Sugar (2024)

it's so weird to see the ratings on this show be so radically different from what i experienced at any point while watching it. sugar is a serialized procedural in the truest sense: it's 100% an unapologetic neo-noire genre and it's also playing the greatest hits at all times. the trick it pulls off is that by doing this, the noire falls away and shows off the way that in even the smallest gestures or scenes, colin farrell makes you believe his ability to feel pain or sorrow or remorse or confusion in the face of what are conventional and by the book noire beats. it's a certain magic trick to hang a hat on something and still pull off the intended effect. who knows if it gets renewed, but even at 2 seasons, it's a fascinating show that avoids many of the traps its contemporaries seem to fall for.