‘Sugar’ Season 2, Episode 4 Recap – I’m Not Sure Things Are Necessarily Working

There’s something off about Season 2 of Sugar. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. If you take Episode 4 as an example, there’s a bunch of stuff crammed into this half-hour that should by rights be pretty exciting and engaging, though it never quite ends up feeling that way. It’s still an impressive, highly competent production, of course, but if “Off 15” represents a high bar in terms of the action, I’m not sure we’re quite firing on enough cylinders.

There should be a whiplash quality here. The previous episode ended with Sugar literally stalling out on his investigation into Ji’s disappearance, realising that the real enemy may be someone much more connected and, thus, much more dangerous than the average gangbanger. This episode moves right into that idea, but it doesn’t seem to pick up much pace to suit, even though what’s actually happening on-screen is much more exciting than what came previously.

We begin with a flashback, though, revisiting Ji’s night in the hospital when Hannah McDaniels helped him steal a bunch of pills. However, this sequence also reveals that he saw on his brief fifth-floor stop-off, which has led to his current predicament. He witnessed Ray killing Chuy. Ray found him hiding but took a photo of him and let him escape, since he didn’t have time to deal with him there and then. Ji has been on the run ever since.

This knowledge helps to explain the police raid that killed Guapo in the previous episode. Ray is tying up loose ends, and Ji remains one. Perhaps the best scene of this episode is when Sugar and Ray, in a police interview following that raid, converse about this in surprisingly open terms. It’s the season laying out a mandate, in a way. Ray is determined to find and kill Ji; Sugar is determined to find and save him. Both are aware of the other. But, for now, there’s nothing either can do except continue as they were.

For Ray, this means leveraging the resources of the sheriff’s department and leaning on Hannah. For Sugar, this means leveraging the relationship he has cultivated with Danny. It’s a nice way to reiterate the season’s underlying ideas, even if, plot-wise, it’s a bit too easy for both parties to find a guy neither has been able to find for the preceding three episodes. But let’s not nitpick.

The suspense sequence that closes Sugar Season 2, Episode 4 is pretty novel and effective, though. Sugar gets to Ji first, but he’s barely conscious from having shot up, and Ray isn’t far behind. Sugar pulls off a risky play to dose Ji again, creating the impression of an overdose, and hides in a nearby closet. The idea is that if Ray thinks he’s already dead, he won’t kill him. And he doesn’t. But that means Sugar has to desperately revive him with CPR after Ray has departed.

All this focus on the hunt for Ji leaves little time for anything else in “Off 15”. But Sugar does run into Charlotte a couple more times. After seeing her break into his room and root around on his secret recording equipment, he gets the wrong idea – or maybe the right idea; time will tell – and assumes she’s a bad actor. When he confronts her, though, she reveals she was just leaving a flirty note in there. Evidence seems to confirm this. But I’m not so sure. And while it isn’t immediately clear how all this might tie into the wider narrative, I’m pretty confident that it will.

Still, who says romance is dead?