Sugar – Season 1 Episode 3 Recap & Review

Shibuya Crossing

Episode 3 of Sugar waking up from another nightmare. He speaks to Ruby who is still worried this case is bad for him. Meanwhile, Teresa makes a fake phone call to Melanie to lure her over, on the orders of the gangster holding her hostage.

Sugar hears what’s happening from Charlie, a civilian who helps him on cases. She’s tailing Melanie at the moment and calls Sugar over. He arrives and immediately realises something is off. He tries to find a way inside the building but gets a piercing headache right at that moment.

Just as the mob boss is threatening to put Teresa’s hand in a blender, Sugar makes his way in and pretends to be a probation officer. Charlie distracts them all by messing with the boss’s shiny new truck, giving Sugar the opportunity to leave with Melanie and Teresa.

Meanwhile, Kenny meets with a friend who looks up information on Sugar. Now safe and sound, Sugar asks Melanie to tell him everything. Melanie says she helped Teresa out of an abusive marriage while working at a shelter. Later, her sister Carmen called her for help in a similar situation.

Olivia came along with Melanie and she and Carmen got really close. Then one day Olivia went over to look for Carmen but found Clifford dragging in a body bag. In a panic, Olivia shot him. Melanie came over and they hushed it all up to avoid a scandal for the family. That was the last time Melanie saw Olivia. Sugar promises Melanie they’ll find Olivia.

Meanwhile, Ruby realises that Kenny’s contact, an NSA agent, is accessing Sugar’s information. Later, Sugar leaves Wiley in his hotel room and goes to the party he was invited to. Inside, there’s Ruby and a large group of people who also speak multiple languages like Sugar. While mingling with people, Sugar sees a woman and follows her but he’s interrupted by a man named Henry. We see that the room the woman went in is empty.

As Sugar and Henry talk, the people go upstairs with Ruby one by one. When it’s Sugar’s turn he goes upstairs and Ruby goes through Sugar’s small black diary. She once again tells Sugar he’s too emotionally involved. The two also talk about some mystery “they” that we don’t know about. When he asks her about it, Ruby tells Sugar that the gangster’s name is Byron Stallings. She then tells Sugar to make an appointment with a Dr. Vickers.

Elsewhere, David tells his father that Sugar belongs to a group of spies from across the world. They got together to do some good in the world. He then says Kenny and he are going to Arizona the next day to visit Sugar’s mother.

After the party, Ruby calls Vickers and says that Sugar is looking into Stallings and will soon “discover the rest”. Vickers days they need to tell the others and that it’s time for “Miller to know”. What’s happening here? While Sugar heads home, Ruby deletes all information on Byron Stallings. Melanie, meanwhile, goes to meet Bernie Siegel.

Later, Ruby goes back to the room where she was interrogating the others. She starts typing up whatever’s written in the pile of small black books at the end of Sugar Episode 3.

The Episode Review

Episode 3 of Sugar continues to widen the mystery around Olivia, explaining a few things while leaving others in the dark. This part of the show retains a fair amount of intrigue but as for Sugar’s past and the mysterious organization he belongs to, the story simply draws up more riddles. Who is Miller? And Dr. Vickers? There’s something Ruby is hiding from Sugar and it seems to be massive.

There was a moment during this episode where I was truly tempted to like Sugar, as a character. It was the scene with Henry where Sugar describes watching the Shibuya Crossing. The way he talks about that mingling of thousands of people is like it’s something surreal and magical but so ordinary.

But the moment passes and the rest of the plot takes over. This show is trying hard to be something clever but unfortunately, neither the film references nor the two core mysteries have the pull of good entertainment.