Sugar, a noir, mystery, Sci-Fi, detective series has just concluded on Apple TV+. Starring Colin Farrel in the titular role and set-in modern-day Los Angeles it is more than anything an homage to Hollywood and its historical films that made the movies what they are today. It is also a show with a congenital allergy to spoilers. John Sugar is a man who is singularly gifted at finding people. This series opens in Tokyo, where John has just found a female kidnap victim. A victim who happens to be related to a yakuza crime lord. Sugar offers the kidnapper one last chance to come clean but ends up having to call-in the yakuza anyway. Arriving, Sugar is ushered out, sealing the kidnapper’s fate.

He returns to LA, his base of operations and where the remainder of this eight-part series is set. His next case is another missing girl. Granddaughter of Hollywood royalty and a drug addict, her disappearance is a matter of some ambivalence to the family, saying she will eventually turn up, she always does.

John Sugar himself is a mystery and a bit of a stereotype too, seemingly wealthy, obsessed with old movies, a linguist, he suffers from some sort of physical-neurological condition. He also drives a classic blue Corvette convertible that is hardly low profile. This list of characteristics leaves you with the epidemy of a hardboiled LA detective, in the mold of Jack Nicholson’s Chinatown.

Everything is going to plan, the case is developing nicely, a few bodies have popped up, when out of left field a curveball is thrown that throws the audience for a loop. Many were not happy with this surprise. Still, in the end, Sugar was able to stick the landing. The question remains though what happens next. Will there be another season or not. With a divided audience this is anyone’s guess.