Colin Farrell Sugar Series Pulls Off The Science Fiction Twist Of The Year
While it hasn’t made as many waves as other, more high-profile TV shows, the Colin Farrell Apple TV+ series Sugar has been captivating audiences with its unique take on the hardboiled detective genre. The show has dropped hints here and there that the main character is tougher than your average PI, but audiences mostly chalked that up to the conventions of film noir and the simple fact that he has plot armor. The sixth episode (and get ready for spoilers, because this is about as big as they come) explained everything by revealing that Farrell’s character is most likely an alien.
John Sugar
In order to contextualize this crazy plot twist, you need to understand a bit more about Colin Farrell’s character on Sugar. As John Sugar, Farrell has spent most of the season doing what you expect hardboiled detectives to do. After the daughter (Sydney Chandler) of a bigshot Hollywood producer (James Cromwell) seemingly vanishes into thin air, Sugar takes the case and tries to figure out what really happened.
At first, the quirkiest thing about Colin Farrell’s John Sugar character is that he’s a film buff, and this results in frequent cutaways to various movies that he mentions. Certainly, this adds some ambiance to a mystery set in Los Angeles, and it reveals a bit more about our title character. Specifically, the more you see the films Sugar is interested in, the more it seems his entire persona is modeled after the cinematic sleuths from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Signs Earlier In The Series
Collin Farrell’s character basing his Sugar personality off of old movies isn’t so crazy–heck, it’s hard to throw a rock in places like Film Twitter without hitting a few people whose entire personality seems to be movie quotes. But there are other strange parts of his character, including the fact that he can get back up from beatings and other violence that seems like it should be enough to kill him. On another occasion, he offers the very fake-sounding excuse that he can’t get drunk because he was born with a special medical condition that boosts his metabolism to an insane degree.
The Final Piece
The final piece of this puzzle is that Colin Farrell’s John Sugar mentions with sadness how long it’s been since he went home, but he still finds time to reunite with strange associates who are part of some secret society. Weirder still, the gumshoe doesn’t even seem to like most of these guys, but he feels weirdly compelled to spend time with them. The most recent episode finally answered all of these questions in a way that not even the craziest fans could have predicted.
Episode 6
At the end of episode six, “Go Home,” Colin Farrell deals with recent betrayal and violence in a way that seems out of character for Sugar. He decides it’s okay to take “a tiny little break” and “go home,” which amounts to him locking himself in the bathroom and injecting something into his neck. This causes the handsome Colin Farrell to morph into a bald green creature, and the strong implication that he is an alien retroactively explains his super-strength, super-metabolism, and super longing to return to some faraway home.
Very Martian Manhunter-esque
If you want to figure out where Colin Farrell’s character goes from here, there are two episodes of this Apple TV+ show left, with the next ep dropping on May 10. On the surface, this revelation almost felt like a DC tie-in, as “alien who visits Earth and becomes a private eye after watching a bunch of movies” is basically the backstory of the Martian Manhunter. Comic similarities aside, this ending might be the most ambitious plot twist in modern TV, and fans can’t wait to see what’s in store for the P.I. turned E.T.
