There’s an energy to Sugar that’s hard to describe. A lot of it is the performances — a stacked cast of tremendous supporting players, headed by a bonafide movie star, with all the looks and charisma such a job entails. Some of it is the frenetic, finger-snapping editing by Fernando Stutz and John Petaja, which feels more be-bop than the old attention-deficit MTV style. Its dreamy vision of Los Angeles is unique for a noir mystery, in that we’re seeing the city through the eyes of a sweet guy who truly loves the place, not a hard-bitten thrice-around-the-block gunsel or a femme fatale’s hapless patsy.
I think that may be why a lot of people I know, even professional artists, erroneously pegged the opening credits as AI (it’s not): This is not quite a version of L.A. we’ve seen before. This is not quite a version of the private investigator story we’ve seen before. I’m really not sure what it is, and that’s a wonderful place to be with any story, let alone a mystery.
I reviewed this week’s episode of Sugar for Decider.
Tags: decider, reviews, sugar, TV, TV reviews