Apple TV+’s ‘Sugar’ Avoids the Noir Genre’s Greatest Pitfall

Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Apple TV+’s Sugar.

As usual with shows on Apple TV+, Sugar is not only a great time, but also offers a refreshing new perspective on its genre. Although it has been marketed as a “genre-bending” series, it’s mostly a crime noir, following private investigator John Sugar (Colin Farrell) as he works cases in Los Angeles and faces the challenges that this usually entails. But he is not like the other protagonists of noir we are used to. There is something different about John, something that makes Sugar a truly new and refreshing experience for film noir fans: he is a genuinely good person, and the series is all the better for it.

Sugar (2024)

Private investigator John Sugar examines the mysterious disappearance of Olivia Siegel, the granddaughter of a legendary Hollywood producer.
 

Release Date

April 5, 2024

Main Genre

Drama

Seasons

1

Creator(s)

Mark Protosevich

John Sugar Is the Opposite of a Regular Noir Protagonist

Right off the bat, one can tell that Sugar isn’t the usual noir story. Instead of dark and bleak settings, the Apple TV+ series is colorful, it has featured a stinky motel room only once, and, while it certainly has its fair share of terrible people, most characters are simply good people, starting with the protagonist himself, John Sugar. Like the noir genre demands, he is a mysterious and compelling character who has some unfinished business with his own past, but, instead of being angry at the world for it, he is simply trying his best every day, and this is perhaps the biggest bend to the genre made by the series.

Most noir protagonists are themselves good people deep down, indeed. The genre is usually about the conflict between good and evil, cynicism and idealism, and the protagonist has to walk the fine line that separates these. Either because of past trauma or their own nature, a noir protagonist tends to be a difficult person to deal with, someone who isn’t easy to get through to because they are afraid of letting others in. It’s easy to picture Humphrey Bogart as the typical noir protagonist, as he has played multiple times throughout his career – and even has a few scenes edited in between scenes in Sugar, like Dead Reckoning, Knock on Any Door, and In a Lonely Place. A trenchcoat, a hat, and a terrible attitude towards everyone, and that’s the stereotype.

Only that’s not at all what John Sugar is like. He is classy and has refined tastes without seeming like a snob, loves movies, and is friendly to everyone. Instead of a trenchcoat and a hat, he wears fine suits and has his hair neatly combed. He doesn’t drive a car that blends in with the traffic, but a blue convertible that you can notice from a mile away, almost as if he wants people to be ready for him when he arrives. This is directly related to Sugar’s own nature, which the series is now slowly building.

John Sugar Understands That Being Good Is a Choice

As genre-bending as Sugar promises to be, it’s still a noir at its core. This means that at least a few key concepts of the genre have to be present, like a case that serves as the driver for most of the events and a protagonist that has a deep inner struggle. Usually, the former serves as a trigger for the resolution of the latter. Before that can happen, though, lots of mistakes are made, and more often than not they involve the protagonist getting romantically tangled or having personal issues with someone important to the case. Not with John Sugar, though.

In Sugar, there are many moments that can evoke such reactions from John Sugar, but he dodges all of them with the same effortless class as he dresses. In the series premiere, “Olivia,” for example, Sugar meets Melanie Mackie (Amy Ryan), who is the stepmother of the missing Olivia Siegel (Sydney Chandler), without disclosing his identity at first. As the night goes on, Melanie drinks more and more and asks him to take her home, which he does. She then asks him to stay and spend the night with her, to which most men would immediately agree. Instead, Sugar refuses, fully aware that it’s not right to take advantage of a woman’s drunken state. This is the kind of attitude that is very unusual both in real life and in a noir story, where the hero is supposed to get the girl, and thus a romantic bond is established. In real life, men are generally known to take advantage of situations like this with drunk women, ignoring the fact that spending the night with someone who is drunk is pretty much rape. Afterward, Melanie herself is puzzled by Sugar’s behavior.

Also in the series premiere, moments before Sugar meets Melanie in the bar, he meets a homeless man named Carl (Jon Beavers), whom he asks to look after his car while he’s in the bar. Sugar offers Carl a hundred dollars and a brand-new cellphone, and, when he and Melanie are leaving, Sugar stops by, gives Carl the rest of the money that was promised, and makes Carl promise he will turn his life around, using the cellphone to call his sister and start getting his things together. Many viewers thought Sugar was probably going to ask Carl for something in return, like becoming an informant, but no. Sugar was simply being a good Samaritan, and gets extremely sad and frustrated when, in the following episode, he learns that Carl used the money to buy the drugs that caused the overdose that killed him in the stinky motel room we mentioned earlier. With homeless people, it’s even easier for the average person to be bad, and most simply ignore them or make a snarky remark. Instead, Sugar goes out of his way to help Carl, and, even though the consequences of this were disastrous, he would likely do it again.

What Sugar seems to understand that most noir protagonists don’t is that people don’t necessarily have to go through a breakthrough to change and be better. Being a good person is actually a choice. Instead of taking advantage of someone who isn’t in a condition to make decisions for themselves, just make sure they are safe and leave them be. You don’t need to give a hundred dollars to a homeless person (not a lot of people can spare it, let’s be honest), but most of us can help them in other ways. Sugar chooses to be good despite his inner struggles. Being bad and ignoring people in need or taking advantage of people would be much easier, but it’s never the right thing to do.

Sugar’s Kind-Hearted Nature May Be Part of the Show’s Big Reveal

As Sugar moves to the second half of the season, John Sugar’s backstory is starting to develop. In Episode 3, “Shibuya Crossing,” many hints are dropped that Sugar himself and the Cosmopolitan Polyglot Society may be more than human, or at least have supernatural connections of some kind. Besides that, it’s been revealed that he has a sister, Jen, and something terrible happened to her, as Ruby (Kirby) often mentions. This is what’s behind his visions and anxiety attacks, as the series may start to bend the noir genre into something closer to sci-fi.

With these reveals about his backstory, Sugar’s behavior may be explained as him being an outsider who has the means to help people in need and just does it. Even if he turns out not to be human after all, the fact that Sugar even has anxiety and struggles is proof that he is still a living being. In this sense, Sugar’s efforts to overcome his problems and be a good person are touching — although it may be dangerous for him, as he clearly doesn’t want to be a burden or have his issues do anyone harm. Frankly, everyone has good reasons to be mean to others, but it takes a lot of courage to choose to be good, and Sugar is the best example.

Sugar is streaming exclusively on Apple TV+ in the US. New episodes air on Fridays.

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