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Created by writer Mark Protosevich (“The Cell,” “I Am Legend”), “Sugar” follows private investigator John Sugar (Colin Farrell) whose job and apparent passion in life is, simply, finding lost people. It’s a job he’s very good at, but it’s also a job that gets him in trouble, particularly with his friend and handler Ruby (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), who thinks he pushes himself too hard and gets too close to his cases. But Sugar’s not about to stop helping people, whether that means giving some money to a homeless guy on the street or pursuing kidnappers and missing people to the ends of the earth.
Sugar’s determination brings with it a reputation for getting things done, and that draws the attention of legendary movie producer Jonathan Siegel (James Cromwell) who reaches out with a case very close to his heart: His granddaughter Olivia (Sydney Chandler) is missing, and he’s counting on Sugar to find her. Because just looking at the girl’s picture is enough to remind him of someone he once lost, Sugar agrees despite Ruby’s objections and dives into the case. The clues are scant, which means he has to spend the early parts of the investigation leaning on Olivia’s family — from her rockstar stepmother (Amy Ryan) to her child star brother (Nate Corddry) and her seemingly cold producer father (Dennis Boutsikaris), all of whom have secrets of their own.
Rooting the early investigation in the layers of Olivia’s extended Hollywood family allows Protosevich to luxuriate in certain detective story tropes while also branching “Sugar” out into territory all its own. As you’d expect from a hard-boiled story, narrated by Sugar’s own reserved, quiet voice in between conversations, all the secrets of the Siegel family start to emerge, forming pieces of a puzzle that oh-so-slowly coalesces into a bigger picture with Sugar at the center of it all. It’s a satisfying riff on a tried-and-true piece of the subgenre, but in this case, it’s not the whole story.
In the grand tradition of private eye stories, “Sugar” also focuses some of its mystery on the title character, what drives him, and what gets to him when he tries to get sleep at night. What makes someone like Sugar so devoted to helping others, so preternaturally determined to solve each case? Clearly, there are secrets there, but the show takes its time getting to them. For some viewers, the pacing out of it all might prove a little frustrating, but if you’re willing to match the show’s pace and luxuriate a little in its character work, you’ll find yourself lost in the folds of its ever-growing narrative tapestry, and you won’t be able to get enough.
