Sugar Episodes 1 & 2 BREAKDOWN and ENDING EXPLAINED

The first two episodes of Sugar have just dropped over on Apple TV, and I, for one, feel like things are off to a great start. We've got good mystery, a complex main character, a layered story and incredible production quality. So, yeah, I really enjoyed these first couple episodes. That said, there is a lot to digest here. So let's break down these first couple episodes and I'll share my thoughts and theories along the way. And if you enjoy videos like this, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episode breakdowns. Let's get to it. The show opens in Tokyo, where we first meet John Sugar as he's working a case for a crime boss in search of a missing boy. Now, I don't think this scene will have major significance on the overall story, but we do learn a bit about our main character here. It's shown that he's quite good at his job as a private investigator, but that he prefers to avoid violence, breaking the mold for this type of character, which I found to be quite refreshing. He can also catch a fly with chopsticks, further proving he's a super skilled assassin or something. Another thing we see here in Tokyo is this mysterious looking box, which we later learn has some type of drug inside it that Sugar appears to use to go to sleep. Finally, before leaving Tokyo, John locks eyes with this guy at the hotel bar. And I can't imagine it's coincidence. So I'm guessing this guy is going to come back into play at some point. John is beckoned by Jonathan Siegel, a famed filmmaker, to find his missing granddaughter, Olivia, prompting Sugar's return to L.A. After arriving back in town, John meets with his handler, Ruby, and it's outside her place where we first see John dealing with some type of neurological issue with his arm, which I'm sure will be an important part of our story. Ruby is clearly upset at the fact that Sugar went behind her back to accept the case because the two of them agreed John would take a break after Tokyo. However, it feels to me like Ruby's upset for some other reason that she's not disclosing. So probably more so than anyone else, I'm keeping my eyes on Ruby. Something just seems fishy with her. John shares that he met with Mr. Siegel, who explains that his granddaughter has a history of drug use and past disappearances, but that this time is different because nobody has heard from her. Ruby tells Sugar he needs to drop the case, but he says he can't because the missing girl reminds him of someone named Jen, who we later learn is Sugar's sister. Ruby concedes, allowing Sugar to accept the case as long as he agrees to carry a gun she got for him and sees a doctor about his condition. John picks up his old Corvette from Ruby's and heads to Olivia's condo building to take a look around. The building manager says Olivia's car hasn't left the garage for two weeks, then lets Sugar into her place. While he's there, Olivia's half brother David comes in to find Sugar poking around. They have a conversation about why each of them are there, and David says his dad asks him to come by every day to see if Olivia has returned. John says, You're a terrible liar, maybe the worst liar ever. And then says, Well, Olivia's not here, so there's no reason for you to be here either. So David leaves and Sugar's narration kicks in, saying that David was obviously scared of something or someone. But who? I have a feeling this seemingly insignificant scene is going to make a lot more sense later on. So I'm going to try to remember this as we break down and theorize in future episodes. Sugar then finds headshots and old newspaper clippings of Olivia's mom in an old suitcase. He also finds this picture of Olivia and Melanie Matthews, an ex rock star who used to be married to Olivia's dad. So he heads down to the bar where the photos were taken. And on his way inside, we get another glimpse into Sugar's kindness when he offers a homeless man named Carl a couple hundred dollars to keep an eye on his Corvette while he's inside. Sugar heads into the bar where he finds Melanie and they share several drinks. And we learn that Sugar evidently has a metabolism that processes alcohol 50 times faster than a normal person, meaning he's basically unable to get drunk. After spending the evening at the bar, Melanie asks for a ride home outside. John pays Carl his remaining fee and gives him his cell phone, telling him to call his sister and arrange to move back home. Carl says he'll call her. And John says he'll get Carl a ticket back home the following day. John and Melanie head back to her place where she invites him inside and asks him to stay, which he declines. John heads outside where he finds David's security, Kenny, watching from the street and Sugar sends him on his way. This definitely raises the question of why David would have Sugar tailed. It definitely makes him look guilty of something. But I personally don't think David or his father are behind Olivia's disappearance, as that would just be too obvious. Sugar heads back to Olivia's to search her car and doesn't find much until he opens the trunk and finds a dead man inside. He heads to his hotel. And as he's walking to his room, he pauses to look at the moon, which is the second time this episode we've seen the moon on screen. I'm not sure why, but it's definitely feeling like the moon is going to play some level of significance in this story. John sets up cameras around his place and digs through the contents of the suitcase he found in Olivia's condo. He then researches what happened with Olivia's mom, and we see that she died in a car accident. He then finds clips of Olivia performing a scene her mom had done in a movie. And there are also some scandalous pictures of Olivia's mom in the suitcase. And as John is looking through them, he begins having another episode when it looks like his arm begins to bleed everywhere. He heads to the bathroom to shower, where he later wakes up and realizes what he just experienced wasn't real. He heads to bed and injects himself with whatever it is in this little drug kit and fades off to sleep as the episode ends with yet another shot of the moon. OK, moving into episode two, it opens with John swimming in the pool and staring at what? The moon yet again before going to meet with Olivia's father, Bernie, for breakfast. Bernie says sugar's wasting his time and that Olivia is just out on another bender. John then asks Bernie about the Polaroid of Rachel, Olivia's mom, that he found in Olivia's suitcase. Specifically, if Bernie took the photo to which Bernie says he did not. Bernie then storms out of breakfast, leading sugar to believe he's hiding something. John heads back to his room to check the security footage, where he sees that David and Kenny came in his place to look for clues and plant a listening device. After this scene, sugar's narration says he's not really worried about David or Bernie, but that he can't have them digging into his past, which definitely has me wondering what it is about his past that he wouldn't want these random, insignificant people finding. John hits the streets asking around about Olivia and learns that she seems to have moved on from a life of drugs, making it all the more curious as to what led to her disappearance. We then see Bernie riding around a movie studio in conversation with what appears to be several lawyers where they're discussing something David seems to have done with eight different women, presumably something in the vein of sexual misconduct. Sugar meets with John Siegel to update him on the case. He shares that Olivia had visited a home several times leading up to her disappearance, which was the home of Carmen Vasquez, a woman who was recently murdered, and that Olivia's car was there the night Carmen was killed. Sugar says he found Clifford Carter, the man who killed Carmen, dead in the trunk of Olivia's car, but that he wasn't going to report it to the police. John then meets Melanie at an A.A. meeting where she shares what happened the previous night with John. And afterwards, they head back to Melanie's place. And John asks about Olivia being at her place every night leading up to the disappearance. Melanie says, how do you know she was driving and that a friend wasn't using the car? She goes on to say that Olivia is probably using again and will be back any day now. And John says that's exactly the same thing. Bernie said John then shows Melanie a picture of Clifford Carter and she walks off saying she's never seen him before in her life. John says he knows she's hiding something. And Melanie tells him that he needs to leave. On his way out, John places a tracking device on Melanie's car and calls someone named Charlie and says, I think she knows where the girl is and she'll take us there tomorrow. He then says, let's get the van ready. Later that night, John's driving around town when he sees Wiley, Carl's dog, running through the streets. John uses GPS to find Carl at a local motel and upon arriving, finds that he had overdosed and died. John tries to drop Wiley at Ruby's, but she says no and asks John if he's taken care of the body in the trunk yet. As John heads to deal with that, Ruby makes a call to someone saying that John knows he's being tailed and that obviously they are watching him. Sugar arrives at Olivia's car where he finds an empty and very clean trunk, but he does find a hair in the carpet, which he takes with him. Back with Bernie and David, they go through what they found in Sugar's hotel room, including the invitation to some kind of party with only a date and time for the following night. Bernie then sends David and Kenny on their way, saying to find out everything they can about John Sugar and to bring him a report the following night. Back at John's hotel, he digs into the connection between Carmen Vazquez, Clifford Carter and Olivia Siegel. And to wrap up the episode, we see this woman named Teresa going home with her children and being cornered by this guy. He says that he hasn't heard from Clifford in quite some time, and he knows that he was hooking up with Teresa's sister. The man then shows Teresa a picture of Melanie and asks if she knows her. And the man says, thank you. We'll talk to her next as the episode ends. OK, these first two episodes did their job of laying the foundation of the show and making it pretty hard to theorize where things might be headed at this point. That said, I do believe Ruby's up to no good here. I think she's got some hidden agenda as to why she really didn't want John to take this job. So I'll be keeping a close eye on her moving forward. I'm also very interested in learning more about John's sister, Jen, and what happened to her. I think this may very well answer the question as to why John wants people not digging into his past. I will say that I don't quite understand the Carl storyline. I thought at first it was just a way to show John's kind heartedness a little bit more, but then they took it further with Carl dying and John having to take Wiley on home with him. So I just found that to be an unexpected turn of events, and I'm not sure how it's going to tie into the overall story here. In terms of Clifford's body going missing from Olivia's trunk, I feel like whoever went in and removed it had to be a professional who really knew what they were doing because it's in this lockdown garage. And that trunk was really clean after removing a bleeding dead body from it. I'm thinking it's another one of Ruby's associates, but we'll just have to see what comes of this hair that John found in the carpet. OK, next, let's talk about this man at the end of the episode. According to IMDB, his name is Stallings, and he's in five of the eight episodes of this season. So he evidently plays a pretty large role in the story. Now, he doesn't know who Melanie is, but she definitely knew Clifford when Sugar showed her his picture. So I'm quite curious to see what comes of this dynamic in future episodes. And finally, we've got to talk about Sugar's episodes and infatuation with the moon. There's absolutely something to all of this, especially paired with these mysterious drugs he's carrying around with him. Surely we're not going to go down the path of that one black mirror episode where that person was a werewolf and John has to take these drugs to prevent himself from turning at night or something. Now, granted, that would definitely be unexpected. I just can't imagine that that's actually where this show would be going. It's a silly theory, but it's literally all I can come up with with the moon thing happening over and over and the drugs. I don't know. I just I just have nothing else after the first two episodes. OK, that'll do it for my thoughts. Please let me know what you thought of these first two episodes. And any theories you might have so far. Thanks for watching. See you in the next one.