Sugar Season 2 Sidelines Its Biggest Sci‑Fi Swing

Sugar returns to Apple TV with Colin Farrell back as John Sugar, an LA private eye who is secretly an alien. Trailers for the new season continue to downplay that twist, and the episodes themselves spend less time on the show’s boldest science-fiction element than Season 1 did.

This season follows Sugar as he searches for his missing sister Djen while taking on the case of Ji Moon, the missing brother and trainer of rising boxer Danny Moon. Along the way he teams with Val, finds a tentative romance with Charlotte Fischer, and faces the mysterious Ray Vega, whose ties connect several of the season’s conflicts.

The series still embraces noir tropes and is frequently gorgeous to look at, with directors like Michael Morris and Armat Escalante delivering rich images of Los Angeles nightlife. Showrunner Sam Catlin’s approach, however, leaves the series in an uneasy middle ground: the alien reveal appears at moments and serves as a thematic parallel to immigration, but it reads as restrained and sometimes heavy-handed.

sugar, colin farrell, apple tv, season 2, science fiction, alien twist, los angeles, sam catlin, noir, djen