Summary
Sugar continues to investigate not just a missing person but also the nature of belonging and loneliness in what is turning out to be a surprisingly textured second season.
John Sugar is an immigrant, a literal alien, which is probably worth keeping in the back of your mind when watching Season 2 of Sugar. Not that the show is going to let you forget it, at least not based on Episode 2, “Downer Town”, which is very much backdropped by the idea of people making their way in strange places that are often hostile to them, and feeling, privately, that they’re completely on their own in doing so. But as I mentioned in the premiere, this very much seems to be a show about loneliness more so than a show about a missing person.
Ji Moon is still missing, though. And based on the available evidence, someone is definitely trying to kill him. An opening scene of a man being shot in the back, which doesn’t initially seem to have anything to do with anything, is quickly revealed to have unforeseen relevance. The victim, a recent immigrant, had no known connections to gang activity, but was nonetheless shot by a gangbanger. Why? Thanks to an old client named Tom Flyberg (the inimitable Shea Whigham), Sugar is able to have a look through the personal effects of the shooter, who was gunned down by the police after the initial shooting. There’s a picture of Ji on his phone, implying that the shooting was simply a case of mistaken identity. He thought he was killing Ji.
Sugar’s amassing allies, at least, but not so many as to assuage his general feelings of loneliness. But he offers Val a job working for him, despite his seeming to have to pay for something every time he sees her, and he’s developing a good rapport with Blaine at the hospital, who lets him go back over the security footage again. This time, he discovers that Ji made a stop on the fifth floor on his way out of the hospital, and that someone else was there at the same time, deliberately obscuring himself from the cameras.
What’s most interesting about Sugar Season 2, Episode 2, at least to me, is how its stated themes of loneliness and isolation manifest in different ways for different people. For Danny, for instance, his suddenly being alone in Ji’s absence means additional responsibility, having to drum up the rent that Ji didn’t pay. When Charlotte speaks to Sugar in the hotel bar again, she’s complimentary of him reassuring the bartender, who didn’t get a part he went for, with kindness. She defines the observation along gender lines, but it’s more than that, really. Sugar, in his affection for the movies, sees something of a kindred spirit in a wannabe actor, a little sense of community in a fellow aesthete. He has that dynamic with Blaine, too.
But in Sugar’s own isolation, pursuing anything with Charlotte, who’s clearly into him, is “not allowed”. He’s trapped between the two masters of his alien nature and his innate human kindness. It’s the kind of thing that gives Sugar, which, to be fair, is also a really competent noir by any measure, its own unique texture.
Community rears its head again when Sugar looks into the shooting victim, Jesus Jasquez, and relates to his grieving grandmother through his own experiences with loss. Those in mourning are their own little community; they speak a language only decipherable to those with the same wounds. It’s a lovely moment when Sugar washes the dishes for her.
Sugar also vocalises a point that gangs provide the same sense of belonging and being part of something. Despite the headlines, this obvious allure is almost always glossed over, the implication being that anyone driven to violence or criminality must have been innately compelled to it. This is playing out in real time with Danny, who is risking his promising boxing career to turn to emergency measures to cover the debts caused by Ji’s disappearance. Sugar watches this from afar, but he understands it intimately.
Sugar’s still burning the candle at both ends. He’s still watching Senator Pavich, who is now the CEO of a tech company for which he seems to be hiring. And he’s obviously getting closer to the truth about what happened to Ji, since the more questions he asks, the more obviously threatening the answers become. This becomes mightily apparent in the episode’s climax, when Sugar is lured to a meeting that turns out to be an ambush. While he’s pulled over at an intersection, he’s shot in the chest in a drive-by. “Downer Town” leaves him for dead. Of course, the very thing that makes him feel so isolated and alone will also likely be the thing that keeps him alive. Swings and roundabouts.
