’re new.

  1. Put this review down and go and watch the first episode of the first season. If you like it, keep going, you’ll know the exact moment that the show changes in some fascinating ways.
  2. Alternately, if you want an idea of how the show is, and some thematic spoilers, go and read Absolute Martian Manhunter. The first collection of the comic series is out, and it’s excellent. It’s the story of a government agent who picks up an alien hitch hiker and the perspective shift that demands of him. Sugar would approve.
  3. The third option is jump in right here. The opening montage spins you up to speed quickly and honestly this is a stronger show for knowing what’s in the past.

With that in mind, John Sugar (Colin Farrell) is a private detective who lives in Los Angeles. Sugar is old-fashioned, wears suits and ties, drives a classic car and loves old movies. Sugar is also an alien, part of what’s implied to be a colossal deployment of scouts who have observed Earth in secret for possibly centuries. At the end of the last season, they discovered that a group of humans knew they were there. At the same time, Sugar discovered his best friend Henry may have killed his sister and had chosen to stay on Earth. Sugar, a man wrapped up in the story he was telling about himself, opted to stay too. He had a case to solve.

As season 2 opens, that case is uncrackable. Sugar is desolate, alone somewhere in Asia having found Henry, only for him to commit suicide as the pressures of life on Earth and his actions got to him. Inside the first ten minutes we see Sugar at his lowest, burning Henry’s body so it can’t be discovered and returning, for other people’s sins to Los Angeles.

It’s a great set up and one with a finality I don’t believe for a second but does re-centre the series on that story Sugar is telling. Farrell is exceptional at this sort of careful, internal acting and his noir-ish narration and accent both set Sugar outside his own perspective in a delightfully familiar yet alien way. Sugar is defined by his ability to solve problems, and his inability to see that he himself is one. His crushing loneliness is his version of the ennui that kills Henry and Sugar is haunted by multiple ghosts. Henry, his sister, the world he left behind and the persistent worry that he’s starting to come apart just like his best friend and nemesis did.

Wrapped up in all this is a missing persons case. Two brothers, both boxers, one going up and one going down. Danny Moon (Jin Ha) is erratic, flamboyant but has the skills to be great. His brother Ji Moon (Raymond Lee late of the much-missed Quantum Leap sequel) disappeared leaving a pair of cryptic voice messages. One, referencing someone looking down at him with ‘those eyes’, which given Sugar’s people have glowing blue eyes feels… indicative.

That case takes Sugar through the underground fight circuit of New York and connects hm with, among others, a car thief played by The Flash’s Sasha Calle who has an easy-going, fun approach to crime that feels like we’ll be seeing more of. We also get, in the closing moments, a payoff to the final beats of season 1. Sugar is working the case of the humans who know his people are on Earth. It’s too much, he knows it, but if anyone knows what it means to walk down the mean streets, it’s John Sugar. Or at least, he thinks he does.

Verdict: Precise, measured and just a little dangerous, this is a hell of a start to the season and a welcome return for one of Apple’s all-timers. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart