In this day and age, it can be a tough sell to convince someone to watch a slow-burning detective series on a streamer when there are so many fast-paced programs vying for your attention. I get it; I do. But sometimes a show comes along that breaks free from the preconceived notions that can come with a genre, while also celebrating it. There’s one series, particularly, that comes to mind that ticks those boxes — and it’s currently streaming its second season on Apple TV . See at Apple TV Sugar stars Oscar and Emmy nominee Colin Farrell as private investigator, John Sugar. On the surface, it looks and operates like a modern-day noir detective show , but something supernatural is happening if you look a bit deeper. I am going to spoil something about the series right now . It needs to be done if I’m going to discuss the new episodes with you. So, if you’re not caught up on season 1, you’ve been warned. Read more: New on Apple TV in July 2026: Pickleball Comedy ‘The Dink,’ Anya Taylor-Joy in ‘Lucky’ and More Colin Farrell stars in Sugar on Apple TV. Apple TV John Sugar is an alien: a blue extraterrestrial, a bright-eyed being not from this planet. And yep, he still looks better in a suit than I do. This sci-fi story twist was revealed in 2024, when the show’s first season was brand new. While this creative swing disrupted expectations of the noir genre , it didn’t overshadow the story or the case he was striving to solve in those episodes. It added to it, like icing on a cake that didn’t necessarily need it but benefited from the sweetness nonetheless. Through the show’s initial run, Sugar was searching for his missing sister, and his need to find her and reconcile that grief fueled his work as a private eye. Season 2 opens by closing that storyline, and follows Sugar, who, after the events of the first season’s finale, is allegedly the only member of his clan left on Earth. Without family or community, Sugar returns to the work that gives him purpose: finding missing people. His doorway into our culture was movies — old Hollywood black-and-white movies , to be specific — and it’s through that glamorous, dramatic, stylized lens that he sees our world. However, this perception is regularly disrupted by the harsh, violent, brutal realities that accompany his work. Jin Ha stars as Danny Moon in the second season of Sugar. Apple TV The man Sugar’s looking for is Ji (Raymond Lee), the criminal-minded brother of a promising boxer, Danny Moon (Jin Ha). His investigation puts Sugar in all sorts of precarious situations, including gang territory, which pivots the series into familiar turf for those who miss shows like The Shield or The Wire. This tidbit adds a new layer to the series and is a nice reminder that Los Angeles is an important character in the show. Like another LA-based show, The Lincoln Lawyer, Sugar regularly features sequences in which Farrell is dressed to the nines, driving his classic convertible through the city’s streets, where the landscape toggles from tourist-crowded spectacle to crumbling and disheveled wasteland, and back again, much like it does if you drive around these parts regularly — which I do. Season 1 introduced the voice-over narrative, with Farrell delivering an inner monologue to inform the story. Stylistically, it’s a common tool used in the detective noir genre and could easily plummet the show into cheeseball territory, but it worked in its first run of episodes and continues to be a nice addition in the new episodes. That shouldn’t be surprising, considering the caliber of actor delivering these lines. Colin Farrell is magnetic as John Sugar, who is soft-spoken, calculated and stoic. His performance as the alien private eye is the exact opposite of the work he did as Oz Cobb in The Penguin , where he disappeared in the role of the brash, boisterous Gotham City crime boss through heavy prosthetics. Colin Farrell and Shea Whigham star in Sugar on Apple TV. Apple TV His voice-over segments, acco
Sumber: CNET