REVIEW: Sugar – Season Two [2026]

Rating: TV-MA | Episodes: 8 | Runtime: 40 minutes
Release Date: June 19th, 2026 (USA)
Studio: Apple TV+
Creator(s): Mark Protosevich

That’s not who you’re looking for.

It’s always fascinating when a television show comes back after hiatus with an entirely different creative team at its back. I’m forced to ask the question: Why not just end the show? What was therefore the cause behind “Sugar” returning without original showrunners Mark Protosevich and Simon Kinberg attached beyond their executive producer credits? Were they done with the story and Apple Studios wasn’t? Or was Apple simply done with their leadership?

Whatever the reason, John Sugar (Colin Farrell) returns at the hand of series writer Sam Catlin and a new stable of directors (Fernando Meirelles and Adam Arkin have also exited after helming the entire first season). The character’s love for old Hollywood remains via spliced scenes of Rita Hayworth, Steve McQueen, et al. And the struggle we didn’t quite know he was wrestling with until his alien origins were revealed is finally allowed the room to breathe.

That last fact proves to be as huge an upgrade as I assumed going in. By hiding this secret for two-thirds of the season, Protosevich and company had their hands tied from making “Sugar” more than a missing person case led by an eccentric private detective who might also be a government spy. They couldn’t mine down to give John’s emotions the complexity they deserved because they were too preoccupied with keeping us at arm’s length to protect the reveal.

Well, the cat’s out of the bag and both audiences and creators can take a collective sigh of relief as John’s story shifts from working the job despite his secret to balancing his dual identities despite the job. And it’s so much more effective as a result. The inner monologues are no longer cryptic. The “rules” of his mission are more clearly defined. The loneliness of being the last visitor on Earth threatens to shatter his kind, pure heart.

John did kill someone in cold blood and admits it to Henry (Jason Butler Harner) who in turn relishes the potential that his friend might have finally embraced the darkness of humanity into his soul like he had many years prior. While I would have enjoyed a season-long cat and mouse chase between these two “last men” as John pursues answers about his missing sister Djen, I am glad Catlin condensed it down to the opening five minutes of the premiere instead.

Why? Because that’s not the show’s formula nor the setting to deliver what’s so compelling about John Sugar. We aren’t here for an action film marked by the inevitable one-on-one conversations about morality that would be born from pitting his innocence against Henry’s sadism. We’re here precisely because John is better than his friend. Better than us too. We’re here to reclaim the beauty of humanity and nature through his eyes—eyes that refuse to turn cold.

So, think of season two as a full reset. Once those first five or so minutes are finished, everything is new. John needs a new case by way of up-and-coming boxer Danny Moon’s (Jin Ha) brother’s (Raymond Lee) disappearance. He needs a new partner in Val (Sasha Calle) to fill the void left by Charlie’s off-screen demise (I still can’t believe the show literally just ghosts her like she was a stranger). And he needs someone new to help pull government strings.

The latter arrives by way of a wonderful Shea Whigham. Rather than having Ruby (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) hack into police systems, Whigham simply uses his clearance as a federal officer who befriended John like everyone does: He’s a satisfied former client. He becomes as much a confidante as a skeleton key whenever the plot demands an open door. And doors are in desperate need of opening once the Moon Brothers case introduces Tony Dalton’s Vega.

While all those moving pieces provide a compelling mystery to rival that of the Siegel family last season, they also supply in-roads to John’s fragile emotional state via external sources who don’t know what we know about him. It’s another investigation centered on siblings that leads him to systemic injustice he hopes to do his part mitigating if he can’t rectify it in the process. But he can’t open up to them like Ruby. Enter Laura Donnelly and Laura San Giacomo.

The former serves as the Melanie of this chapter albeit without any strings attached since she’s neither a mark nor an interested party in the case. No, Donnelly’s Charlotte is another guest at John’s hotel. A humanitarian always working crazy hours like him. A friendly smile he can’t help returning despite those aforementioned rules stating he can neither kill nor fall in love. But, with no way back, why shouldn’t he put roots down here?

I won’t delve too deeply into San Giacomo’s character (she’s credited as a special guest) beyond the fact that she plays an integral role in John’s battle between who he was and who he is. The “assimilation” of it all. “Sugar” never really digs into the “immigrant” aspect too much beyond this uncertain balance dictated by a process to which he’s no longer beholden—vestigial dogma in his mind. It’s more about the fear that he could lose himself like Henry did.

This season exists perfectly in the grey to keep that fear real straight through to a finale that holds its own twist (easily deciphered because it comes at the end of a breadcrumb trail rather than an artificially hidden sledgehammer swing). Violence is at the core of everything whether boxing, drugs, or an impossible choice between risking a good life by adhering to the law or taking a bad one off the board permanently. Breaking the sex taboo is more an escape than sin.

Farrell is fantastic yet again with that sweet optimism opposite a conflicted, hard-edged nature where he’s always angrier at himself for what he must do than at the person he must do it too. Donnelly is a great addition to coax the former out of him at even his darkest times. Calle, Ha, Lee, and Whigham provide the familial strife, empathetic sounding boards, and mirrors the Siegel hoard did previously. And Dalton is as good as ever as the Big Bad.

Don’t think Catlin forgot about Senator Pavich or humans discovering aliens exist on Earth, though. He did co-write the final three episodes of season one. The show merely plays the long game with where those details go as John keeps his eye on that bigger picture along with his case. It leads to a place with potential legs as far as an endgame to why his species is here and the possibility for some old friends returning in the future. I’m all-in on a third season.