Gus’ adventures are coming to an end, after an emotional season 3. To understand everything with the ultimate reverence of Sweet Toothon Netflix, we decipher this conclusion in 8 episodes.
The Last of Us, The Walking Dead, The 100… Post-apocalyptic series are legion on the small screen, suggesting a chaotic future for humanity. But among this ocean of pessimism, a gentle glow has taken us by surprise in 2021: Sweet Tooth. In the midst of the Covid pandemic, Netflix’s production told us about a world in which a deadly epidemic is decimating the human population. From now on, all newborns are hybrids, possessing an animal part. This is the case of Gus, a teenager with deer antlers who joins forces with Tommy Jepperd, a “Big Strongman”, for a journey across the United States.
Three seasons later, and here we are already at the end of this teenage series, which looks like a poetic tale. But how does it end? Sweet Tooth Exactly ? We explain everything about this epic conclusion.
Warning, this article contains spoilers for the 3 seasons of Sweet Tooth. If you haven’t seen the final episodes yet, go ahead!
Where does the Scourge come from? Sweet Tooth ?
In the post-apocalyptic world of the series, the famous H5G9 virus has killed a large part of the human population, while hybrids seem immune to its effects. But where does this deadly pandemic come from? Season 3 offers us these answers, hidden in a mysterious cave, located in Alaska. There is a very unusual tree there, whose branches look more like deer antlers, like Gus’s.
In 1911, explorer James Thacker discovered it and extracted its red sap, believing it to be the solution to his degenerative disease, as well as pathologies affecting the world. But this “Blood of the Earth” actually led to the infection of all of his crew members. For fear of bringing the virus back with them, they all committed suicide, while Thacker died, after a plant grew in his chest. Decades later, a team of scientists led by Birdie, Gus’s mother, found this virus, which resulted in the multiplication of hybrids.
Who wins at the end of Sweet Tooth ?
In season 3, Gus, as well as Dr. Singh, each receive a vision prompting them to go to the cave, where the tree is located, therefore. But their objectives are very different: Dr. Singh thinks that it is necessary to sacrifice Gus, whose blood would be, according to him, the main cure for the Scourge.
They are joined by the Machiavellian Helen Zhang, the antagonist of season 3 who seeks to restore 100% human births. His objective is clear: to use Gus’ blood but also the properties of the tree to eradicate hybrids once and for all.
As Zhang prepares to kill the young boy, his mother, Birdie, sacrifices herself. The antagonist then decides to grab the ax planted more than a century ago by James Thacker in the tree, which begins to bleed again. All the humans collapse, contaminated by the virus, with the exception of Gus and the other hybrids. Our hero then finds himself projected into the astral plane, and talks with his missing father, Pubba, who helps him make the right decision.
Gus finally decides to burn the tree, to let Nature choose for itself whether hybrids or humans should live. All the humans then come back to life and Singh decides, against all expectations, to sacrifice himself to allow Gus and his friends to escape alive, while leaving Zhang to die.
Who dies at the end of Sweet Tooth ?
Gus, the hero, survives after these 3 seasons. On the other hand, two characters essential to the plot unfortunately die in the last episodes. It is therefore about Birdie, Gus’s mother, whom he had just found and who dies in his arms. But especially Tommy Jepperd, alias “Big Strong”, also stabbed by Zhang in the battle of the cave. As he emerges weakened from this struggle, he asks his companion, Gus, to tell him a story. A way of emphasizing the importance of transmission and memories in Sweet Toothwhile highlighting their moving duo.
Gus then tells the story of young hybrids building a village and a new community. In the last seconds, we finally see the two friends together. If this sequence can give hope, we can also assume that Jepperd unfortunately succumbed to his injuries and that Gus, faced with impossible grief, only imagines that his companion is still at his side. The mystery therefore remains intact, leaving everyone the opportunity to form their own opinion, between life and death.
Who is the narrator of Sweet Tooth ?
This is Gus himself, in an older version. In the final sequences of season 3, we jump back in time, allowing us to find our hero, now played by James Brolin. It is his voice that we have heard since the beginning of the series, while he tells his past and that of Jepperd to his grandchildren, all hybrids.
We then discover a future in which only this species has survived, while humans have definitively disappeared. The hybrids therefore inherited the Earth, and Gus had many children with Wendy. Nature has reclaimed its rights, with a conclusion around the capacity of humans to adapt to the world around them and to protect it.
Who is the Caribou Man?
The origin of the Scourge as well as James Thacker’s past teach us another crucial element of the plot of Sweet Tooth : contrary to what we believed from the beginning, Gus is not the first hybrid to have seen the light of day. The first was Caribou Man, from James Thacker’s famous Alaskan expedition. Ikiaq, a native, thus had a child with one of the men of the crew, Nathaniel Burke, infected by the Scourge.
In 1911, she gave birth to Munaqsriri, born half-man, half-caribou, who lived for more than a century. After being discriminated against by humans, he spent his life in an abandoned church, near the cave, protecting the tree from humanity which he considers destructive. It is true that in this season 3, Sweet Tooth regularly tells us that “man is the disease”, while emphasizing ecological themes, too often neglected in our current societies. To meditate.
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