Post-apocalyptic saga Sweet Tooth sets out on its final season
One boy’s long, adventurous quest to be reunited with his mother comes to a close when Sweet Tooth, the award-winning Netflix fantasy drama, returns for its third and final season. Based on the comic book series by Canadian author Jeff Lemire, Sweet Tooth follows human-deer hybrid boy Gus (Christian Convery) in a post-apocalyptic world.
In the upcoming season, Gus travels to Alaska in search of his mother, Birdie (Amy Seimetz), a geneticist who’s been researching the origin of “the virus” for years in the land of the midnight sun. Joining Gus on his quest are fellow hybrid Wendy (Naledi Murray), Animal Army founder Becky (Stefania LaVie Owen) and their protector, Tommy Jepperd (Ted Lasso alum Nonso Anozie). The race to find a cure for the virus has scientists going to extreme lengths to conduct their research, including Dr. Adi Singh (Adeel Akhtar), who encounters Gus on his trek north.
Threats come at Gus and his friends from all directions, and a new group, the Wolf Boys, appears on their radar. Led by Helen Zhang (Rosalind Chao) and her daughter Rosie (Kelly Marie Tran), the group sees Gus as the answer to its objective to restart human birth.
It seems all roads point to Gus when it comes to not only a cure for the Sick, but a greater future for humanity, but all he wants is to be reunited with Birdie, his family.
While even some of the most anticipated and beloved fantasy streaming series in recent memory have been abruptly cut short — think The OA and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance on Netflix and Willow on Disney+ — Sweet Tooth has been bestowed a different, more pleasant fate.
Showrunner Jim Mickle (Hap and Leonard) talked to Netflix’s Tudum about Sweet Tooth ending with its third season, “In a lot of ways, it’s exactly the story that I imagined we would tell, and in a lot of ways, it takes on its own life,” he said.
“At the beginning, I think you set out to tell these landmark pieces of Gus’s story and the big pieces of the comic book, but the beauty of long-form storytelling and Gus’s journey over 24 episodes is the characters themselves tell you what they want to be,” Mickle continued.
Praising everyone who helped make the show come to life, Mickle added, “The crew and cast bring so much depth and point of view to who the characters are and where they’ve come from and where they’re going.”
The story of Sweet Tooth began 10 years after the events of “The Great Crumble,” which brought societal collapse following the devastation brought by the mysterious H5G9 virus. The Sick, as they called it, killed nearly half of the global population, and suddenly babies were being born with animal characteristics. Whether the two events were connected, no one knew, and without answers, a dangerous division was drawn.
These hybrid children and their families lived in fear of those who sought to hurt them, protecting themselves from being hunted by poachers guided by their fear of the unknown. To keep Gus safe, his father, whom he called Pubba (Will Forte), raised him deep in the woods in a secure site, as far as possible from threatening people and the Sick.
When Pubba unexpectedly dies, Gus is left an orphan at only nine years old, naive to how vulnerable he is as a hybrid child in the cruel world outside of his forest home. After nearly being trapped by poachers, Gus is saved by a stranger, Tommy, who reluctantly agrees to accompany Gus as he begins his search for his mother. Unbeknownst to Gus, Tommy is a reformed member of the Last Men who has left his hunting days behind him in search of a better way.
All Gus had to go on is a photograph he believed to be of his mother, that he found in a box of things that Pubba buried. The only clue the pair have to go on is the word “Colorado,” which was written on the photo, so off they went in the direction of the Rockies.
Gus’s journey took him from the only home he ever knew to Yellowstone and back again, and now on to Alaska, dodging certain death at nearly every turn. Along the way, he has encountered factions all motivated by their feelings toward the Sick or hybrids, whether it’s the hybrid-protecting Animal Army or the ruthless Last Men.
According to executive producers Susan Downey and Amanda Burrell, the stakes are raised as the episodes approach the series finale. “The ticking clock of, ‘Can they achieve their goal before it’s too late?’ is ratcheted up,” Downey told Tudum. Added Burrell, “It just keeps amping up. It feels like a culmination emotionally and you get to see all of these characters together and their philosophies really at odds. Tension is high.”
Sweet Tooth, begins streaming Thursday, June 6, on Netflix