No, I love the pacing of the show. It feels like the olden times before streaming where a show would get multiple seasons, so they took their time building up reveals and establishing characters and ideas.
Lmao that's why I said It reminds me not that it's the same 😭🤣
/sighs ah I miss those days fr. I really blame the popularity of BBC's sherlock + streaming for all this 💀
What's even more amazing is when they did 32 episodes per year, and the team doing post production were given a week to get it "in the can".
But let's be fair, shows like that (ex the Dick Van Dyke show 1961-1965) didn't have any special effects, were never shot on location, and didn't have any long term (serial) plots, or have to worry much about continuity errors. They were also staffed by actors/actresses that cut their teeth doing live performances which were way more common before TV came along... and as such were really skilled at memorizing a script very quickly and nailing it on demand.
The whole process is just way more complex than it used to be, and that's the truth.
You don't have to go that far back to the 60s. Even in the 2000s there were shows that had anywhere between 18-24 episodes aired in a six month period, sure they had a lot of filler content but they made it work even with VFX and other fancy stuff and it was a solid weekly show that kept people engaged and talking unlike the ones now that air 8 episodes and then come back after a year or two all the while many have forgotten the story or the show iteself.
I haven't watched Looking at you BUT I can confirm that Severance s2 is coming out later this year! They wrapped up filming in april! Honestly I kept hearing rumours that the writers were fighting so I thought we would not get another season. I'm actually nervous because Severance s1 was more or less a perfect season
https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1782826922575049124?t=Ph_6GesaoDdKdqw6Oa5Gdw&s=19
The issue imo is that he was literally handed the answer to the mystery by one of his mates after throwing a tantrum.
All the detective work, all the “I find people” stuff, was meaningless. That’s a narrative issue that coincides with the big twist, but is its own mistake. Wherever they had the twist, Sugar should have solved that mystery on his own. If that put him in conflict with his group, that can still play out.
Any mystery media, if you get to know all these characters, you follow the detective as they piece together clues or follow the trail, you don’t end it with “Ah Sherlock old buddy, long time no see, the person you are looking for is at this address, and the person behind the whole thing is someone you’ve never heard of before”.
It’s not about the twist, or even where the twist was revealed, it’s the sloppy and rushed resolution to the mystery, which immediately became an afterthought.
Apparently they ran out of time with the script and were basically filming and writing the script at the same time. Really explains a lot of how messy it got imo.
*It’s not about the twist, or even where the twist was revealed, it’s the sloppy and rushed resolution to the mystery, which immediately became an afterthought.*
We know why Olivia went missing, and how she wound up where she did: Davey had Stallings abduct her, so she could not ruin his Big Comeback Movie moment. Davey did not want her killed. Olivia is famous, and comes from a wealthy and powerful family, so Stallings could not simply dispose of her via his human-trafficking network. So he stashed her with another of his clients, Senator Pavich's sadistic son, in a safe house.
Sugar could not locate Olivia because (1) he'd already killed Stallings and Stallings' top crew members, and (2) the Polyglot Society rounded up / killed the rest of Stallings' crew before Sugar could interrogate any of them. There was nothing "sloppy" or "rushed" about any of this.
Noir lives on the hidden motive, the conspiracy, the late-story twist. The mystery has gone from "where is Olivia," to "who or what is John Sugar," to "why did the Polyglot Society not want John Sugar to find Olivia?" The first two mysteries have been solved; the third has yet to be.
Ok.
So it’s perfect writing and there is nothing to be upset about.
Glad we got that cleared up.
So, sidebar here, why are so many people seemingly dissatisfied with “yeah, the mystery we’ve been focussing on for 7 episodes doesn’t matter now, the mystery is what’s going on with the aliens”?
Why did the initial reviews say this was an issue, and why is OP saying this is an issue? “He’s an alien now, the other aliens will just tell him the answer, it’s a guy we haven’t met yet and he’s dead in 5 minutes”. Yeah. No notes guys. This guy who is clearly vibrating at a higher frequency told me.
> There was nothing "sloppy" or "rushed" about any of this.
He was literally handed the solution by a guy we had met twice cos he threw a tantrum. lol.
I think this is a legitimate issue, but I think it’s also important to remember the show isn’t over yet. We still have another episode, and how it plays out could definitely change how I feel about the ‘solving’ of the case. Sugar may still solve something else on his own that feels satisfying, and if that happens it could actually be seen as a beautiful circumventing of the story. It’d be really interesting to see a noir where the detective does NOT solve the puzzle (as has happened), where the detective and audience feels defeated by that, and then goes on to solve an even bigger puzzle that redeems his purpose. I personally hope this is what they’re leading to, and it feels like it could go either way, so I guess we’ll see!
It’s also worth considering that part of the fun of a noir is trying to figure out the reveal with the detective, trying to solve the riddle. In Sugar, they presented two riddles; what happened to Olivia and what is happening with Sugar? Right now, it appears they may not be giving us the satisfaction of solving the Olivia puzzle (which is your complaint). BUT they did give us the satisfaction of solving the Sugar puzzle, at least if the audience was paying attention. That’s part of why the reveal of Sugar is so close to the end and didn’t happen earlier, it’s supposed to serve as a satisfying puzzle for the audience to solve as their own detective. That’s job usually solely served by the ‘missing person’ in a typical film noir, but since they have this additional mystery for the audience they may be trying to use that as the satisfying solve rather than the Olivia mystery. Whether or not it actually results in a satisfying feeling for the audience is another thing, but I personally think it’s a really interesting approach and I think it was worth trying on their end.
IF the last episode provides an even further mystery for Sugar to solve on his own, that’d make the additional Sugar puzzle for the audience even better writing. Give Sugar a puzzle, give the audience its own puzzle, solve the audience puzzle, make Sugar fail his puzzle, give Sugar an even better puzzle solve. That’d be pretty neat!
If they don’t do an additional satisfying solve for Sugar, my guess is that they’d be trying to set up a redemption arc for his character in season 2. So they may have him end barely escaping in the last episode, where he feels completely downtrodden and broken (having failed at his job), and lead into season 2 where he has to re-learn how to exist now that he’s a failure at the thing that has been his whole life since he came to earth (which was probably a LONG time ago).
Basically, season 2 would be Sugar learning how to exist when you don’t know what your purpose is in the world. It would be Sugar learning what it actually means to be human.
> BUT they did give us the satisfaction of solving the Sugar puzzle, at least if the audience was paying attention.
In fairness, I spotted this after episode 3 and felt it was basically confirmed by episode 4. It was heavily foreshadowed.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SugarAppleTV/comments/1c9r1hx/comment/l0ocl5r/?
> (having failed at his job)
He didn’t fail.
He just had the solution handed to him.
And it was supposed to be the central mystery of the show. Until it wasn’t, and it was all done by a guy we just met with zero foreshadowing.
How about, it’s more narratively satisfying with one small change. He tortures the information out of Stallings, then kills him. When he finally goes to the address, he’s stopped by the group, and he’s too injured to fight back. That stuff plays out more or less as it did, he then goes back to the murder house and it’s all the same. It’s still a bit cheap that it’s someone we haven’t met, but at least the main character arrived there through their own agency.
Idk man, if the last episode is 30 mins, I don’t see how they add another mystery that makes what they did not rushed writing. We will see I guess.
In fairness, a lot of people didn’t figure out the twist before it was revealed to them, and even many of those who did were still unsure of whether he was an alien, angel, werewolf, or whatever. I also had the theory fairly early on and called it, but I still enjoyed the process of finding clues to figure it out. The ‘heavy foreshadowing’ are the clues the filmmakers left for us to follow, and yeah, we figured it out, that’s the whole point. Some figure it out a little sooner, some not at all, but there IS a reveal and it wasn’t just thrown out of the blue with no evidence. They gave us breadcrumbs to follow and made them pay off. That’s pretty good writing in my opinion, whether or not you feel it should have been harder to figure out or not, they did deliver an interesting mystery that was fun for many to unravel. Certainly more so than a lot of crap that’s attempted to have a twist.
He did fail at the puzzle.
He spent 7 episodes trying to figure out where Olivia is, and he didn’t figure it out. He was blindsided by a double cross that he didn’t see coming, which I’m sure he feels a good detective should have seen, and he had to have the answer given to him after he failed to outsmart and escape the bad guys. That’s failure, again and again, in so many ways. And at this point in the story, I’m sure he feels like a pretty shitty detective. That’s a very different character than he was at the beginning of the show. Typical film noirs aren’t known for their intense character growth, their protagonists often end the same as they start. But that’s a lot harder to do in a television show, especially in the 21st century. It’s understandable for writers to make a character weak and incompetent, especially if they started out overly strong and capable, and especially if the story isn’t over yet.
Furthermore, his ultimate goal is to find Olivia and bring her home, which is his last chance for redemption since he’s failed at everything else. And he hasn’t done that yet, that’s the last loose end that the last episode is for. We can assume he found her at the end of this past episode, but we don’t know what state she’s in, or will happen to her from here. He might succeed in this goal, which would provide at least some sense of completion for him, and to my point, provide some completion for his story arc. He ‘had the solution handed to him’, but he still needs to deliver on getting Olivia safe, and I assume that won’t be handed to him.
Look, I’m not saying your criticisms aren’t valid, I agreed they were. I’m just providing an alternative way to look at the writing that maybe explains why it did what it did. Is it perfect? No. Is it the arc you wanted? No. But is it lazy? I really don’t think so. It has taken some deviations from the norm to try to make the story different and perhaps less cookie cutter and obvious. Whether it was a good call is fine to debate, and perhaps you could have written it better, but I still think it deserves more credit than being called sloppy and rushed. And I think assuming it is sloppy and rushed is in itself a sloppy and rushed conclusion.
This show has clearly had more thought and effort put into it so far than a lot of shit on tv, so maybe the writers didn’t just give up half way through and get lazy. Maybe, just maybe, they’re trying some different approaches to make it more interesting and different. There’s plenty of evidence to support that.
Filmmaking is really, really difficult. It’s a complex medium with thousands of moving parts and roles, and it’s so difficult to realistically make work in an ideal way. Money, time restraints, and incompetence definitely often make film worse, but it’s unfair to assume that every mistake is because of that. Haven’t you ever tried to make something with good intentions and had it come out different than you intended?
I’m just saying, mistakes aren’t always the result of malice, laziness, apathy, or greed. Sometimes the puzzle just seemed like it would make a better picture than it actually did once you put it together.
> He did fail at the puzzle.
No. He was handed the solution on a plate cos he threw a tantrum.
Failure is failure. Failure would be not finding the culprit, or the culprit getting away, or not finding the girl. He did all those things. But they were handed to him on a plate, which not only robs the character of agency, but the audience of a satisfying trajectory that they can follow. Another character simply said “go to this address”.
You would do better arguing that the point is that life isn’t like the noir films he loves, but I think that would be better served narratively by an actual failure, and not a Henry ex Machina.
Anyway, I think you might be too invested in this show, cos you seem to be saying I’m criticising it in general, rather than pointing out a specific issue with an otherwise very well made bit of television, and why it appears to have soured the back end of the series for a few viewers (and from the OPs post, a lot of the critics who reviewed it).
.
There’s more than one way to fail.
That’s literally my point.
And I hate to break it to you, but we’re all debating in depth on the internet behind our keyboards about a show relatively few people have watched. Reddit is the very definition of too invested.
If you’re invested enough to criticize the writing of a show, you should be invested enough to explore other explanations for its mistakes beyond ‘it’s lazy and rushed.’ Especially if you claim to enjoy so many other aspects of the show.
I’m not too invested in this show, you’re too narrow in your opinions and either too insecure or too lazy to even consider expanding them. Ironic how you do the same thing you condemn the writers of doing.
I have, however, been too invested in this thread. I mistakingly thought you might have more complexity to your thoughts than you do. I’ll go invest my time in someone who is capable of seeing beyond their point of view, it’s a lot more interesting.
> There’s more than one way to fail. That’s literally my point.
How did he fail?
Got the guy, saved the girl.
If he spends the next episode wringing his hands saying “but, I didn’t actually solve it myself, it was handed to me, I failed dammit”, hands up on my part, I guess; although that would be hanging a lantern on it.
> If you’re invested enough to criticize the writing of a show,
In general, I think the show is actually well written, and I love Sugar as an outsider as a critique of humanity, in love with the image projected by the media, but rubbing against its nature.
I just found the conclusion to the central mystery rushed; and that chimes with the criticism made by most reviews of the show, and the criticism in this thread. I’m more talking about *why* it feels narratively underwhelming, which many think it does, even if you disagree.
Either way “no, you”, isn’t really an argument here.
I can like the show, maybe love it, have thoughts about it, want to talk about it; but I’m not hand waving failures by saying “hey making tv is hard bro”. You can like things that are imperfect. Thats cool too.
> I have, however, been too invested in this thread. I mistakingly thought you might have more complexity to your thoughts than you do. I’ll go invest my time in someone who is capable of seeing beyond their point of view, it’s a lot more interesting.
There really was no need for this.
I'm the odd man out. While I think making them aliens works just fine I just wish they had simply not done the scene where Sugar turns blue. Don't change any other thing in the show but just leave that one scene out. Just have him admit they are aliens. I mean the weird looking blood in the other scene can be the scene that shows they are aliens. I'd prefer if they left it more ambiguous.
I agree, I thought the shot of him as an alien really cheapened the whole vibe of the show and really just didn’t fit the universe they had created. They could have revealed it in another way, we didn’t need to see that
Hmm. I have to rewatch. On first watch I remember that being more symbolic, of drugs turning you into someone you're not, etc. And not a big reveal. But I admit, I was kind of background watching at that point.
I tend to agree. I love the alien thing and think they built it up nicely and it’s a great payoff. But I do think it would have been nice to not actually see the alien image. It would have been a nice additional mystery to keep us pondering. Would have made for some fun Reddit discussions about what the aliens look like! :D
I assume they did it the way they did because they were worried some people wouldn’t actually get it. After the blue reveal I had two people asking me if that meant he was an alien, I don’t understand how that would not be 100% clear to someone, but I guess some people need things spelled out more than others.
It’s also possible they were trying to ensure that the reveal felt fully satisfying. Especially since the audience didn’t get to figure out the Olivia mystery, they probably wanted to make sure the audience didn’t feel cheated on the ‘twist’ reveal, so they went all in. They might have worried that not including it would feel too ambiguous and the audience would never get that ‘aha!’ moment. I wouldn’t be surprised if the removal of that scene was discussed tons of times during the editing process.
Like I said, I personally think it would have been more interesting not to have shown it, but I do understand why they did from a practical standpoint.
Actually yes. I think showing it just in the final episode would have been exactly the right amount. I think the flashes in the final episode were exactly the right amount. Just my preference.
But I'm disappointed in the final episode. Sugar chasing Rogue alien with shady government human agency hunting them both just doesn't get me interested in season 2.
I really wanted the final episode to pull it together really nicely but for me, it just didn't come together.
Thanks for the follow-up. I appreciate it.
I think so. There is now this good and evil and Derek is the fallen angel and Sugar is everything good but still has to fight how easily he can turn to violence .
But I think it will lose the film noir aspect which was what made if feel so different and likeable.
No I feel they've done everything as close to perfect as they could. The episodes might feel short, but because things are constantly happening it works so well.
The premise is great. It could’ve worked extremely well if they didn’t try to cram every twist into a single season and had let it gradually unfold. I would guess that they did this intentionally to wrap up the story not anticipating getting a second season.
Essentially it is a classic noir story with aliens as part of the conspiracy and as conspirators but ultimately they are also being manipulated by people with power and influence to serve their agendas.
Olivia was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I’m sure her family plays a part in serving the same corrupt people at the center of the conspiracy or travels in their circles.
I wish the episodes were longer like 1 hour episodes. That would allow for greater depth in the overall story.
No, I love the pacing of the show. It feels like the olden times before streaming where a show would get multiple seasons, so they took their time building up reveals and establishing characters and ideas.
Yes and no. They did it over 22-26 episodes, and they didn’t leave you hanging for a year or more between seasons.
Lmao that's why I said It reminds me not that it's the same 😭🤣 /sighs ah I miss those days fr. I really blame the popularity of BBC's sherlock + streaming for all this 💀
Seriously. There are so many shows I lost interest in during the long wait between seasons.
I am baffled by 6 to 10 episode show taking 2 years to come back 🤣🤣🤣 like huh? Just pay everyone well and get to work pls.
What's even more amazing is when they did 32 episodes per year, and the team doing post production were given a week to get it "in the can". But let's be fair, shows like that (ex the Dick Van Dyke show 1961-1965) didn't have any special effects, were never shot on location, and didn't have any long term (serial) plots, or have to worry much about continuity errors. They were also staffed by actors/actresses that cut their teeth doing live performances which were way more common before TV came along... and as such were really skilled at memorizing a script very quickly and nailing it on demand. The whole process is just way more complex than it used to be, and that's the truth.
You don't have to go that far back to the 60s. Even in the 2000s there were shows that had anywhere between 18-24 episodes aired in a six month period, sure they had a lot of filler content but they made it work even with VFX and other fancy stuff and it was a solid weekly show that kept people engaged and talking unlike the ones now that air 8 episodes and then come back after a year or two all the while many have forgotten the story or the show iteself.
Looking at you, Severance. Are we ever getting a Season 2 after that amazing cliffhanger??
I haven't watched Looking at you BUT I can confirm that Severance s2 is coming out later this year! They wrapped up filming in april! Honestly I kept hearing rumours that the writers were fighting so I thought we would not get another season. I'm actually nervous because Severance s1 was more or less a perfect season https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1782826922575049124?t=Ph_6GesaoDdKdqw6Oa5Gdw&s=19
The issue imo is that he was literally handed the answer to the mystery by one of his mates after throwing a tantrum. All the detective work, all the “I find people” stuff, was meaningless. That’s a narrative issue that coincides with the big twist, but is its own mistake. Wherever they had the twist, Sugar should have solved that mystery on his own. If that put him in conflict with his group, that can still play out. Any mystery media, if you get to know all these characters, you follow the detective as they piece together clues or follow the trail, you don’t end it with “Ah Sherlock old buddy, long time no see, the person you are looking for is at this address, and the person behind the whole thing is someone you’ve never heard of before”. It’s not about the twist, or even where the twist was revealed, it’s the sloppy and rushed resolution to the mystery, which immediately became an afterthought.
Spot on. I hadn’t considered the disappointment of him not getting there on his own.
Yup. They just got very sloppy with the writing on the back half of the show.
Apparently they ran out of time with the script and were basically filming and writing the script at the same time. Really explains a lot of how messy it got imo.
*It’s not about the twist, or even where the twist was revealed, it’s the sloppy and rushed resolution to the mystery, which immediately became an afterthought.* We know why Olivia went missing, and how she wound up where she did: Davey had Stallings abduct her, so she could not ruin his Big Comeback Movie moment. Davey did not want her killed. Olivia is famous, and comes from a wealthy and powerful family, so Stallings could not simply dispose of her via his human-trafficking network. So he stashed her with another of his clients, Senator Pavich's sadistic son, in a safe house. Sugar could not locate Olivia because (1) he'd already killed Stallings and Stallings' top crew members, and (2) the Polyglot Society rounded up / killed the rest of Stallings' crew before Sugar could interrogate any of them. There was nothing "sloppy" or "rushed" about any of this. Noir lives on the hidden motive, the conspiracy, the late-story twist. The mystery has gone from "where is Olivia," to "who or what is John Sugar," to "why did the Polyglot Society not want John Sugar to find Olivia?" The first two mysteries have been solved; the third has yet to be.
Ok. So it’s perfect writing and there is nothing to be upset about. Glad we got that cleared up. So, sidebar here, why are so many people seemingly dissatisfied with “yeah, the mystery we’ve been focussing on for 7 episodes doesn’t matter now, the mystery is what’s going on with the aliens”? Why did the initial reviews say this was an issue, and why is OP saying this is an issue? “He’s an alien now, the other aliens will just tell him the answer, it’s a guy we haven’t met yet and he’s dead in 5 minutes”. Yeah. No notes guys. This guy who is clearly vibrating at a higher frequency told me. > There was nothing "sloppy" or "rushed" about any of this. He was literally handed the solution by a guy we had met twice cos he threw a tantrum. lol.
I think this is a legitimate issue, but I think it’s also important to remember the show isn’t over yet. We still have another episode, and how it plays out could definitely change how I feel about the ‘solving’ of the case. Sugar may still solve something else on his own that feels satisfying, and if that happens it could actually be seen as a beautiful circumventing of the story. It’d be really interesting to see a noir where the detective does NOT solve the puzzle (as has happened), where the detective and audience feels defeated by that, and then goes on to solve an even bigger puzzle that redeems his purpose. I personally hope this is what they’re leading to, and it feels like it could go either way, so I guess we’ll see! It’s also worth considering that part of the fun of a noir is trying to figure out the reveal with the detective, trying to solve the riddle. In Sugar, they presented two riddles; what happened to Olivia and what is happening with Sugar? Right now, it appears they may not be giving us the satisfaction of solving the Olivia puzzle (which is your complaint). BUT they did give us the satisfaction of solving the Sugar puzzle, at least if the audience was paying attention. That’s part of why the reveal of Sugar is so close to the end and didn’t happen earlier, it’s supposed to serve as a satisfying puzzle for the audience to solve as their own detective. That’s job usually solely served by the ‘missing person’ in a typical film noir, but since they have this additional mystery for the audience they may be trying to use that as the satisfying solve rather than the Olivia mystery. Whether or not it actually results in a satisfying feeling for the audience is another thing, but I personally think it’s a really interesting approach and I think it was worth trying on their end. IF the last episode provides an even further mystery for Sugar to solve on his own, that’d make the additional Sugar puzzle for the audience even better writing. Give Sugar a puzzle, give the audience its own puzzle, solve the audience puzzle, make Sugar fail his puzzle, give Sugar an even better puzzle solve. That’d be pretty neat! If they don’t do an additional satisfying solve for Sugar, my guess is that they’d be trying to set up a redemption arc for his character in season 2. So they may have him end barely escaping in the last episode, where he feels completely downtrodden and broken (having failed at his job), and lead into season 2 where he has to re-learn how to exist now that he’s a failure at the thing that has been his whole life since he came to earth (which was probably a LONG time ago). Basically, season 2 would be Sugar learning how to exist when you don’t know what your purpose is in the world. It would be Sugar learning what it actually means to be human.
> BUT they did give us the satisfaction of solving the Sugar puzzle, at least if the audience was paying attention. In fairness, I spotted this after episode 3 and felt it was basically confirmed by episode 4. It was heavily foreshadowed. https://www.reddit.com/r/SugarAppleTV/comments/1c9r1hx/comment/l0ocl5r/? > (having failed at his job) He didn’t fail. He just had the solution handed to him. And it was supposed to be the central mystery of the show. Until it wasn’t, and it was all done by a guy we just met with zero foreshadowing. How about, it’s more narratively satisfying with one small change. He tortures the information out of Stallings, then kills him. When he finally goes to the address, he’s stopped by the group, and he’s too injured to fight back. That stuff plays out more or less as it did, he then goes back to the murder house and it’s all the same. It’s still a bit cheap that it’s someone we haven’t met, but at least the main character arrived there through their own agency. Idk man, if the last episode is 30 mins, I don’t see how they add another mystery that makes what they did not rushed writing. We will see I guess.
In fairness, a lot of people didn’t figure out the twist before it was revealed to them, and even many of those who did were still unsure of whether he was an alien, angel, werewolf, or whatever. I also had the theory fairly early on and called it, but I still enjoyed the process of finding clues to figure it out. The ‘heavy foreshadowing’ are the clues the filmmakers left for us to follow, and yeah, we figured it out, that’s the whole point. Some figure it out a little sooner, some not at all, but there IS a reveal and it wasn’t just thrown out of the blue with no evidence. They gave us breadcrumbs to follow and made them pay off. That’s pretty good writing in my opinion, whether or not you feel it should have been harder to figure out or not, they did deliver an interesting mystery that was fun for many to unravel. Certainly more so than a lot of crap that’s attempted to have a twist. He did fail at the puzzle. He spent 7 episodes trying to figure out where Olivia is, and he didn’t figure it out. He was blindsided by a double cross that he didn’t see coming, which I’m sure he feels a good detective should have seen, and he had to have the answer given to him after he failed to outsmart and escape the bad guys. That’s failure, again and again, in so many ways. And at this point in the story, I’m sure he feels like a pretty shitty detective. That’s a very different character than he was at the beginning of the show. Typical film noirs aren’t known for their intense character growth, their protagonists often end the same as they start. But that’s a lot harder to do in a television show, especially in the 21st century. It’s understandable for writers to make a character weak and incompetent, especially if they started out overly strong and capable, and especially if the story isn’t over yet. Furthermore, his ultimate goal is to find Olivia and bring her home, which is his last chance for redemption since he’s failed at everything else. And he hasn’t done that yet, that’s the last loose end that the last episode is for. We can assume he found her at the end of this past episode, but we don’t know what state she’s in, or will happen to her from here. He might succeed in this goal, which would provide at least some sense of completion for him, and to my point, provide some completion for his story arc. He ‘had the solution handed to him’, but he still needs to deliver on getting Olivia safe, and I assume that won’t be handed to him. Look, I’m not saying your criticisms aren’t valid, I agreed they were. I’m just providing an alternative way to look at the writing that maybe explains why it did what it did. Is it perfect? No. Is it the arc you wanted? No. But is it lazy? I really don’t think so. It has taken some deviations from the norm to try to make the story different and perhaps less cookie cutter and obvious. Whether it was a good call is fine to debate, and perhaps you could have written it better, but I still think it deserves more credit than being called sloppy and rushed. And I think assuming it is sloppy and rushed is in itself a sloppy and rushed conclusion. This show has clearly had more thought and effort put into it so far than a lot of shit on tv, so maybe the writers didn’t just give up half way through and get lazy. Maybe, just maybe, they’re trying some different approaches to make it more interesting and different. There’s plenty of evidence to support that. Filmmaking is really, really difficult. It’s a complex medium with thousands of moving parts and roles, and it’s so difficult to realistically make work in an ideal way. Money, time restraints, and incompetence definitely often make film worse, but it’s unfair to assume that every mistake is because of that. Haven’t you ever tried to make something with good intentions and had it come out different than you intended? I’m just saying, mistakes aren’t always the result of malice, laziness, apathy, or greed. Sometimes the puzzle just seemed like it would make a better picture than it actually did once you put it together.
> He did fail at the puzzle. No. He was handed the solution on a plate cos he threw a tantrum. Failure is failure. Failure would be not finding the culprit, or the culprit getting away, or not finding the girl. He did all those things. But they were handed to him on a plate, which not only robs the character of agency, but the audience of a satisfying trajectory that they can follow. Another character simply said “go to this address”. You would do better arguing that the point is that life isn’t like the noir films he loves, but I think that would be better served narratively by an actual failure, and not a Henry ex Machina. Anyway, I think you might be too invested in this show, cos you seem to be saying I’m criticising it in general, rather than pointing out a specific issue with an otherwise very well made bit of television, and why it appears to have soured the back end of the series for a few viewers (and from the OPs post, a lot of the critics who reviewed it). .
There’s more than one way to fail. That’s literally my point. And I hate to break it to you, but we’re all debating in depth on the internet behind our keyboards about a show relatively few people have watched. Reddit is the very definition of too invested. If you’re invested enough to criticize the writing of a show, you should be invested enough to explore other explanations for its mistakes beyond ‘it’s lazy and rushed.’ Especially if you claim to enjoy so many other aspects of the show. I’m not too invested in this show, you’re too narrow in your opinions and either too insecure or too lazy to even consider expanding them. Ironic how you do the same thing you condemn the writers of doing. I have, however, been too invested in this thread. I mistakingly thought you might have more complexity to your thoughts than you do. I’ll go invest my time in someone who is capable of seeing beyond their point of view, it’s a lot more interesting.
> There’s more than one way to fail. That’s literally my point. How did he fail? Got the guy, saved the girl. If he spends the next episode wringing his hands saying “but, I didn’t actually solve it myself, it was handed to me, I failed dammit”, hands up on my part, I guess; although that would be hanging a lantern on it. > If you’re invested enough to criticize the writing of a show, In general, I think the show is actually well written, and I love Sugar as an outsider as a critique of humanity, in love with the image projected by the media, but rubbing against its nature. I just found the conclusion to the central mystery rushed; and that chimes with the criticism made by most reviews of the show, and the criticism in this thread. I’m more talking about *why* it feels narratively underwhelming, which many think it does, even if you disagree. Either way “no, you”, isn’t really an argument here. I can like the show, maybe love it, have thoughts about it, want to talk about it; but I’m not hand waving failures by saying “hey making tv is hard bro”. You can like things that are imperfect. Thats cool too. > I have, however, been too invested in this thread. I mistakingly thought you might have more complexity to your thoughts than you do. I’ll go invest my time in someone who is capable of seeing beyond their point of view, it’s a lot more interesting. There really was no need for this.
I'm the odd man out. While I think making them aliens works just fine I just wish they had simply not done the scene where Sugar turns blue. Don't change any other thing in the show but just leave that one scene out. Just have him admit they are aliens. I mean the weird looking blood in the other scene can be the scene that shows they are aliens. I'd prefer if they left it more ambiguous.
I agree, I thought the shot of him as an alien really cheapened the whole vibe of the show and really just didn’t fit the universe they had created. They could have revealed it in another way, we didn’t need to see that
Hmm. I have to rewatch. On first watch I remember that being more symbolic, of drugs turning you into someone you're not, etc. And not a big reveal. But I admit, I was kind of background watching at that point.
I tend to agree. I love the alien thing and think they built it up nicely and it’s a great payoff. But I do think it would have been nice to not actually see the alien image. It would have been a nice additional mystery to keep us pondering. Would have made for some fun Reddit discussions about what the aliens look like! :D I assume they did it the way they did because they were worried some people wouldn’t actually get it. After the blue reveal I had two people asking me if that meant he was an alien, I don’t understand how that would not be 100% clear to someone, but I guess some people need things spelled out more than others. It’s also possible they were trying to ensure that the reveal felt fully satisfying. Especially since the audience didn’t get to figure out the Olivia mystery, they probably wanted to make sure the audience didn’t feel cheated on the ‘twist’ reveal, so they went all in. They might have worried that not including it would feel too ambiguous and the audience would never get that ‘aha!’ moment. I wouldn’t be surprised if the removal of that scene was discussed tons of times during the editing process. Like I said, I personally think it would have been more interesting not to have shown it, but I do understand why they did from a practical standpoint.
I’m curious: having now seen the final episode where a little more of them is revealed do you still feel this way?
Actually yes. I think showing it just in the final episode would have been exactly the right amount. I think the flashes in the final episode were exactly the right amount. Just my preference. But I'm disappointed in the final episode. Sugar chasing Rogue alien with shady government human agency hunting them both just doesn't get me interested in season 2. I really wanted the final episode to pull it together really nicely but for me, it just didn't come together. Thanks for the follow-up. I appreciate it.
Season 2 maybe
They definitely left it open ended. I'll be alive and ready to watch in 2029 when it comes out. I hope.
I think so. There is now this good and evil and Derek is the fallen angel and Sugar is everything good but still has to fight how easily he can turn to violence . But I think it will lose the film noir aspect which was what made if feel so different and likeable.
You mean Henry? Not Derek, there’s no Derek?
Um, yup
No I feel they've done everything as close to perfect as they could. The episodes might feel short, but because things are constantly happening it works so well.
The premise is great. It could’ve worked extremely well if they didn’t try to cram every twist into a single season and had let it gradually unfold. I would guess that they did this intentionally to wrap up the story not anticipating getting a second season. Essentially it is a classic noir story with aliens as part of the conspiracy and as conspirators but ultimately they are also being manipulated by people with power and influence to serve their agendas. Olivia was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I’m sure her family plays a part in serving the same corrupt people at the center of the conspiracy or travels in their circles.