This story is SPOILER-FREE for Sugar Season 1, so you're safe to read on, even if you haven’t streamed this one yet.
Apple TV has some truly great original shows, with Severance and Ted Lasso being a couple of standout favorites. Recently I realized that I’d never gotten around to checking out Colin Farrell’s neo-noir drama Sugar, and with Season 2 hitting the 2026 TV schedule on June 19, I figured it was the perfect time for a binge. However, after a couple of episodes, I considered backing out, and boy would that have been a huge mistake.
My initial reservations are no knock against Sugar itself, which plays out like a fairly typical noir mystery, complete with Colin Farrell narrating his actions as private investigator John Sugar. I’m fine with neo-noir as a genre, but it’s simply not one that I crave. However, I went into the series blind, with absolutely no idea that a huge twist was coming.
Sugar, of course, centers around John Sugar, played by Academy Award nominee Colin Farrell, who is hired by a huge movie producer (James Cromwell) to find his missing granddaughter. Reuniting families is kind of Sugar’s thing, after he went through tragedy himself with the disappearance of his sister. The PI really cares about the cases he takes, and he becomes especially invested in this particular one, despite his handler’s (Kirby) disapproval.
The cast is one of the things that impressed me most when I fired up my Apple TV subscription for my binge. In addition to the names above, Sugar's cast includes Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn (if you thought Skyler White was unlikeable, just wait!), Dennis Boutsikaris, Amy Ryan, Jon Beavers and many more
Even in the slow-burn early episodes, I was enjoying Sugar and the titular character's unique characteristics. He hated hurting people, for example, and was friendly to strange dogs. There was just enough weirdness there for me to wonder if something more was going on, and that’s what ultimately kept me from letting the series fall by the wayside.
Don’t Skip Out Before Sugar’s Bonkers Twist
Thankfully, I kept hitting Play on Sugar, because there’s really no glaring indication from the trailer or episode descriptions of the shock that comes about two-thirds of the way through the season. The hints proved to be enough to keep me interested, though. For instance, John Sugar gets tremors in his hand and seems to experience dizzy spells. We also learn early on that he’s incapable of getting drunk, as his body metabolizes alcohol at 50 times the rate of the average person.
It’s also obvious that those around him are keeping a big secret, and while you have to get pretty deep into Sugar before you start getting answers, those answers are definitely worth the wait. The final two episodes really flip things on their head, setting up a second season that really has me wondering what’s going to happen now that John Sugar’s big secret is out (one of them, at least).
If you’ve missed this super-bingeable show, I highly recommend checking it out, especially with Sugar Season 2 coming June 19. And if the slow-burn neo-noir series doesn’t grab you immediately, I recommend waiting it out for the explosion to come.
