The latest Apple TV Plus crime drama series takes us to the monochromatic 1920s sun-baked land of Los Angeles... in spirit, though not in practice. Sugar is a new hard-boiled detective series which is set in the modern day, but still relies on the classic noir look and style.
Sugar stars Colin Farrell as John Sugar, a private detective with a heart of gold who finds missing people, which he balances with his love of movies and old-school fashion.
Set on a quest to find the missing grand-daughter of a powerful but reclusive Hollywood film producer Jonathan Siegel, Sugar is drawn into the underbelly of Los Angeles and also of the secret-riddled Siegel family.
The case is only beginning in the Sugar's first episode, titled Olivia, which debuted on Friday, April 5 alongside the two subsequent ones. This episode 1 recap will take you through everything that happened, so you don't miss a thing.
A return to Los Angeles for a new case
We begin in an unspecified Asian country, where a man is chopping food. A voice phones this man to let him know that he dropped money, and when the person comes up to the apartment to return it, it's John Sugar (Colin Farrell). Turns out Sugar's actually here to investigate the kidnapping of a young boy, who's the son of a Yakuza boss, and Sugar thinks this man was to blame.
Sugar offers the man two hours to escape if he gives up the boy: the man refuses and attacks Sugar with a knife, cutting him, but Sugar gains the upper hand and knocks him out. Afterward, he investigates the apartment and finds the young boy. Later, Sugar trades off the boy for lots of money then leaves, and it's implied that the kidnapper is killed by the Yakuza for this attempted kidnapping.
We see Sugar patch up his wounds before he goes for a drink at a bar. When he's there, he gets an email about a new case in Los Angeles, so he travels to the US.
In a taxi from the airport, Sugar bonds with his Arabic driver due to Sugar speaking the language. The American sets up the driver with his private doctor, due to the driver's daughter being ill. Sugar is dropped off at the home of Ruby (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), his handler who organizes his cases and also his belongings while he's away. Ruby gives him all the mail he's missed while away, which is mainly movie magazines.
Ruby questions why Sugar took four hours to return from the airport, and Sugar admits that he visited the home of Jonathan Siegel (James Cromwell) who emailed him about the case. This is despite Ruby turning down the case on his behalf because she thinks Sugar needs a break.
We see a flashback to the meeting, which took place at Siegel's palatial home. Due to being a movie fan Sugar is starstruck, but he learns about the case. Siegel's grand-daughter Olivia has been missing for two weeks. This young woman used to be a drug addict so has a habit of temporarily disappearing, and her father isn't worried due to this past, but she's been sober for two years and so Jonathan finds this vanishing strange.
Jonathan Siegel also has heart problems so he doesn't have much longer left, and he just wants Olivia found.
Meeting some suspicious characters
Ruby expresses annoyance that Sugar took the case, but the man tells her that this missing woman reminds him of Jen. No, we don't know who that is... yet.
Seemingly knowing the detective well, Ruby has already prepared everything he needs for his case. This includes a concealed carry permit and a gun, despite Sugar not liking guns, but he's won around when he discovers that it's the same one Glenn Ford used in The Big Heat. Ruby also tells Sugar that he needs to make an appointment with a Dr. Vickers, before giving him the keys to his car. This car is an old-school convertible, presumably from a movie too.
For his first stop in the case, Sugar goes to Olivia's flat. He learns from the building manager that her car hasn't left the parking lot since she disappeared, and he takes the keys from the man. Then he begins to look around in her flat.
As he's investigating, Olivia's half-brother David (Nate Corddry) shows up alongside a bodyguard Kenny (Alex Hernandez). David, an actor, is supposedly meant to be checking Olivia's apartment daily for her return, but Sugar thinks he's lying, and is also scared about something.
When David leaves, Sugar returns to investigating. He finds a suitcase full of newspaper cuttings about Olivia's mother Rachel, as well as her headshots, and he takes this case. He also finds a reel of photo-booth images between Olivia and her stepmother, and he identifies the bar the machine is in, which he goes to.
Outside the bar Sugar pays a homeless man to watch his car and he enters. The woman he's looking for, Melanie (Amy Ryan) is drunk and singing loudly to music. He buys her a drink and they get to talking, and we learn that he's got such a high metabolism that alcohol doesn't affect him.
Later, Sugar and Melanie leave the bar. He pays the homeless man more money and implores him to find a shelter and call his sister in another state, promising to buy him a bus ticket to Wisconsin (where the sister is) the next day. Then Melanie and he drive to her flat, though they're being trailed.
Melanie invites Sugar into her flat and tries to sleep with him, but he declines her because she's drunk, and soon after she passes out. Sugar tucks her to bed, maligning the fact she was too drunk for him to get any information about the case from her, but he leaves his number. Outside, he finds that Kenny is the person tailing him on behalf of David, so Sugar just gives Kenny the information he needs (where he's staying) to get him to drive off.
A dead body and more clues
Sugar doesn't go to the hotel he's staying at, though. Instead he goes back to Olivia's apartment and breaks into her car. He downloads her sat-nav's navigational information, so he can see where she's been... and then finds a dead body in the trunk!
Finally, Sugar goes to the hotel he's staying at, which he lives in when he's in Los Angeles despite Ruby wanting him to buy a home. He has his own bungalow, and he checks the gun into the safe and sets up security cameras so he can see when people approach the building.
The room service lady, who is friendly with Sugar, brings him dinner, and they talk in her languages (that's four different ones he speaks in the first episode alone!). She also has a letter that was delivered for him earlier, and it's an invite for a party that he doesn't seem enthused about.
Sugar begins to go through the suitcase he took from Olivia's flat to look at the newspaper clippings. He looks up Rachel online, seeing a monologue she performed at one point, and finds her obituary from when she died in a car accident 25 years prior. Sugar also looks up Olivia's social media profiles, and finds a video of her performing the same monologue her mother did.
Then in a secret compartment in the case, Sugar finds something curious: old polaroid pictures of Rachel topless.
However as he's wondering who took these, his arm wound from the knife fight in Asia re-opens and he gets blood everywhere. He staggers into the shower, all while having flashbacks of someone running in a field. Eventually he has to take a inject of something in his neck, and he goes to bed thinking of Olivia... while we see a mystery figure watching Sugar from his window.
