The Big Picture
Sweet Tooth
is a hybrid of concepts that shouldn’t work but surprisingly does, focusing on humans resisting change.
Characters like Bear and an excess of new faces in Season 3 distract from Gus’ core journey.
The final episode appropriately concludes the series, showcasing its hopeful and loving nature while honoring the source material.
For three seasons, Sweet Tooth has followed Gus (Christian Convery), a kid who is a hybrid between animals and humans — he looks just like a little boy, but he’s also got big ol’ antlers coming out of his head. Since its beginning, Sweet Tooth itself, however, has felt like a hybrid of things that shouldn’t work. For example, this was a show about a pandemic that premiered on Netflix as we were dealing with our own world-altering pandemic. The show, developed by Jim Mickle, also took Jeff Lemire’s decidedly dark graphic novel series and gave it a much lighter approach, the rare apocalyptic series to prioritize wide-eyed hope.
This is also a show packed with adorable animal hybrid children (Bobby, a groundhog hybrid, might be the cutest thing you’ve ever seen in your life), who are being hunted by humans afraid that they’re being replaced by this new evolution. As Season 3 brings Sweet Tooth to an end, this conflict of hybrids as the next step in our progression and humans losing their grip on their position in the world, this conflict takes center stage in an occasionally bumpy, but ultimately satisfying end for Sweet Tooth’s journey.
Sweet Tooth
A boy who is half human and half deer survives in a post-apocalyptic world with other hybrids.
Release Date June 4, 2022
Seasons 3
Studio Netflix
‘Sweet Tooth’ Season 3 Sends Gus to Alaska to Find His Mom
Season 3 begins with our main group reunited after the events of the last season, as Gus, Tommy Jepperd (Nonso Anozie), Bear (Stefania LaVie Owen), and Wendy (Naledi Murray) head to Alaska to find Gus’ mom, Birdie (Amy Seimetz). Birdie has been attempting to find where the Sick came from, searching for a cure and its origin. When Gus and his team head to find Birdie, they run into Dr. Singh (Adeel Akhtar), who wants to help Gus reach his destination after having a vision. They also find themselves hunted by Helen Zhang (Rosalind Chao), who has become the “last warlord standing” in this new world and wants to get human births started again, as she’s aided in her hunt by her daughter Rosie (Kelly Marie Tran), and her children/wolf hybrids. As Gus and his gang head to Alaska for answers and to find his mom, the humans tracking him down want to undo whatever caused hybrids to be born and bring the world back to the way they remember it.
More than any other season, Sweet Tooth Season 3 is very much about the fight against change from humans who just want things to go back to the way they used to be. While this primarily comes in the season’s new primary villain, Zhang, the series is far more overt about this theme than in the past. Early on, Gus and his crew meet a family who try to hide that one of the children is a hybrid, having them bind their chest to hide their wings. For many of the humans that remain, there’s a very strong focus on how things used to be versus how they are now and trying to make the world great again. Especially for Gus and his allies, there’s a question of whether humans are even worth saving if they’re trying to murder and harm innocent hybrid children.
Christian Convery Is Excellent in ‘Sweet Tooth’s Final Season
This question is most perfectly encapsulated by the journey that Gus goes on in Season 3. It’s especially a great season for Convery, who literally has the entire world on his shoulders at times. Through Convery’s performance, we’re seeing a kid who has had to grow up far too early evolving into a storyteller and a leader who has to decide what’s best for the world he’s been born into that mostly doesn’t want him. Gus has almost always had someone on his side to help him on his journey, but one of his best episodes this season, “Beyond the Sea,” mostly isolates him and forces him to figure out what’s best for his group and those who have been lost. It’s a beautiful episode of self-realization that turns Gus into an essential part of what this world will become and needs. Convery excels at bringing this evolution of Gus to life, as he becomes an adult who realizes his importance to the world and how to best help the world move forward.
Last season, Sweet Tooth struggled when it separated these characters, with the middle section often feeling a bit too stretched out and like it was spinning its wheels, which led to an eight-episode season that could’ve been cut in half. Season 3 has a similar problem, which also leads to more of a focus on secondary characters than is needed. This is especially true when Bear and Wendy go on their own adventures away from the primary group. Unlike many of the main characters, the former is a creation specifically for the show, but Sweet Tooth has often struggled to make Bear as compelling as the rest of the main cast. That issue remains in this final season, and unfortunately, teaming her up with Wendy doesn’t do much to fix that.
‘Sweet Tooth’s Final Episode Irons Out Season 3’s Problems
Similarly, Sweet Tooth’s final season also introduces a whole slew of new characters that tend to slow down Gus’ main journey rather than elevate it in any major way. We meet the community Birdie has lived with in Alaska, including her friend Siana (Cara Gee), Siana’s hybrid daughter Nika (Ayazkhan Dalabayeva), and plenty of other members of this small town. But most of these characters are just a means to an end in the larger story, mostly in fighting enemies to get Gus to his destination without us having much of an opportunity to learn too much about them.
This problem also arises when it comes to Zhang and her family. While we knew Zhang before, as Season 2 set her up as the finale’s big bad, this season also has the unfortunate issue of introducing her crew and family. In addition to Zhang’s pregnant daughter and her team of anti-hybrid workers, the most substantial addition this season comes in Kelly Marie Tran’s Rosie. More than almost any other character we see, Rosie is torn between a future where her wolf children can thrive, or the wishes of her mother to end all hybrid lives. Rosie’s an intriguing character stuck between two hard decisions, but we don’t get to delve into this conflict until late in the season.
But the end of this final season is where Sweet Tooth all comes together in a lovely, fitting way. This entire series has been told as a story by our unknown narrator (James Brolin), with the season starting with him stating, “All stories end,” and, as with any great story, Sweet Tooth nails its ending. Despite all the mythology and history that this season throws into the mix to try and explain the hybrid situation the world has found itself in, this has always been a story of a boy and “big man” Jeppard. Particularly in the final episode, “This is a Story,” Sweet Tooth pays off this bond perfectly in a way that makes the journey worth it for the final destination. Like so much of the show, Mickle (who wrote and directed the final episode) nails just the right blend of paying homage to Lemire’s comics while finding the perfect tone for this more positive take on the source material.
Sweet Tooth hasn’t necessarily been the smoothest ride, with the wonderful first season being followed by a clunkier-than-expected second, and with many of those issues still consistent in the final season as well. But taken as a whole and with a conclusion that pays off this story in a delightful way and a pitch-perfect performance by Convery, Sweet Tooth is the rare apocalyptic story full of hope and love.
Sweet Tooth
Sweet Tooth’s final season is a bit of a bumpy ride, but a fantastic lead performance and great ending make it all worthwhile.
ProsChristian Convery excels in showing Gus evolve into a leader and storyteller.The series finale is possibly the best episode of the entire show. ConsToo many secondary characters aren’t given enough time and often hold back the main story at hand.
Sweet Tooth Season 3 is now available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
Watch on Netflix