Colin Farrell returns as a Los Angeles PI with a big secret in the second season of neo-noir thriller Sugar
In the first season of Sugar, the neo-noir mystery drama really threw its viewers for a loop. (If you have not seen the first season, and intend to catch up without spoilers, then stop reading now). Towards the end, the show revealed the truth about its protagonist: John Sugar, the private detective roaming Los Angeles in search of his missing sister, was in fact an extraterrestrial. However you felt about this revelation, and the fact that series creator and showrunner Sam Catlin decided to drop this bombshell very late in the game, the second season does not dwell on Sugar’s origins much more than the first season did. “The reveal isn’t really the hook,” says executive producer Audrey Chon. “It’s really just looking at this character who has a different perspective.” In fact, think of John Sugar’s origins as more of a flavour than the focus. “We were relieved that the audience finally was in on the secret and we could start telling the story of Sugar as who he really is,” says Catlin. “We assume the audience now knows and we can lean into the story of Sugar solving another mystery in Los Angeles, which we felt was the heart of the show.”
For Catlin and Chon, the reveal was an opportunity to reboot the show — or at least approach season two from a slightly different angle. “It’s a whole new cast of characters, plus, in a way, Sugar’s a new character to the audience because the big mystery has been explained,” he says. “Now the audience has a totally new relationship to the main character, which we thought was a really fun way to start a second season.” And, true to its structure, this show will drop another huge reveal towards the end of season two, which involves Mireille Enos as guest star. “She’s a very significant character that we won’t see until the end of the season,” says Catlin. “It’s somebody Sugar will have a very complicated reaction to.”
But at the start of the season, as his buddies have departed for the planet they came from, Sugar has decided to remain in Los Angeles where he is investigating the disappearance of a young boxer who has fallen on hard times. “It’s about two brothers that are immigrants from Korea and they’ve come to America to make their way,” explains Catlin. “They’re all they have, which is a mirror of Sugar’s relationship with his sister. When one of the brothers goes missing, the more Sugar looks into this case, the more it starts to unravel deeper corruption and rot. By the end, in Sugar’s point of view, it’s an example of humanity’s darkness. Sugar sees how tough human beings can be on each other.”
To make a hard situation even stickier, Sugar’s attention is drawn to an enigmatic woman staying at the hotel he has made his home. Outlander’s Laura Donnelly joins the cast as Charlotte, a solitary individual who becomes another mystery for Sugar to solve. “We wanted someone that could match wits and presence with Colin Farrell and that’s exactly what we got,” says Catlin. “For people who don’t know who this actor is — and I think a lot of people do now — but if you don’t, she’s fantastic.” Sugar can’t help but agree that Donnelly’s is a presence that cannot be ignored. “The way she carries herself, the way she holds her pen, the way she articulates her words, her very essence is something that throws him off from the get-go,” says Farrell. “Romantic love is something that has never, in all the years that he’s been on Planet Earth, been on his radar. And, just as human beings are from time to time, he’s undeniably magnetized by what he feels when he’s around her.”
As anyone with a knowledge of noir films knows, a femme fatale is not to be trusted. But is Charlotte the stereotypical noir siren? “There is always that element, that tone that they’re bringing in — or at least a big question mark over it,” teases Donnelly. “I love that this show plays with those traditions within that genre. And at the same time, it also is a show that steps very far away from this genre when it chooses to.”
Where Donnelly and Farrell have full trust in each other is behind the scenes. “Oh, it’s just bliss,” says Donnelly. “He knows that character so well, and being exec producer, he’s been part of all of the conversations that happen from the very beginning of the script being written up to the days that you’re shooting, so he inhabits it so well. He may just play around with the scene a bit and I very much allowed myself to be led by that, because this is his show and he knows this world better than any of us.”
However much the writers have chosen to adapt the genre, true noir is something that is beloved by those in charge of the series. “I grew up watching noir that was an homage to the original noir,” says Catlin. “So, Los Angeles, to me, has always been the home of noir. And L.A. is the perfect location for it just because it has this veneer, this very attractive shell, which is fun to live in and play in, but the more you ask questions, the more you see it’s not quite as pretty. It’s the perfect environment for noir because of the duality of sunshine and darkness.” Catlin has found that there is also a new relevance to the noir genre. “More and more it seems that there is something we’re not being told, something that’s being withheld, backroom deals and conspiracies,” says Catlin. “It’s obviously in the culture right now and that theme is just as relevant if not more relevant than ever.”
Sugar, streaming on Apple TV