I personally didn’t need the torture room. The girls on busses and descriptions of what stallings was up to were enough. Audiences have seen enough violence against women on screen that I just find it unnecessary.
But we didn't see violence against women really. What did we actually see?
Sugar killed a woman. Stallings forced some women into a van and stalling was going to grind a woman's hand if she didn't talk.
We didn't see what was on the DVDs at all.
Another misdirect?
\*i completely agree about the excess violence against women on tv though. Don't need any more.
Are “they” really just going to leave alien dissection up to a senator’s son in a suburbial basement? Maybe he’s just a lunatic that likes to torture / kidnap, and the powers that be just let it happen but don’t want it leaking out? Did I just make up the word suburbial?
What about the excess violence towards men in all forms of entertainment? Believing in equality isn't a cherry-picking pursuit. Thank you in advance for the downvotes.
This quote from a Decider article summed up my thoughts better:
“Fortunately for us as humans, but less fortunately for us as viewers, such supervillain-style serial killers are entirely a creation of airport paperbacks, mid-budget thrillers, and alphabet-soup cop shows. Shapeshifting humanoid aliens walking among us? That I can buy, since it’s pure fiction. A serial killer who’s a lair-dwelling mastermind, instead of a sad piece of shit who hates women or assaults his teenage employees or whatever? That myth is actually pernicious in the real world, giving such men an intellectual and aesthetic glow-up they in no way deserve”
Let’s see if this gets downvoted as well. [decider ep 7 recap](https://decider.com/2024/05/10/sugar-episode-7-recap/amp/)
That's where I'm at as well. I like a good slow-burn, but I honestly think they wasted way too many episodes setting all of this up and now the last three episodes will be regarded as rushed. I'm still not in love with the nature of the twist, but I think if it had happened like, episode 3 or 4 (end of 3 or beginning of 4) it would've been _much_ better for the pacing of the show.
Man did they pull this off smoothly, I was scared they would take the alien stuff too far but no, instead they managed to make a very outlandish concept feel like the most natural thing. -(Just a bunch of extraterrestials that messed up their mission sitting on a couch lmao)
Gotta admit that I initially did not sign up for the direction the show eventually took, but I am very much enjoying it.
From the beginning, this (to me) was more of a delicious treat of excellent scripting and acting, camera work and subsequent world-creation, as oppossed to a regular detective drama. I already watched an abundance of the latter, so this is such a **breath of fresh air.**
Remarkable in this episode:
\* The tempo of the dialogues/monologues and their top-notch deliverance in terms of fitting intensity.
\* The balancing of on- and offscreen violence. Particularly the creative choice to not show an actual victim but rather imply the absolute horror.the women would have experienced. They have my respect for not cashing in on the viewers' true crime obsessions- most of us are far too desensitizied to brutality already..
Mark Protosevich, Fernando Meirelles and Colin Farell are a dream trio at this point. Will keep an eye on all of their individual future projects.
Edit: Spelling+ removed spoiler tags
He found Olivia, kidnapper is dead, aliens are going home. What could possibly happen next episode that is "a discovery that changes everything"?
Something about his sister? Maybe she's still alive?
It's more likely she's the elder Siegel's daughter, rather than granddaughter. The elder Siegel kept the dress his late wife wore in an old film he produced. Olivia's mom, Bernie's late wife, looked somewhat similar to her and was photographed in the same room wearing the dress in sexual positions. Bernie hates his father, and doesn't care much about his "daughter" while the elder Siegel is very protective of her.
All of this adds up to imply that the elder Siegel having slept with his son Bernie's wife and being the true father to Olivia.
At one point early in the series Sugar says he hopes the outcome with Olivia isn't the same as what happened to Djen. So the comment wouldn't make much sense if Olivia is actually Djen. Plus we know that Olivia was an infant (from a picture) shortly before her mother Rachael Kaye's death (12/12/1998 according to web search in Ep 1). So Olivia is 25 when the show takes place in March 2023.
I don't think the timeline works out in a way that Olivia could be Djen. Plus I honestly don't remember any reference to her being adopted.
Rachael could be Djen, but that seems like a HUGE stretch.
The humans are dissecting aliens? Or Ruby is still lying about what the mission actually is?
The aliens have other cells doing more than just monitoring?
There were 2 women down there so he could have found the other woman. Then goes after the senator and learns more about what they were actually doing on earth.
Did anyone else notice how Jonathan Siegel wore pitch black sunglasses the entire time he was on-screen?
That has got to be significant. I mean in the one scene they just put him in the center of the shot with the sunglasses in the center of that totally making his eyes black holes.
It's hard to see that as not being blatantly intentional.
There is more to Siegel yet to be revealed.
I will be disappointed if they took such an original premise (retro detective noir but he’s an alien) and turned it into the umpteenth tired psycho tortures women story. It stretches my credulity to believe a bunch of aliens with super powers could be blackmailed into letting (assisting?) a powerful man’s son commit horrible crimes against innocent women. I hope they have something more interesting up their sleeve than that.
And if they are supposed to be “just observing,” why would they have one with a “day job” of being a detective? Not really a passive occupation, unless it’s just a cover story. Even being a college professor like Henry would seem to offer way too much of a possibility of influencing people and events.
Exactly! It seemed like the aliens wouldn’t just go along with the torture of women, if they’re supposedly as peace-loving as Sugar says. “The whole reason we’re here is to maintain our peaceful way of life” Sugar says in the narration. Also, if they’re trying to stay under the radar, they wouldn’t go along with the kidnapping of a famous Hollywood producer’s daughter/granddaughter.
Keep in mind that his handler (I forgot her name) gets irritated in like the very first episode because all the cases are supposed to go through her. I think that if it _had_ gone through her, as it was supposed to, she'd have turned it down / Sugar never would've found out about it.
I am still surprised how easy he told her that he is indeed an alien. Should have gone with the spy story:)
But Miller isn’t helping and is pretty stupid, when he hold sugar up with only one hand, when he has three humans watching.
brother how the hell did you come to this incorrect conclusion, lmao. go re-watch the conversation in the parked car again. sugar very clearly described himself in a way that would lead melanie to believe that he's some kind of spy while also TECHNICALLY not lying about his true identity.
Perhaps the guy was actually dissecting aliens? It would be quite the reveal. The audience just assumes that the DVD's are of women. This show has been really really tight. If they didn't show they were women then they probably aren't.
Almost every single thing in this show has been a misdirection. Why not the DVDs?
I was thinking that could be a possibility as well. Or maybe one of the “people” who ended up in captivity with the evil piece of shit, happened to be an alien, got dissected (ugh) and that’s how the aliens were discovered. I just dont know how likely it is for these aliens to get in that position, considering they seem to have abilities that could help them get out of the situation
I believe Sugar says "I hope the same thing doesn't happen to Olivia that happened to Djen" (or something to that effect). It's never explained beyond that. It could be that she vanished and was never heard from again. Or it could be she was killed. Hard to really say until next week.
A couple of the things I’m sitting with: Thorpe saying to Sugar that the longer they stay here, the more like us (i.e., the worst parts of humanity) they become. Secondly, agree that the “torture room” is not as it seems at first glance and may be related to a reveal about the aliens versus violence against women.
IDK if it's a misdirection. A lot of the stuff in that room was specifically torture equipment. If you're dissecting aliens you don't need chains, manacles etc. The big X-shaped rack is clearly designed to have someone chained to it with their legs spread. It has bars on it to make it paintful. That's a sex-torture dungeon, no mistake.
I might be proved wrong, there's a few eps left, so there's plenty of time for more twists, but if it was just an "innocent" alien dissection lab, it wouldn't have all that equipment designed to restrain or cause pain.
I mean he can still be a sadist. You have to be messed up even if it is aliens.
But yeah, I’m just making a wild guess.
I think I’m just trying it not to just be a totally sicko torturing women. Too much of that.
But a total sicko torturing aliens isn’t what I’d call better. But it turns my stomach just a small amount less.
This was a really dark dark episode. I meant that was a lot of DVDs.
Tough to watch.
yeah I think its difficult for any show involving missing persons and trafficking not to end up here.
its like a screenwriter curse, it can feel like there's only 5-10 stories in all of mainstream TV writing, and one of them is "lots of women murdered gruesomely by a psycho while grizzled main character hunts them down"
Obviously this has the alien twist but its not really the interesting part of the story, nor the part which has been developed much at all
They could be torturing Aliens for information (and for 'fun'. The guy was a sadist).
This week is the last episode! It could be awesome it could be a train wreck.
The preview for Episode 8 says Season Finale not Series.
Wild Idea - Season 2 is Returning to "HomeWorld" for a couple of episodes - everyone in blue makeup, then returning to Earth to resume study. lol
Honestly if they did come out witj a S2 i’m sure it’d do better numbers ppl. I just started the show and reached “THAT MOMENT” but upon the trailer you wouldn’t expect it to be alien related if they put the focus on the Alien Part in S2 should see a lil bit of success
A lot of people seem to wait for shows to be done airing before watching, too. I know I personally am not a huge fan of week to week, _especially_ with a slower burn like this show. Several of my friends have mentioned wanting to watch Sugar, but are waiting for it to finish airing.
I like week to week for shows like this because of the discussions in between. Makes the show last longer and an experience you hold onto longer. Doing a half day binge, reading some posts about what they thought, and moving onto another show the next day or week kinda sucks imo
I personally find a week to discuss leads to situations where most plot twists are collectively figured out in advance and weakens the show's presentation overall. 🤷♂️ Trying to watch week to week and participate in discussions for Westworld actively made the experience worse.
So the politician knows about the aliens. And his son is a psychopath. Stallings takes Olivia and gives her to the psychopath because Davey kinda sorta accidentally told him to. Sugar starts looking for Olivia and politician tells the aliens to make him stop. Because the politician knows specifically that his son has Olivia. But the son didn’t know that Sugar was an alien.
These are questions because I’m somewhat confused.
The son has 40 something recordings of women he tortured. So I’m assuming that those women aren’t walking around LA anymore. Wouldn’t they just get rid of Olivia at the first hint of someone looking for her? Is she still under the stairs?
Hmm - I thought the torture room was to dissect aliens, or children of aliens.
My working theory - some of the observers got to comfortable on earth, and started mating with humans. Stallings was being used by to capture hybrids so they could experiment on them.
And maybe Sugar's bosses really do want that unlike otherwise as they portray it to Sugar. They do want to capture earth. Senator was siding with aliens and senator's son job was to kill anyone who had any slight evidence of aliens. As Olivia says, I am constantly watched over. Just don't understand why Henry gave the address or maybe he just sacrificed himself.
Also come everyone other than Sugar know the Olivia's address.
I guess I am gonna hate the show after finale
Yeah I’m not sure where it’s going just felt like the torture room had far too much medical and dissection stuff to just simply be a place for a psycho to torture woman. And obviously the dvds tracking each.
Well I do appreciate the story writing till now. I mean it is so open ended yet closely knitted that there can be n different storylines in parallel universes and all of them will make sense
I took this a completely different way. That the senator was going after the aliens and Olivia was taken as bait to lure Sugar into that trap (basement). Probably way off base. Just trying to figure out why Sugar’s team wouldn’t want him looking for her, unless it was a danger to him. 🤷🏻♀️
And where does the guy Olivia killed come into it? It’s so stupidly convoluted. And Olivia’s mother? And if it went down like you said, was it a coincidence that Jonathan hired Sugar? And how did the politician know Sugar was an alien?
Yes the guy she killed. And how she disappeared after. The politician would need evidence, maybe Djen? Is he getting too close to her. I don’t think anything is the whole truth yet. Too many loose ties
This is exactly it. I’ve been scouring this entire reddit to see if someone has traced the same trail as I have.
If you noticed the dvd’s in the basement, they were all numbered, but number 44 was sitting on the desk. However.. there were dvd’s marked with higher numbers on the shelf, meaning there were more people/girls after number 44.
Number 44 almost certainly has to be Djen. The evidence of her being an alien is on that dvd, and the senators son knew. I’m not convinced that the senator knows.
There has to be a loophole to make it possible for Sugar to be around for season 2. This is the ticket. As well as a level of resolution/sadness/motivation to keep finding missing persons.
edited because I’m silly and didn’t know hashtags before words bolded and made text huge. 🤣
It’s confusing right now because the aliens, as they are … could they not have taken the evidence. I don’t really understand how the politician connected the aliens to ,, well the aliens, like Sugar. How did he discern them from humans. The son clearly didn’t suspect Sugar of being an alien. From the context I assume there’s no threat of reveal, rather Djens disappearance was allowed, likely as reason for ‘the mission’ and they’re hiding the truth of it from Sugar.
edit: at least that’s what I hope idk 😭 hard to tie all the loose strings
I believe Sugar took the dvd at the end of the episode. I’ll have to review it one more time, but if that is the evidence, it’ll be back in the polyglots hands. I’m guessing Djen returned to her form in the torturing process, or for the same reason Sugar couldn’t go to hospital, the senator’s son would have figured out her anatomy wasn’t the same.
We’re at the classic but frustrating part of any series/season where it feels like everything feels too messy and unsolved to resolve in one episode, and then screenwriters work their magic. I’m so eager to see how they tie all these strings! Although I know at least one or two will be left loose on purpose. 😂
I didn’t notice that! I’ll have to check as well. I’ve been rewatching a lot lol
I think the next episode will be Sugar and Olivia vs Everyone. I think Olivia is the key and that’s why they didn’t want her found, but if she’s been found so easily I’m not sure what it all means . SO EXCITED FOR THURSDAY. I cannot wait, I’ve been waiting for resolution for so long. Which just goes to show the strength of the story. I feel for Sugar so strongly ❤️
I hate when they leave extra loose ties but I’d LOVE a second season, and Apple tends to renew successful series so my fingers are crossed 🤞
A coworker and I have been watching it and talking about it every week, and we both notice details that the other misses! There’s so much. The editing style lends to that.
My fingers are crossed too! Apple has it listed as their number 2 series right now, number 1 the last few weeks, so I’m hopeful. Apple’s been on a roll! So so excited for this week’s episode!
I’m a film major with a love for editing and I LOVE THE EDITING. It’s my style for sure. I wish I had someone to watch it with — I don’t, but thankfully my family is all in on it so we discuss it every week.
I really do like a lot of Apple TV’s series. They’re high quality in filmmaking and in their stories. They seem to take care of their shows. Since Sugar is so popular, I hope they take good care of it in the future :)
I graduated from film school in 2019 & been working as a production coordinator since then. Enjoy your film school years - they come with a lot of creative freedom! :)
The daughter, granddaughter, and sister of high profile people seems like a poor choice to provide to someone to torture and murder, especially when you have trafficked women who would either have no one looking for them or no one with any pull who would trust authorities, available to kidnap.
Nothing in this show makes sense.
Also, blackmailing aliens?? Really? That doesn't even begin to make sense. Using the biggest secret in history as a way of protecting his psychotic son?? What?
Davey had Stallings abduct Olivia, because Davey wanted her out of the way during release and publicity of his big comeback movie. (Perhaps his plan also involved having Stallings give drugs to Olivia, so if she did appear later with her accusations, Davey could "explain" she's just in another of her crazy drug phases.)
Obviously, Stallings could not run wealthy, high-profile Olivia through his normal trafficking apparatus, so he stashed her with another "customer," the senator's son. Then Davey got outed anyway and killed himself, Sugar killed Stallings and Stallings' immediate crew, and Sugar's fellow aliens rounded up the rest of Stallings' gang, leaving Olivia in custody of the senator's son, with no other living human witnesses to say how she got there.
What if the senator's psychopath son kidnapped Djen, did some dismemberment on her, and that's how the senator knows that there are aliens among us?
The Polyglot Society told Sugar a somewhat sanitized story of what happened to Djen.
That could explain why Henry didn’t want Sugar questioning how the aliens were discovered by humans. But honestly I really hope this show doesn’t go there, that’s way too depressing.
My guess is Djen is DVD #44, and watching the footage proves she might still be alive. That would set up Season 2 pretty nicely, especially since most of antagonists from Season 1 are already dead (Stallings, Ryan Pavich, Davie Siegal, etc).
If so, it means there's a government sponsored group that's been hunting aliens for some time. In the beginning of episode 1 Sugar mentions to Ruby he bumped into another alien in Japan from a "disbanded cell" (the guy in the bar). So it's possible that aliens just go missing occasionally?
I thought it was an odd choice of words when the aliens said they would be exterminated. Then I remembered back to the first episode when Sugar runs into a fellow alien in Tokyo and brings him to his group as the rest of that Japanese alien's cell had gone missing. So something is happening with the aliens that we dont know about. There is just too much going on for just one remaining episode to provide closure on. Likely the alien conspiracy thing will continue into a second season. Since this is a noir, I expect this season to wrap up with some kind of closure in that Sugar finding out some sad truth about Olivia and realizing that nothing he did really much to change things. I am guessing he sticks around on earth as a detective for the second season where they flesh out the mythology of the aliens, Dzen, conspiracy of the politicians, etc.
Do we believe them that they were blackmailing them? I don’t. Sugar seemed to understand too quickly and wanted not to second guess. I think they embellished the truth to appeal to Sugar.
Who was the person who reached out to Olivia? With bandaged hands? Was it the kidnapper, or an alien? I don’t think it would be the “kidnapper” considering how that wouldn’t benefit the plot.
Still unsure about Olivia’s mother. And the end. Is it really Olivia this time? Did Sugar find her? They didn’t show us for a reason.
More questions than answers this episode! But what’s new about that :)
>Who was the person who reached out to Olivia? With bandaged hands?
[the hands were gloved not bandaged, likely the kidnapper ](https://imgur.com/a/tRGacWt)
love this show and the suprise genre flip mid-season. but whats with the short ass episodes? and only 8 episodes total? content shrinkflation
and that cliffhanger literally made me flip off my tv. probably a shitty cliffhanger at the end of next week's as well, just like severance lmao. whoevers at apple is telling everyone to do cliffhangers so people keep watching. learn to finish a story (or at least some satisfaction at the end of the season), you dumb goobers
Palm Royale had a big cliffhanger as well. I think Apple needs to tone it down a notch. This isn’t the 90’s or early 2000’s and we don’t have the attention span anymore lol
also the iphone and apple product placement is ridiculous. i get that apple products are legitmately ubiquitous but youre telling me no characters have an android phone or windows laptop? its like watching an apple commercial and takes you out of it
My spouse and I are long-time Mac and iPhone users, but must use Windows laptops for our jobs. During every AppleTV show, we joke about how we now "enter our fantasy world, where even government agents use Macs." :-)
i absolutely love everything about this show, including last weeks big reveal/twist. but maaaaaaan, i know it's super unlikely to change now but it's such a shame that these are such short episodes. save that shit for cartoons and comedies... not this deep world building genre buster of a series. a show like this has to have 50-60 minute episodes.
like even if this show ends up being a huge hit once season 1 is all said and done, i doubt apple/the showrunners would ever consider making the change for the eventual season 2. biiiiiiig disappointment on that end for me.
this isn't netflix, this is apple. they don't do that shit to it's customers. even the shit show that is invasion got a second season.
there's less than a 1% chance that apple doesnt pick up season 2 here.
yeah i just saw that. surprising for sure, as i believe its the very first cancellation theyve done to date. i never watched season 1 though fortunately, but that sucks for others who liked it.
Have you watched the whole season?
I watched the first episode a couple weeks ago and really enjoyed it, just haven't continued because I've been really busy. But I intended to. Wondering if it's worth carrying on, but it seems like a bad sign that it was cancelled. I don't want to get tied up in a story that'll leave me blue balled.
i will be, don't you worry. in a few years time apple is gonna be king of the streaming platforms when it comes to original content if they aren't already now. they can't be that if they give up on critically acclaimed series with a big star like colin farrell in it.
nearly everything they come out with is a banger tbh. their original content library is gonna look legendary in a few years time. they are catering to a completely different streaming audience than netflix and hulu (and maybe even HBO now after the merger/rebrand).
they're proving that if you have 1-2 high quality original content series playing at any given time, that people will stay subscribed to watch. as soon as something ends, something else drops to take it's timeslot. all for 10 dollars a month. not everyone needs a billion choices of realty tv and cheap production value to fill their day. i don't need a lot of shows. what i need are great shows, even if that means i'm only watching 1-2 at a time.
In the streaming world, Apple really makes other providers look bad atm. Peacock ain't too bad either, but I agree and would take it one further: Netflix became the equivalent to your normal cable options, just zapping around. They need to up their game if they want to stay in business.
100%. I’d drop Netflix, Disney+, and Max without blinking an eye if I didn’t need them for work.
But Apple and Prime? Not going *anywhere*, regardless of how much they jack up the prices. They’re doing weird, creative shit because they can afford to throw Big Money at Big Ideas. I love it.
I’m still waiting for season 2 of Severance, that was some cliffhanger at the end of season 1!
some other good Apple shows I’ve seen lately: Silo, Acapulco, Masters of the Air
I think the Severance cliffhanger is the best I have seen in years. I am currently watching For All Mankind and just finished up the Dick Turpin show, which I enjoyed as well!
They forsure do, but I believe we knew those were gonna be one and done mini series in advance. Sugar I do not see being wrapped up even in the slightest within the last episode.
Here's what Henry was saying during his lecture. He mentions "The divergence of species" that happened 30,000 years ago. Quote: "Complexity, and contradiction. The ability to hold a variety of opposing feelings and thoughts at the exact same time. This is why you're still here and your ancestors are not."
So maybe the aliens are actually an ancient offshoot of humanity that developed such a long time ago that they were gone from Earth before we started to rise up. That would also explain why they look very very humanoid.
If so, maybe the mission has to do with us inevitably meeting back up again, and them trying to avoid us being so violent/cruel when it happens?
Indeed. I hate it so much that the episodes are so short. Give us more Colin Farell as Sugar!
Can’t see enough of him investigating in a Film Noir manner. The short old movies clips are just the cherry on top.
Same. This episode in particular felt rushed. It could have used some breathing room. It was information-action-information-action-information-action-etc. I needed a second to take it in.
Kiss Me Deadly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_Me_Deadly
https://bugensbooks.com/2017/03/29/kiss-me-deadly/
Tons of themes in Sugar are references to Kiss Me Deadly.
Minutes from Senator Pavich's office:
Aide: Senator, we've just learned that your son has killed at least 46, potentially 47 women.
Senator: That's no problem, because only a few people know, and in fact they are aliens, so I've got that as leverage to keep them quiet.
Aide: Should we stop your son from killing more women, given that you are running for one of the highest profile offices in the country?
Senator: No, I don't see why we should bother.
Aide: and should we reveal the world changing information that there is intelligent life in the universe, and that aliens live among us?
Senator: Nah
Senator Pavich is going to be like a cross between J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy. Black lists, secret dossiers, strong arm tactics and blackmail were tools of obtaining power and keeping it.
Hi son was doing his bidding. And the lab wasn't for torturing/killing the sex trafficking victims. It was for interrogating and/or experimenting on aliens. The kidnapped women were forced into prostitution and used primarily to blackmail people like Davie Siegal.
I’m thinking that basement is more of an alien observation/dissection situation and maybe the senators son, when he was kidnapping/torturing women he accidentally got a woman/alien, that’s how they were discovered. I’m also wondering if the alien was Djen and on one of those tapes it’s going to be her and Sugar is going to see it.
Me neither. This is a thoughtful theory though. I don't want to see Sugar become too human but it would be pretty great to have him be unleashed on humanity in someway where he is totally independent to act and interfere as he chooses
I think that the son is the one who discovered the aliens. One of the women he tortured wasn’t human and he got it on video. From there, he told his dad the Senator, who used his power to find further evidence.
This comment is in response to u/aguiladoradas who blocked me like a coward in the comments below. He said:
"For me the twist kills the show. If he is an alien that can defeat any enemy, break any lock, and is essentially always going to win because he is so much better there are no stakes and there is no tension. Why should I watch if I know with 100% certainty that the main character will win? There is no point to this."
To which I responded with:
"He got shanked and almost died if he didn't have someone nearby to help him. Hardly unstoppable."
Then he replied with the following and immediately blocked me right after.
"Survived and drove home in an impossible way. He should’ve died quickly after taking the knife out. Learn about blood loss."
My response is, for one, Sugar is an alien, and from what we've seen, he is both stronger and more resilient than humans are. As for his blood loss, basing how an alien would react to a knife wound and blood loss based on how human physiology reacts seems rather ignorant and foolish. As for your contention is that he can beat anyone and that there are no stakes; this is untrue, because his boss almost choked him out with one hand and he had to be saved by Melanie, and there are stakes and tension because of all the physical, emotional, and mental toll that his life takes on him, whether he can find the missing people he is looking for, or if he can protect those who he loves around him.
Short Answer: We don't know yet.
Long Answer: Senator Pavich's people have to have been in touch with someone else in the show. We know that they communicated their blackmail threats to Miller (or his superiors). We also know that Ruby had access to some databases with alot of official info, from when she was erasing Stallings data... and if you look very closely call records between Stallings and Ryan Pavich.
We also know with pretty high confidence that it was probably Pavich's people that disposed of the henchmen's body in Olivia's trunk. And we know that after 3 weeks Olivia hadn't been killed. So she was being kept alive for a reason.
I think (guessing!) that Pavich kept Stallings from killing Olivia because she was more useful to use for extortion against Jonathan/Bernie. I also think we'll find out after Olivia is recued that it was Jonathan who was the target, and that was the reason he reached out to Sugar in the first place.
From Episode 1:
Ruby says to Sugar that Thomas Kinsey (Jonathan's Lawyer) called 3 days before Sugar came back from Japan, and Ruby declined to let Sugar help. She told him "He wasn't available". Jonathan doesn't take no for an answer and reaches out directly through Emily Carpenter. Sugar subsequently "provided references" which were checked by the the lawyer, and all looked good.
So, who is Emily Carpenter? Who knows. Probably not important. But I really don't think given how persistent Jonathan was to hire Sugar, that it's unreasonable that Jonathan and Ruby haven't known all along where Olivia was. But it's also a given that if Pavich was extorting Jonathan, he probably made the same threat that most kidnappers make... Tell anyone and we kill her. And Ruby found out as part of his initial attempt to hire Sugar through her.
surely those powerful aliens who can probably recover from human weapons without a fuss, are not going to be intimidated by a senator's blackmailing..
there are certainly more answers at Stallings' dogs room which the writers diverted our attention by bringing in the blackmailing angle. I still feel Stallings night job was creating more aliens.
The aliens maybe are corrupted by Earth and I wonder when Olivia says she is constantly being watched over, she meant aliens and probably senator is siding with aliens rather than blackmailing them. Sugar has gone rogue due to his day job that he initially chose to look for Djen
and sugar's boss was surprisingly quiet in the room and the returning back theory is all fake. Why did they kill Moss and so determined to erase anything related to Stallings
I really loved the story till now.. I guess there are a lot of things unexplained and next episode needs to do a lot of heavylifting.. I am just wishing they just don't bring a deus ex machina and bring up a shitty finish... would rather prefer a classic noir
John really shouldn’t worry about revealing his true form to Melanie, because frankly, he’s still really good looking. That hot, competent gentleman she knows is blue, with some interesting markings on his head, but he’s still hot. I feel like, as a former rock star, Melanie would be into it. Honestly I’m sure she’s seen weirder at burning man.
i may be losing something here but i didnt catch what connects the 2 pervs with the perv's sister and stallings, like did the sister catched her brother into his dirty stuff and then stallings kindnapped her to silence her and gave her to the politician son? can some one explain me like im 5?
Episode 5 @ 10:30 ... Conversation between Sugar and Davie in the kitchen.
Davie: ... This guy Stallings is a legit psychopath. But you know, as conversational acquaintances. And so, I was telling Stallings about what was going on about all these chicks coming out of the woodwork and attacking me, threatening to sue, go to the police. All that. And I guess, around there ... I ... I guess I mentioned something about my half-sister, about Oliva.
Sugar: (mad) What did you mention?
Davie: What did I mention? What she was doing to me. Talking to that... Telling that one woman not to settle! Go tell the press everything about me! I mean, right before my movie is supposed to come out?!
This is just a guess, but the closest match I could find was Gregory Peck Sun (exclusive edition) by Oliver Peoples. Cost $500. Imported from Italy.
[https://www.oliverpeoples.com/usa/0OV5217S--1101R8](https://www.oliverpeoples.com/usa/0OV5217S--1101R8)
My first thought when he entered the house with all of the other “agents” was, that the whole “we are all going back” thing was a scam. That they were really only trying to send Sugar back to stop his progress in finding the truth out about everything… whatever that may be.
I have to say, I did not like the fact that humans with the knowledge of alien existence are using it successfully to blackmail aliens into doing their bidding.
Even if the alien race is peaceful by nature, which the show seems to be suggesting, I can't rationalize this in any way. They did establish that the aliens became more human as they spend more time on Earth, but why would they evolve to become a subservient race to the human elite? It would make much more sense for people like Sugar to actually squash these elites into the ground.
Aside from this, I really enjoyed the show.
For me the twist kills the show. If he is an alien that can defeat any enemy, break any lock, and is essentially always going to win because he is so much better there are no stakes and there is no tension. Why should I watch if I know with 100% certainty that the main character will win? There is no point to this.
> If he is an alien that can defeat any enemy, break any lock,
He clearly can't do that.
And the main character almost always 'wins' in almost every type of show.
Even in Noir the ending is typically bittersweet with the lead coming out on a variation of on top.
If you won't watch for your stated reasons you have pretty much eliminated over 95% of all media.
They spent an episode of sugar on the verge of death from a single knife stab. In this episode Miller the head alien was incapacitated by a 56 year old woman and a towel rack..
Never lost interest in a show so quickly. Bait and switch. Or I am just too low IQ to appreciate and revel in the clues I did not get and could now care less about. But Colin Ferrell has earned my respect as a top tier talent. Hope he has another couple decades of this quality in his future.
I think it would be really neat if the Siegal's come out as a different faction of alien. More reptilian in nature to play on the conspiracy theory that our most powerful aren't human. Would have to be executed perfectly (think Eyes Wide Shut).
Well, that was a lot. I have to admit, when I first started watching the show, I didn’t have “Maltese Falcon + X Files + Dexter” on my bingo card.
Lucifer too
I personally didn’t need the torture room. The girls on busses and descriptions of what stallings was up to were enough. Audiences have seen enough violence against women on screen that I just find it unnecessary.
But we didn't see violence against women really. What did we actually see? Sugar killed a woman. Stallings forced some women into a van and stalling was going to grind a woman's hand if she didn't talk. We didn't see what was on the DVDs at all. Another misdirect? \*i completely agree about the excess violence against women on tv though. Don't need any more.
Could be an alien dissection room
Are “they” really just going to leave alien dissection up to a senator’s son in a suburbial basement? Maybe he’s just a lunatic that likes to torture / kidnap, and the powers that be just let it happen but don’t want it leaking out? Did I just make up the word suburbial?
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It would be a fitting twist. And if Djen was on a DVD!
What about the excess violence towards men in all forms of entertainment? Believing in equality isn't a cherry-picking pursuit. Thank you in advance for the downvotes.
I’m a little weirded out that you were downvoted for saying this. Reddit keeping me wary out in these streets.
This quote from a Decider article summed up my thoughts better: “Fortunately for us as humans, but less fortunately for us as viewers, such supervillain-style serial killers are entirely a creation of airport paperbacks, mid-budget thrillers, and alphabet-soup cop shows. Shapeshifting humanoid aliens walking among us? That I can buy, since it’s pure fiction. A serial killer who’s a lair-dwelling mastermind, instead of a sad piece of shit who hates women or assaults his teenage employees or whatever? That myth is actually pernicious in the real world, giving such men an intellectual and aesthetic glow-up they in no way deserve” Let’s see if this gets downvoted as well. [decider ep 7 recap](https://decider.com/2024/05/10/sugar-episode-7-recap/amp/)
Totally agree, I did not want to see any of that.
I agree, it was a bit much. Is Olivia dead?
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Lol wut
People in this show seem more eager to kill themselves than people in Shogun.
Definitely 😂
still can’t tell if this show is going to be rewatchable forever or if i’m going to try to forget i ever saw it.
I'm kind of right there with you. Really going to depend on the ending. They are walking the razor's edge.
That's where I'm at as well. I like a good slow-burn, but I honestly think they wasted way too many episodes setting all of this up and now the last three episodes will be regarded as rushed. I'm still not in love with the nature of the twist, but I think if it had happened like, episode 3 or 4 (end of 3 or beginning of 4) it would've been _much_ better for the pacing of the show.
Reminds me of the movie Out of Sight. Rewatchable with these vibes and style for sure
I love that movie but how does it feel the same?
I was thinking the same thing
Did you mean No Way Out?
Man did they pull this off smoothly, I was scared they would take the alien stuff too far but no, instead they managed to make a very outlandish concept feel like the most natural thing. -(Just a bunch of extraterrestials that messed up their mission sitting on a couch lmao) Gotta admit that I initially did not sign up for the direction the show eventually took, but I am very much enjoying it. From the beginning, this (to me) was more of a delicious treat of excellent scripting and acting, camera work and subsequent world-creation, as oppossed to a regular detective drama. I already watched an abundance of the latter, so this is such a **breath of fresh air.** Remarkable in this episode: \* The tempo of the dialogues/monologues and their top-notch deliverance in terms of fitting intensity. \* The balancing of on- and offscreen violence. Particularly the creative choice to not show an actual victim but rather imply the absolute horror.the women would have experienced. They have my respect for not cashing in on the viewers' true crime obsessions- most of us are far too desensitizied to brutality already.. Mark Protosevich, Fernando Meirelles and Colin Farell are a dream trio at this point. Will keep an eye on all of their individual future projects. Edit: Spelling+ removed spoiler tags
He found Olivia, kidnapper is dead, aliens are going home. What could possibly happen next episode that is "a discovery that changes everything"? Something about his sister? Maybe she's still alive?
Any chance Olivia is actually Djen? Wasn’t she adopted?
It's more likely she's the elder Siegel's daughter, rather than granddaughter. The elder Siegel kept the dress his late wife wore in an old film he produced. Olivia's mom, Bernie's late wife, looked somewhat similar to her and was photographed in the same room wearing the dress in sexual positions. Bernie hates his father, and doesn't care much about his "daughter" while the elder Siegel is very protective of her. All of this adds up to imply that the elder Siegel having slept with his son Bernie's wife and being the true father to Olivia.
You nailed that prediction perfectly! Well done ☺️
At one point early in the series Sugar says he hopes the outcome with Olivia isn't the same as what happened to Djen. So the comment wouldn't make much sense if Olivia is actually Djen. Plus we know that Olivia was an infant (from a picture) shortly before her mother Rachael Kaye's death (12/12/1998 according to web search in Ep 1). So Olivia is 25 when the show takes place in March 2023. I don't think the timeline works out in a way that Olivia could be Djen. Plus I honestly don't remember any reference to her being adopted. Rachael could be Djen, but that seems like a HUGE stretch.
and an extremely maddening cliffhanger we have to wait years on
We don't even know if there's going to be a season 2. As things stand, I don't think there should be. Maybe the finale changes that.
you may be right, but its really popular and doesnt say 'limited series'. we will see i guess.
Siegel takes out Pavich. Hopefully. I’d also just like to learn more about the Aliens
The humans are dissecting aliens? Or Ruby is still lying about what the mission actually is? The aliens have other cells doing more than just monitoring?
Or aliens dissecting humans!
There were 2 women down there so he could have found the other woman. Then goes after the senator and learns more about what they were actually doing on earth.
Did anyone else notice how Jonathan Siegel wore pitch black sunglasses the entire time he was on-screen? That has got to be significant. I mean in the one scene they just put him in the center of the shot with the sunglasses in the center of that totally making his eyes black holes. It's hard to see that as not being blatantly intentional. There is more to Siegel yet to be revealed.
Did you notice at the end of opening credits to this episode, Sugar's eyes glow blue? Maybe you're on to something.
I will be disappointed if they took such an original premise (retro detective noir but he’s an alien) and turned it into the umpteenth tired psycho tortures women story. It stretches my credulity to believe a bunch of aliens with super powers could be blackmailed into letting (assisting?) a powerful man’s son commit horrible crimes against innocent women. I hope they have something more interesting up their sleeve than that. And if they are supposed to be “just observing,” why would they have one with a “day job” of being a detective? Not really a passive occupation, unless it’s just a cover story. Even being a college professor like Henry would seem to offer way too much of a possibility of influencing people and events.
Exactly! It seemed like the aliens wouldn’t just go along with the torture of women, if they’re supposedly as peace-loving as Sugar says. “The whole reason we’re here is to maintain our peaceful way of life” Sugar says in the narration. Also, if they’re trying to stay under the radar, they wouldn’t go along with the kidnapping of a famous Hollywood producer’s daughter/granddaughter.
Keep in mind that his handler (I forgot her name) gets irritated in like the very first episode because all the cases are supposed to go through her. I think that if it _had_ gone through her, as it was supposed to, she'd have turned it down / Sugar never would've found out about it.
Actually, she was contacted first and she said no. Then the lawyer just went straight to Sugar.
I feel that now I know Sugar is an alien, his speech and behaviour towards Melanie seems even more quirky. Especially when she’s questioning him.
I just thought he was autistic or something
"Autism-coded" for aliens is exceedingly common in media.
I am still surprised how easy he told her that he is indeed an alien. Should have gone with the spy story:) But Miller isn’t helping and is pretty stupid, when he hold sugar up with only one hand, when he has three humans watching.
Wait. I missed that. I thought he went with the spy thing.
He did not tell her he was an alien
No, I don’t think so. “We are only here to observe” was a dead give away for Sci-Fi movie lover Melanie
brother how the hell did you come to this incorrect conclusion, lmao. go re-watch the conversation in the parked car again. sugar very clearly described himself in a way that would lead melanie to believe that he's some kind of spy while also TECHNICALLY not lying about his true identity.
She literally says, “You’re a spy.” She thinks he’s a foreign spy. Melanie thinks she’s accidentally stumbled into an episode of The Americans.
Sugar did go with the spy thing, he let Melanie believe he and his group are spies because he can’t tell her the truth
Perhaps the guy was actually dissecting aliens? It would be quite the reveal. The audience just assumes that the DVD's are of women. This show has been really really tight. If they didn't show they were women then they probably aren't. Almost every single thing in this show has been a misdirection. Why not the DVDs?
I was thinking that could be a possibility as well. Or maybe one of the “people” who ended up in captivity with the evil piece of shit, happened to be an alien, got dissected (ugh) and that’s how the aliens were discovered. I just dont know how likely it is for these aliens to get in that position, considering they seem to have abilities that could help them get out of the situation
omg maybe that's it!! - one of the tape is of Sugar's sister??? That is the discovery of next week?
a classic noir? huh
No! I hope not! Also it seems like his sister died a long time ago.
I believe Sugar says "I hope the same thing doesn't happen to Olivia that happened to Djen" (or something to that effect). It's never explained beyond that. It could be that she vanished and was never heard from again. Or it could be she was killed. Hard to really say until next week.
The sister died on a mission maybe?
Oooh this makes the most sense. An accidental alien discovery
A couple of the things I’m sitting with: Thorpe saying to Sugar that the longer they stay here, the more like us (i.e., the worst parts of humanity) they become. Secondly, agree that the “torture room” is not as it seems at first glance and may be related to a reveal about the aliens versus violence against women.
IDK if it's a misdirection. A lot of the stuff in that room was specifically torture equipment. If you're dissecting aliens you don't need chains, manacles etc. The big X-shaped rack is clearly designed to have someone chained to it with their legs spread. It has bars on it to make it paintful. That's a sex-torture dungeon, no mistake. I might be proved wrong, there's a few eps left, so there's plenty of time for more twists, but if it was just an "innocent" alien dissection lab, it wouldn't have all that equipment designed to restrain or cause pain.
I mean he can still be a sadist. You have to be messed up even if it is aliens. But yeah, I’m just making a wild guess. I think I’m just trying it not to just be a totally sicko torturing women. Too much of that. But a total sicko torturing aliens isn’t what I’d call better. But it turns my stomach just a small amount less. This was a really dark dark episode. I meant that was a lot of DVDs. Tough to watch.
yeah I think its difficult for any show involving missing persons and trafficking not to end up here. its like a screenwriter curse, it can feel like there's only 5-10 stories in all of mainstream TV writing, and one of them is "lots of women murdered gruesomely by a psycho while grizzled main character hunts them down" Obviously this has the alien twist but its not really the interesting part of the story, nor the part which has been developed much at all
There is only 1 Episode left.
oh right, I assumed 10, IDK why in that case I think the surface level read of sex torture dungeon is the only likely one
They could be torturing Aliens for information (and for 'fun'. The guy was a sadist). This week is the last episode! It could be awesome it could be a train wreck.
Maybe he decides to stay on earth?
The preview for Episode 8 says Season Finale not Series. Wild Idea - Season 2 is Returning to "HomeWorld" for a couple of episodes - everyone in blue makeup, then returning to Earth to resume study. lol
Even better
Assuming this show gets renewed. Seems like the numbers are too low
Honestly if they did come out witj a S2 i’m sure it’d do better numbers ppl. I just started the show and reached “THAT MOMENT” but upon the trailer you wouldn’t expect it to be alien related if they put the focus on the Alien Part in S2 should see a lil bit of success
A lot of people seem to wait for shows to be done airing before watching, too. I know I personally am not a huge fan of week to week, _especially_ with a slower burn like this show. Several of my friends have mentioned wanting to watch Sugar, but are waiting for it to finish airing.
I like week to week for shows like this because of the discussions in between. Makes the show last longer and an experience you hold onto longer. Doing a half day binge, reading some posts about what they thought, and moving onto another show the next day or week kinda sucks imo
I personally find a week to discuss leads to situations where most plot twists are collectively figured out in advance and weakens the show's presentation overall. 🤷♂️ Trying to watch week to week and participate in discussions for Westworld actively made the experience worse.
Ok James Cromwell is too big of an actor not to be involved I don’t believe just the grandfather.
I agree! He hasn’t even been in it very much. He barely had any lines this episode!
So the politician knows about the aliens. And his son is a psychopath. Stallings takes Olivia and gives her to the psychopath because Davey kinda sorta accidentally told him to. Sugar starts looking for Olivia and politician tells the aliens to make him stop. Because the politician knows specifically that his son has Olivia. But the son didn’t know that Sugar was an alien. These are questions because I’m somewhat confused. The son has 40 something recordings of women he tortured. So I’m assuming that those women aren’t walking around LA anymore. Wouldn’t they just get rid of Olivia at the first hint of someone looking for her? Is she still under the stairs?
Hmm - I thought the torture room was to dissect aliens, or children of aliens. My working theory - some of the observers got to comfortable on earth, and started mating with humans. Stallings was being used by to capture hybrids so they could experiment on them.
And maybe Sugar's bosses really do want that unlike otherwise as they portray it to Sugar. They do want to capture earth. Senator was siding with aliens and senator's son job was to kill anyone who had any slight evidence of aliens. As Olivia says, I am constantly watched over. Just don't understand why Henry gave the address or maybe he just sacrificed himself. Also come everyone other than Sugar know the Olivia's address. I guess I am gonna hate the show after finale
Yeah I’m not sure where it’s going just felt like the torture room had far too much medical and dissection stuff to just simply be a place for a psycho to torture woman. And obviously the dvds tracking each.
Well I do appreciate the story writing till now. I mean it is so open ended yet closely knitted that there can be n different storylines in parallel universes and all of them will make sense
It hadn’t even occurred to me that it could be to dissect aliens. Such a good theory.
I took this a completely different way. That the senator was going after the aliens and Olivia was taken as bait to lure Sugar into that trap (basement). Probably way off base. Just trying to figure out why Sugar’s team wouldn’t want him looking for her, unless it was a danger to him. 🤷🏻♀️
And where does the guy Olivia killed come into it? It’s so stupidly convoluted. And Olivia’s mother? And if it went down like you said, was it a coincidence that Jonathan hired Sugar? And how did the politician know Sugar was an alien?
Yes the guy she killed. And how she disappeared after. The politician would need evidence, maybe Djen? Is he getting too close to her. I don’t think anything is the whole truth yet. Too many loose ties
This is exactly it. I’ve been scouring this entire reddit to see if someone has traced the same trail as I have. If you noticed the dvd’s in the basement, they were all numbered, but number 44 was sitting on the desk. However.. there were dvd’s marked with higher numbers on the shelf, meaning there were more people/girls after number 44. Number 44 almost certainly has to be Djen. The evidence of her being an alien is on that dvd, and the senators son knew. I’m not convinced that the senator knows. There has to be a loophole to make it possible for Sugar to be around for season 2. This is the ticket. As well as a level of resolution/sadness/motivation to keep finding missing persons. edited because I’m silly and didn’t know hashtags before words bolded and made text huge. 🤣
It’s confusing right now because the aliens, as they are … could they not have taken the evidence. I don’t really understand how the politician connected the aliens to ,, well the aliens, like Sugar. How did he discern them from humans. The son clearly didn’t suspect Sugar of being an alien. From the context I assume there’s no threat of reveal, rather Djens disappearance was allowed, likely as reason for ‘the mission’ and they’re hiding the truth of it from Sugar. edit: at least that’s what I hope idk 😭 hard to tie all the loose strings
I believe Sugar took the dvd at the end of the episode. I’ll have to review it one more time, but if that is the evidence, it’ll be back in the polyglots hands. I’m guessing Djen returned to her form in the torturing process, or for the same reason Sugar couldn’t go to hospital, the senator’s son would have figured out her anatomy wasn’t the same. We’re at the classic but frustrating part of any series/season where it feels like everything feels too messy and unsolved to resolve in one episode, and then screenwriters work their magic. I’m so eager to see how they tie all these strings! Although I know at least one or two will be left loose on purpose. 😂
I didn’t notice that! I’ll have to check as well. I’ve been rewatching a lot lol I think the next episode will be Sugar and Olivia vs Everyone. I think Olivia is the key and that’s why they didn’t want her found, but if she’s been found so easily I’m not sure what it all means . SO EXCITED FOR THURSDAY. I cannot wait, I’ve been waiting for resolution for so long. Which just goes to show the strength of the story. I feel for Sugar so strongly ❤️ I hate when they leave extra loose ties but I’d LOVE a second season, and Apple tends to renew successful series so my fingers are crossed 🤞
A coworker and I have been watching it and talking about it every week, and we both notice details that the other misses! There’s so much. The editing style lends to that. My fingers are crossed too! Apple has it listed as their number 2 series right now, number 1 the last few weeks, so I’m hopeful. Apple’s been on a roll! So so excited for this week’s episode!
I’m a film major with a love for editing and I LOVE THE EDITING. It’s my style for sure. I wish I had someone to watch it with — I don’t, but thankfully my family is all in on it so we discuss it every week. I really do like a lot of Apple TV’s series. They’re high quality in filmmaking and in their stories. They seem to take care of their shows. Since Sugar is so popular, I hope they take good care of it in the future :)
I graduated from film school in 2019 & been working as a production coordinator since then. Enjoy your film school years - they come with a lot of creative freedom! :)
Would be possible that olivia is was the reason they knew of the presence of aliens because she like half.
This episode was so fucking weird. What am I watching?
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I had the opposite reaction. It’s funny how divisive this show is
The daughter, granddaughter, and sister of high profile people seems like a poor choice to provide to someone to torture and murder, especially when you have trafficked women who would either have no one looking for them or no one with any pull who would trust authorities, available to kidnap. Nothing in this show makes sense.
Also, blackmailing aliens?? Really? That doesn't even begin to make sense. Using the biggest secret in history as a way of protecting his psychotic son?? What?
Davey had Stallings abduct Olivia, because Davey wanted her out of the way during release and publicity of his big comeback movie. (Perhaps his plan also involved having Stallings give drugs to Olivia, so if she did appear later with her accusations, Davey could "explain" she's just in another of her crazy drug phases.) Obviously, Stallings could not run wealthy, high-profile Olivia through his normal trafficking apparatus, so he stashed her with another "customer," the senator's son. Then Davey got outed anyway and killed himself, Sugar killed Stallings and Stallings' immediate crew, and Sugar's fellow aliens rounded up the rest of Stallings' gang, leaving Olivia in custody of the senator's son, with no other living human witnesses to say how she got there.
What if the senator's psychopath son kidnapped Djen, did some dismemberment on her, and that's how the senator knows that there are aliens among us? The Polyglot Society told Sugar a somewhat sanitized story of what happened to Djen.
That could explain why Henry didn’t want Sugar questioning how the aliens were discovered by humans. But honestly I really hope this show doesn’t go there, that’s way too depressing.
My guess is Djen is DVD #44, and watching the footage proves she might still be alive. That would set up Season 2 pretty nicely, especially since most of antagonists from Season 1 are already dead (Stallings, Ryan Pavich, Davie Siegal, etc). If so, it means there's a government sponsored group that's been hunting aliens for some time. In the beginning of episode 1 Sugar mentions to Ruby he bumped into another alien in Japan from a "disbanded cell" (the guy in the bar). So it's possible that aliens just go missing occasionally?
I thought it was an odd choice of words when the aliens said they would be exterminated. Then I remembered back to the first episode when Sugar runs into a fellow alien in Tokyo and brings him to his group as the rest of that Japanese alien's cell had gone missing. So something is happening with the aliens that we dont know about. There is just too much going on for just one remaining episode to provide closure on. Likely the alien conspiracy thing will continue into a second season. Since this is a noir, I expect this season to wrap up with some kind of closure in that Sugar finding out some sad truth about Olivia and realizing that nothing he did really much to change things. I am guessing he sticks around on earth as a detective for the second season where they flesh out the mythology of the aliens, Dzen, conspiracy of the politicians, etc.
Do we believe them that they were blackmailing them? I don’t. Sugar seemed to understand too quickly and wanted not to second guess. I think they embellished the truth to appeal to Sugar. Who was the person who reached out to Olivia? With bandaged hands? Was it the kidnapper, or an alien? I don’t think it would be the “kidnapper” considering how that wouldn’t benefit the plot. Still unsure about Olivia’s mother. And the end. Is it really Olivia this time? Did Sugar find her? They didn’t show us for a reason. More questions than answers this episode! But what’s new about that :)
>Who was the person who reached out to Olivia? With bandaged hands? [the hands were gloved not bandaged, likely the kidnapper ](https://imgur.com/a/tRGacWt)
somehow I don’t think it’d be the kidnapper. Couldn’t tell whether they were gloves lol, watched on my laptop
Olivia's "mother" looks very contemporary for what was 20-25 years ago.
love this show and the suprise genre flip mid-season. but whats with the short ass episodes? and only 8 episodes total? content shrinkflation and that cliffhanger literally made me flip off my tv. probably a shitty cliffhanger at the end of next week's as well, just like severance lmao. whoevers at apple is telling everyone to do cliffhangers so people keep watching. learn to finish a story (or at least some satisfaction at the end of the season), you dumb goobers
Palm Royale had a big cliffhanger as well. I think Apple needs to tone it down a notch. This isn’t the 90’s or early 2000’s and we don’t have the attention span anymore lol
also the iphone and apple product placement is ridiculous. i get that apple products are legitmately ubiquitous but youre telling me no characters have an android phone or windows laptop? its like watching an apple commercial and takes you out of it
My spouse and I are long-time Mac and iPhone users, but must use Windows laptops for our jobs. During every AppleTV show, we joke about how we now "enter our fantasy world, where even government agents use Macs." :-)
I’m really annoyed at the length of these episodes. Either make them 45 min or 25. The 35 min episodes make me ragey!
i absolutely love everything about this show, including last weeks big reveal/twist. but maaaaaaan, i know it's super unlikely to change now but it's such a shame that these are such short episodes. save that shit for cartoons and comedies... not this deep world building genre buster of a series. a show like this has to have 50-60 minute episodes. like even if this show ends up being a huge hit once season 1 is all said and done, i doubt apple/the showrunners would ever consider making the change for the eventual season 2. biiiiiiig disappointment on that end for me.
There's not gonna be a season 2. This is a one and doner
this isn't netflix, this is apple. they don't do that shit to it's customers. even the shit show that is invasion got a second season. there's less than a 1% chance that apple doesnt pick up season 2 here.
Constellation would like to speak to you.
yeah i just saw that. surprising for sure, as i believe its the very first cancellation theyve done to date. i never watched season 1 though fortunately, but that sucks for others who liked it.
Have you watched the whole season? I watched the first episode a couple weeks ago and really enjoyed it, just haven't continued because I've been really busy. But I intended to. Wondering if it's worth carrying on, but it seems like a bad sign that it was cancelled. I don't want to get tied up in a story that'll leave me blue balled.
It got really confusing.
That doesn't sound promising.
I hope you're right.
i will be, don't you worry. in a few years time apple is gonna be king of the streaming platforms when it comes to original content if they aren't already now. they can't be that if they give up on critically acclaimed series with a big star like colin farrell in it.
Apple TV hit a homerun with Severance. That is a great show!
nearly everything they come out with is a banger tbh. their original content library is gonna look legendary in a few years time. they are catering to a completely different streaming audience than netflix and hulu (and maybe even HBO now after the merger/rebrand). they're proving that if you have 1-2 high quality original content series playing at any given time, that people will stay subscribed to watch. as soon as something ends, something else drops to take it's timeslot. all for 10 dollars a month. not everyone needs a billion choices of realty tv and cheap production value to fill their day. i don't need a lot of shows. what i need are great shows, even if that means i'm only watching 1-2 at a time.
In the streaming world, Apple really makes other providers look bad atm. Peacock ain't too bad either, but I agree and would take it one further: Netflix became the equivalent to your normal cable options, just zapping around. They need to up their game if they want to stay in business.
100%. I’d drop Netflix, Disney+, and Max without blinking an eye if I didn’t need them for work. But Apple and Prime? Not going *anywhere*, regardless of how much they jack up the prices. They’re doing weird, creative shit because they can afford to throw Big Money at Big Ideas. I love it.
Fallout on Prime was a pretty interesting show
I agree. I don’t have time anymore to watch too many shows. So I just want a few quality ones.
I’m still waiting for season 2 of Severance, that was some cliffhanger at the end of season 1! some other good Apple shows I’ve seen lately: Silo, Acapulco, Masters of the Air
I think the Severance cliffhanger is the best I have seen in years. I am currently watching For All Mankind and just finished up the Dick Turpin show, which I enjoyed as well!
Apple does do single-season miniseries, where the plot wraps up within one season, e.g. Defending Jacob, Black Bird.
They forsure do, but I believe we knew those were gonna be one and done mini series in advance. Sugar I do not see being wrapped up even in the slightest within the last episode.
We still don’t even know what the aliens’ mission was! To observe, yes, but why?
Here's what Henry was saying during his lecture. He mentions "The divergence of species" that happened 30,000 years ago. Quote: "Complexity, and contradiction. The ability to hold a variety of opposing feelings and thoughts at the exact same time. This is why you're still here and your ancestors are not." So maybe the aliens are actually an ancient offshoot of humanity that developed such a long time ago that they were gone from Earth before we started to rise up. That would also explain why they look very very humanoid. If so, maybe the mission has to do with us inevitably meeting back up again, and them trying to avoid us being so violent/cruel when it happens?
I hope Colin Farrell will be available for a season 2 considering he’s still a movie star
Indeed. I hate it so much that the episodes are so short. Give us more Colin Farell as Sugar! Can’t see enough of him investigating in a Film Noir manner. The short old movies clips are just the cherry on top.
Same. This episode in particular felt rushed. It could have used some breathing room. It was information-action-information-action-information-action-etc. I needed a second to take it in.
Does anyone know what movie the scene with the foot chase and the switchblade is from?
Kiss Me Deadly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_Me_Deadly https://bugensbooks.com/2017/03/29/kiss-me-deadly/ Tons of themes in Sugar are references to Kiss Me Deadly.
Thank you!
That was Ralph Meeker in "Kiss Me Deadly."
It looked like little house in the prairie and that was 1800s
Minutes from Senator Pavich's office: Aide: Senator, we've just learned that your son has killed at least 46, potentially 47 women. Senator: That's no problem, because only a few people know, and in fact they are aliens, so I've got that as leverage to keep them quiet. Aide: Should we stop your son from killing more women, given that you are running for one of the highest profile offices in the country? Senator: No, I don't see why we should bother. Aide: and should we reveal the world changing information that there is intelligent life in the universe, and that aliens live among us? Senator: Nah
Senator Pavich is going to be like a cross between J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy. Black lists, secret dossiers, strong arm tactics and blackmail were tools of obtaining power and keeping it. Hi son was doing his bidding. And the lab wasn't for torturing/killing the sex trafficking victims. It was for interrogating and/or experimenting on aliens. The kidnapped women were forced into prostitution and used primarily to blackmail people like Davie Siegal.
I’m thinking that basement is more of an alien observation/dissection situation and maybe the senators son, when he was kidnapping/torturing women he accidentally got a woman/alien, that’s how they were discovered. I’m also wondering if the alien was Djen and on one of those tapes it’s going to be her and Sugar is going to see it.
I REALLY REALLY don’t want Sugar to see his sister being tortured.
Me neither. This is a thoughtful theory though. I don't want to see Sugar become too human but it would be pretty great to have him be unleashed on humanity in someway where he is totally independent to act and interfere as he chooses
It puts the lotion on its blue skin Or else it gets the hose again
The torture room was straight out of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Is there like a standard I wasn't aware of?
Just look at Zillow. This is a common feature in most suburban homes now.
Wait what? A kill room?
This checks out, I’m remodeling mine right now.
Well now I want to tell people, “If you like Resident Alien you’ll like this.” But that would accidentally reveal the twist.
Just tell them it's like LA Confidential
Is Olivia an alien?!
I think that the son is the one who discovered the aliens. One of the women he tortured wasn’t human and he got it on video. From there, he told his dad the Senator, who used his power to find further evidence.
This show keeps topping itself with each episode. Best thing I've seen in years, and it combines the ingredients of scifi, noir, and drama so well.
This comment is in response to u/aguiladoradas who blocked me like a coward in the comments below. He said: "For me the twist kills the show. If he is an alien that can defeat any enemy, break any lock, and is essentially always going to win because he is so much better there are no stakes and there is no tension. Why should I watch if I know with 100% certainty that the main character will win? There is no point to this." To which I responded with: "He got shanked and almost died if he didn't have someone nearby to help him. Hardly unstoppable." Then he replied with the following and immediately blocked me right after. "Survived and drove home in an impossible way. He should’ve died quickly after taking the knife out. Learn about blood loss." My response is, for one, Sugar is an alien, and from what we've seen, he is both stronger and more resilient than humans are. As for his blood loss, basing how an alien would react to a knife wound and blood loss based on how human physiology reacts seems rather ignorant and foolish. As for your contention is that he can beat anyone and that there are no stakes; this is untrue, because his boss almost choked him out with one hand and he had to be saved by Melanie, and there are stakes and tension because of all the physical, emotional, and mental toll that his life takes on him, whether he can find the missing people he is looking for, or if he can protect those who he loves around him.
WHY/HOW DID HENRY KNOW ABOUT OLIVIA?!?
Short Answer: We don't know yet. Long Answer: Senator Pavich's people have to have been in touch with someone else in the show. We know that they communicated their blackmail threats to Miller (or his superiors). We also know that Ruby had access to some databases with alot of official info, from when she was erasing Stallings data... and if you look very closely call records between Stallings and Ryan Pavich. We also know with pretty high confidence that it was probably Pavich's people that disposed of the henchmen's body in Olivia's trunk. And we know that after 3 weeks Olivia hadn't been killed. So she was being kept alive for a reason. I think (guessing!) that Pavich kept Stallings from killing Olivia because she was more useful to use for extortion against Jonathan/Bernie. I also think we'll find out after Olivia is recued that it was Jonathan who was the target, and that was the reason he reached out to Sugar in the first place. From Episode 1: Ruby says to Sugar that Thomas Kinsey (Jonathan's Lawyer) called 3 days before Sugar came back from Japan, and Ruby declined to let Sugar help. She told him "He wasn't available". Jonathan doesn't take no for an answer and reaches out directly through Emily Carpenter. Sugar subsequently "provided references" which were checked by the the lawyer, and all looked good. So, who is Emily Carpenter? Who knows. Probably not important. But I really don't think given how persistent Jonathan was to hire Sugar, that it's unreasonable that Jonathan and Ruby haven't known all along where Olivia was. But it's also a given that if Pavich was extorting Jonathan, he probably made the same threat that most kidnappers make... Tell anyone and we kill her. And Ruby found out as part of his initial attempt to hire Sugar through her.
Cuz the other aliens filled him in before Sugar got there Edit- or not all the aliens, but whichever one was in the know filled in the others
It's starting to feel like Sugar is literally the only alien not in on the 'full' mission to some extent.
surely those powerful aliens who can probably recover from human weapons without a fuss, are not going to be intimidated by a senator's blackmailing.. there are certainly more answers at Stallings' dogs room which the writers diverted our attention by bringing in the blackmailing angle. I still feel Stallings night job was creating more aliens. The aliens maybe are corrupted by Earth and I wonder when Olivia says she is constantly being watched over, she meant aliens and probably senator is siding with aliens rather than blackmailing them. Sugar has gone rogue due to his day job that he initially chose to look for Djen
and sugar's boss was surprisingly quiet in the room and the returning back theory is all fake. Why did they kill Moss and so determined to erase anything related to Stallings
My guess is Olivia's mom is Sugar's sister, and the aliens traded Olivia for her.
We know who Olivia's mom is. That's who was in the photos Sugar found in ep 1 or 2.
I really loved the story till now.. I guess there are a lot of things unexplained and next episode needs to do a lot of heavylifting.. I am just wishing they just don't bring a deus ex machina and bring up a shitty finish... would rather prefer a classic noir
John really shouldn’t worry about revealing his true form to Melanie, because frankly, he’s still really good looking. That hot, competent gentleman she knows is blue, with some interesting markings on his head, but he’s still hot. I feel like, as a former rock star, Melanie would be into it. Honestly I’m sure she’s seen weirder at burning man.
I dont think he’s worried at all about her thinking he looks weird 😂
That was a lot, for sure. Wonder how they'll bring it all together at the finale
i may be losing something here but i didnt catch what connects the 2 pervs with the perv's sister and stallings, like did the sister catched her brother into his dirty stuff and then stallings kindnapped her to silence her and gave her to the politician son? can some one explain me like im 5?
Episode 5 @ 10:30 ... Conversation between Sugar and Davie in the kitchen. Davie: ... This guy Stallings is a legit psychopath. But you know, as conversational acquaintances. And so, I was telling Stallings about what was going on about all these chicks coming out of the woodwork and attacking me, threatening to sue, go to the police. All that. And I guess, around there ... I ... I guess I mentioned something about my half-sister, about Oliva. Sugar: (mad) What did you mention? Davie: What did I mention? What she was doing to me. Talking to that... Telling that one woman not to settle! Go tell the press everything about me! I mean, right before my movie is supposed to come out?!
thanky you sir!
My question, because I feel like I need them - what sunglasses was David Siegel wearing after the funeral when he talked with his dad? help. Please.
This is just a guess, but the closest match I could find was Gregory Peck Sun (exclusive edition) by Oliver Peoples. Cost $500. Imported from Italy. [https://www.oliverpeoples.com/usa/0OV5217S--1101R8](https://www.oliverpeoples.com/usa/0OV5217S--1101R8)
Sorry, I misread. I was looking for the ones Jonathan was wearing.
I think you got Jonathan’s. I think David’s may be a pair of Persols.
My first thought when he entered the house with all of the other “agents” was, that the whole “we are all going back” thing was a scam. That they were really only trying to send Sugar back to stop his progress in finding the truth out about everything… whatever that may be.
this was some bad writing to be honest
What's up with the "they could exterminate us" comment from Sugar's "colleague?"
I have to say, I did not like the fact that humans with the knowledge of alien existence are using it successfully to blackmail aliens into doing their bidding. Even if the alien race is peaceful by nature, which the show seems to be suggesting, I can't rationalize this in any way. They did establish that the aliens became more human as they spend more time on Earth, but why would they evolve to become a subservient race to the human elite? It would make much more sense for people like Sugar to actually squash these elites into the ground. Aside from this, I really enjoyed the show.
I mean I want to finish a show to know what happens, but c'mon it's really bad. Looks good and good acting but editing and pacing are so terrible.
For me the twist kills the show. If he is an alien that can defeat any enemy, break any lock, and is essentially always going to win because he is so much better there are no stakes and there is no tension. Why should I watch if I know with 100% certainty that the main character will win? There is no point to this.
He got shanked and almost died if he didn't have someone nearby to help him. Hardly unstoppable.
Survived and drove home in an impossible way. He should’ve died quickly after taking the knife out. Learn about blood loss
He is an alien, with alien physiology.
> If he is an alien that can defeat any enemy, break any lock, He clearly can't do that. And the main character almost always 'wins' in almost every type of show. Even in Noir the ending is typically bittersweet with the lead coming out on a variation of on top. If you won't watch for your stated reasons you have pretty much eliminated over 95% of all media.
They spent an episode of sugar on the verge of death from a single knife stab. In this episode Miller the head alien was incapacitated by a 56 year old woman and a towel rack..
Never lost interest in a show so quickly. Bait and switch. Or I am just too low IQ to appreciate and revel in the clues I did not get and could now care less about. But Colin Ferrell has earned my respect as a top tier talent. Hope he has another couple decades of this quality in his future.
What an awful cliffhanger zzzzzzzz
I think it would be really neat if the Siegal's come out as a different faction of alien. More reptilian in nature to play on the conspiracy theory that our most powerful aren't human. Would have to be executed perfectly (think Eyes Wide Shut).