Colin Farrell's Detective Drama Is Proving Divisive Because of One Wild Twist

The much-foreshadowed twist in Apple TV+'s mystery drama Sugar finally arrived with today's episode, the series' sixth. Speculation flourished on Reddit, where viewers advanced theories about the true identity of private detective John Sugar (Colin Farrell), while Sugar himself searched for Olivia Siegel (Sydney Chandler), the missing granddaughter of a fabled Hollywood producer (James Cromwell). The clues that online sleuths analyzed included Sugar's uncanny coordination (he caught a fly with chopsticks in the first episode), the seizures that occasionally incapacitate him, his imperviousness to the effects of alcohol, and the Polyglot Society, that enigmatic organization to which Sugar ambivalently belongs.

Is Sugar an angel? A vampire? An alien? An immortal? A time traveler? No Redditor doubted that he was something more than human, a sentiment confirmed when Sugar, cornered by villain Stallings (a genuinely terrifying Eric Lange) and two of his armed henchfolk, succeeded in overpowering and killing all three. Some mysteries remain—why did Ruby (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) tip the bad guys off to Sugar's impending arrival?—but the episode's final scene handed the laurels to Team Alien, showing Sugar injecting yet another hypodermic into his neck, causing him to gradually transform into a hairless, glowing-eyed wonder with ridged skin as blue as his beloved Corvette.

This reveal has divided TV critics who had access to the full run of episodes before reviewing the series. Some hated it; others (including myself) found it intriguing. Surely anyone who's stuck with Sugar this long (despite the concise 30-odd-minute-long episodes) will be a sucker for moody film noir iconography, however familiar, just like Sugar himself. The series creator, Mark Protosevich, has laced a subtle vein of cognitive dissonance throughout the preceding episodes, with clips from Humphrey Bogart movies and that seedy 1955 classic, Kiss Me Deadly. The heroes of those films were not nice guys, certainly not as kind, gentle, and decent as Sugar. As much as he loves those old movies, this is a crucial point Sugar seems to have missed, just as those people who say they want to live out a "fairy tale" have forgotten how dark and brutal most fairy tales are.

Those who object to the series' reveal seem to regard it as a reversal or overturning of what's come before. Sugar presents itself as a detective show, then suddenly transforms into science fiction. But the two genres are more compatible than you might think. The long game being played by Sugar's people isn't clear, but, as Ruby explains, the Polyglot Society is just here to observe. They are like anthropologists (or even journalists), sworn to remain uninvolved and to write down everything they see in Moleskine notebooks, presumably for transmission back to their home planet.

Detectives, too, are supposed to be committed to an impartial search for the truth, and that mission gives them access to walks of life that otherwise might be closed to them. But just as Sugar finds it impossible not to become emotionally entangled in his cases, anthropologists have also famously struggled not to get too close to the people they study. In a sly reversal of the usual anthropological concerns, Sugar and his confederates seem to worry less that they will contaminate their subjects with foreign influences than that they will be corrupted by the chaos, cruelty, and violence of the humans they've infiltrated.

This is the core dilemma of Sugar's character: Can he preserve his better self while still consorting with humanity and savoring the aspects of life on Earth that he so plainly appreciates? He's not the only one. Ruby, who genuinely cares for him, turns out to be complicit somehow in an arrangement to protect Stallings. What could cause her to compromise herself in this way? That Sugar must hold himself apart from even his closest human friend, Melanie (Amy Ryan), echoes the isolation of the classic hard-boiled P.I. It also lends a resonance to his melancholy detachment. There's no place he belongs, an attitude common among the lone-wolf heroes of pop culture. But instead of being the toll exacted by all the terrible things he's seen or done, Sugar's isolation is a matter of principle.

Sugar has yet to be renewed for a second season, and I will mourn if it isn't. I want to learn more about Sugar's people and what they're up to. I want to watch him glide through more classic film noir scenarios with his impeccable manners, ravishing suits, and tender sadness. Above all, I want to see if Sugar can succeed at negotiating his dual missions while still shielding his extraordinary goodness as he wends his way though this fallen, all-too-human world.

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