Colin Farrell's Sugar Episode 6 Twist Has Viewers Freaking Out - In The Worst Way
Contains spoilers for "Sugar" Season 1 Episode 6 — "Go Home"
Apple TV+'s new show "Sugar," which stars Colin Farrell as a hardscrabble private investigator, just introduced a truly wild twist in its sixth episode, and fans have a lot of feelings about it.
At first glance, "Sugar" seems like a standard procedural miniseries. As Farrell's titular John Sugar searches for Olivia Siegel (Sydney Chandler), a missing girl and the granddaughter of powerful Hollywood figure Jonathan Siegel (James Cromwell), he runs into a myriad of issues, including unexpected stonewalling from Olivia's father Bernie Siegel (Dennis Boutsikaris), her stepbrother David Siegel (Nate Corddry), and Olivia's struggles with addiction. He also ends up striking up a connection with Melanie (Amy Ryan), Olivia's stepmother, who knows more than she's initially willing to let on. There are also some strange things about John, to be sure; he tells a drunken Melanie that he can metabolize alcohol more easily than most and never gets drunk, and he experiences strange neurological symptoms and visions with some regularity. Why? He's an alien.
Yes, that's right — Farrell's character John Sugar is a blue alien who unmasks himself during "Go Home." So how do "Sugar" fans feel about this reveal? Weird, as it turns out!
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John Sugar is an alien, and fans are baffled by this twist
To say fans are thrown by the reveal that John Sugar is some sort of alien is an understatement. On a discussion thread about the episode on Reddit, users made their feelings quite clear, like u/runnerswanted: "I don't know what I was expecting, but I don't think it was that." u/IronicSunshine83 felt like the twist was actually too predictable, saying, "I kind of hate that this is what a lot of us thought. I really don't know how I feel about this show as a whole, but I'll see it through until the end."
Fans on X (formerly known as Twitter) were much, much harsher. User @evagarv3y wrote, "['Sugar'] needs to be reclassified at the emmys as a comedy series i cannot stand this egregious category fraud." @karengeier felt similarly, saying, "Oh the twist in Sugar is extremely stupid." As for some fans like @HowardGorman, they think they might actually like the twist: "What the flip is going on with ['Sugar']? Most bizarre twist in history. Not sure I like what's happened but still intrigued to see where it goes from here..."
So have the people behind "Sugar" discussed the twist? They certainly have ... and they seem to stand by it, fan reactions be damned.
The creators of Sugar worked really hard on the alien reveal — and its aesthetics
Speaking to People Magazine, executive producer of "Sugar" Simon Kinberg revealed that he and the creators stand behind the twist, but that a few networks were incredibly concerned about the twist. Ultimately, they stuck to their guns. "We felt like taking that reveal out took something away from John Sugar, the character," Kinburg said of pressure to change the storyline. "So it was not an easy thing to get everyone to agree to, among other places, but Apple was the strongest in supporting that vision that not everybody saw. And now I think once people see this episode, it will be hard to imagine this show without this element."
Kinberg also discussed how they came up with the blue-hued look for John Sugar's "real" form, saying that they walked a fine line between "too subtle" and too "suddenly creaturely," which could have been alarming. In fact, Kinberg said that early test runs of the look were entirely too subtle and didn't telegraph the change enough. "We all loved the notion of it being subtle, but if it was so subtle the audience wouldn't get it — and it's obviously critical that the audience understand what it is they're looking at," he said. In the end, everybody was happy with the blue action visage they crafted.
"He [Sugar] has a sort of delicate, elegant quality to him, and we felt like the final look retained or even enhanced some of the delicacy and the elegance of John Sugar," Kinberg concluded.
The big Sugar twist almost happened much earlier in the series
Simon Kinberg, Colin Farrell, and his co-star Amy Ryan also spoke to Variety about the big alien twist ... and as it turns out, there were discussions about having the twist happen in the very first episode.
Farrell, who's also an executive producer on the series, says that the pilot originally ended with the twist. "But then it became apparent to us that, rather than lean into that device or use it as a hook for the audience early on, any attention paid to the show should first be earned by virtue of the human drama that was unfolding," Farrell told the outlet. "And only then does this other aspect, this sci-fi bent, come into it."
So why Episode 6? Farrell said that by the end of that particular episode, which sees John Sugar endure a major showdown with a human trafficker named Stallings (played by Eric Lange), the detective is exhausted, and the facade drops. "He just needed to return to something familiar, which is his natural state," Farrell said, also noting that Ryan's character Melanie is near him when he shows his real form. "There is something about her presence that gave him permission, even though she's sleeping on the other side of the door."
"Sugar" is streaming on Apple TV+ now and is set to conclude its 8-episode season on May 17.