Things got a little esoterically and physically rough for John Sugar at the end of the pilot episode. No matter, a case like this is bound to shake you up a little. It happens, Sugar thinks. Cases like this: missing rich girl, dead guy in the trunk, and me with all my, um … I dunno … issues.
But it’s back to business in part two of Sugar’s premiere night. Sugar is at breakfast by the pool, basking in the glow of a happy poolside couple (it seems you can’t stop this guy from basking in the light of humanity’s moving mosaic) when Bernie Siegel, father of Olivia, comes rolling in with the typical toady bravado of a hack movie producer. Bernie thinks Sugar is wasting his time as well as Bernie’s father Jonathan’s money. Olivia’s disappeared like she has many times before, and she’ll come back again soon enough. John plays it cool, but he’s incensed at Bernie’s blasé attitude toward his own daughter’s whereabouts. These Hollywood dynasties: ever the paragon of healthy family life.
“I know Olivia better than anyone,†says Bernie. “Certainly better than my father. And I know her a lot better than Melanie, I’ll tell you that. You had quite a time with her last night, didn’t you?†Bernie thinks he’s surprising Sugar, but our guy knows all about Melanie and him, including the sordid details of their honeymoon. But what about Olivia’s mother, Rachel Kaye? Bernie was married to her when those dirty little Polaroids were taken, right? But Bernie didn’t take those photos, and Sugar knows he’s telling the truth. He also knows Bernie is hiding something when he gets up and leaves in a huff. Being told to fuck off is usually a sign of progress, Sugar thinks.
While Bernie and David Siegel deal with the pending release of David’s big comeback movie (an “All Grown Up†sequel to his childhood hit The Boy in the Corner) and looming court case involving David and multiple “accusers,†Sugar talks to a bunch of Olivia’s old friends. He gathers that she’d been getting sober going back a year. Before then, she’d started to get out of control. Did stuff in her teen years that would’ve landed most kids in way bigger trouble. But some kind of edge-of-the-cliff life-changing moment had shaped her up. Her former drug dealer confirms she hasn’t bought anything in a year, and there’s no discernible connection between her and the guy found in the trunk.
Time to update Jonathan Siegel and get in a few questions while we’re at it. Sugar fills Jonathan in on the comings and goings of his family, how his son Bernie sent grandson David and his buddy Kenny to search Sugar’s suite while he and Bernie sat at breakfast. Jonathan isn’t surprised, nor that Bernie doesn’t share his concerns for Olivia. “Olivia is a screw-up, she always will be, that’s the narrative that suits Bernie the best. It lets him focus on making bad movies and his idiot son.â€
“I’m sensing yours is not the closest of families,†Sugar says. They have their reasons, Jonathan retorts. But that’s as far as the conversation goes. The GPS record from Olivia’s car indicates she made repeat trips to a concerning location. A woman who lived at the address, Carmen Vasquez, was raped and murdered recently. Olivia’s car was there the night that Miss Vasquez was killed. What’s more, there’s a body in Olivia’s trunk that had something to do with Miss Vasquez’s murder. Clifford Carter was his name; arrested for assault, rape, and human trafficking. For now, Sugar is going to pretend he never opened the trunk of that car, but he’s also more sure than ever that Olivia’s life is in danger.
As things stand, Sugar’s best link to finding Olivia is Melanie Matthews, which is convenient, seeing how Melanie calls Sugar and asks him to meet her at an AA meeting. Turns out she’d just broken a 20-year streak of sobriety when Sugar met her at the bar. She was deeply moved by the fact that a stranger took her home, tucked her in, and left her with a new lease on life. In the morning, she dumped out all her booze, and here they are. Back at Melanie’s, they talk over sparkling waters. Sugar knows from Olivia’s car GPS that Olivia was at Melanie’s almost every night the week before she disappeared. What’s up with that? Melanie won’t say much other than the same schtick her ex-husband, Bernie, went with: Olivia’s probably just fucked up, and she’ll come back like she always does. In both Melanie and Olivia, Sugar sees kindred, lonely by choice spirits. And it seems to hurt him a bit when he knows she’s lying. “I just can’t figure out why,†he says. “Let me make this clear: I will find Olivia.â€
Melanie throws Sugar out, and he catches a screening of John Cassavetes’s Minnie and Moskowitz on the way home as a treat. “You know I think movies are conspiracy?†Gena Rowlands says from the silver screen. “They set you up to believe in everything. In ideals and strength and good guys and, of course, love. I never met Clark Gable. I never met Humphrey Bogart. I never met any of ‘em, you know who I mean. They don’t exist, Florence, that’s the truth.†The flicker of the screen illuminates the heartache in Sugar’s eyes as he watches. This is the man who wants to breathe genuine life into the “conspiracy†of the movies, be the honest-to-goodness white-hat companion to the Olivias and Melanies and Jens of this world.
But as any cinephile will tell you, there’s no bridging the gap between the real world and the cinematic netherworld once the credits roll. Sugar catches a tail on the way home (They’re pretty good, but I see ’em) and also catches Karl’s dog Wiley on the street by himself. The last Sugar had seen of Karl, he’d admonished him to call his sister and ask her to come stay, encouraged him to see himself as a human being who deserves to be helped out and cared for. But as fate would have it, Karl never quite made it to his sister’s. Sugar finds him on the floor with a needle in his arm, no longer breathing. For just a second, he goes a little berserk on the guys who sold him the stuff, then bolts with Wiley riding shotgun. He wonders why he got so worked up over a drug overdose, something that happens every day. Why do I feel anything at all?
At Ruby’s behest, Sugar’s next stop is Olivia’s garage, where he’s presumably going to unearth the body in the trunk and report it to the police. But someone beats him to the punch. No body or bag in sight when Sugar opens the trunk. He finds a single strand of hair, carefully procures it in a perfectly creased white handkerchief, and moves on. Clifford Carter and Carmen Vasquez. He studies what he can of the latter’s murder while he mulls over the rest of the case. What’s the connection to Olivia? Why can’t I see it?
Easy there, cowboy. Better slow down. You’re not supposed to get this involved. Remember what Ruby keeps telling y’all: “Just observe and report. Write it down. That’s the real mission.†But it’s too late. John Sugar is involved. Olivia reminds him of Jen, his sister. And already there’s another innocent young woman out there in the clutches of some real nasty bad guys. There’s the mission, then there’s the job. And for John Sugar, the job is the juice.