Sweet Tooth Season 2 Ending Explained: Does Gus Escape Abbott?
Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Sweet Tooth Season 2 and references to the graphic novel. Netflix’s Sweet Tooth is picking up speed as the show goes further into the origins of the hybrids, the Sick, Jepperd’s (Nonso Anozie) backstory, and foreshadows the adventure to come. Sweet Tooth is a post-apocalyptic adventure following a half-human and half-deer boy, Gus (Christian Convery), as he searches for his mother Dr. Gertrude Miller (Amy Seimetz), after the death of his father, while accompanied by a protector, Jepperd. The first season ends with Aimee's (Dania Ramirez) adopted hybrid children and Gus being held in captivity by the Last Men, Jepperd being rescued by Aimee after being shot by the Last Men, and Becky (Stefania LaVie Owen) communicating by radio with Miller in an Arctic outpost.
The appearance of hybrids and the Sick raises questions about whether hybrids are responsible for the disease, or whether the disease causes people to give birth to human-animal hybrid children. After season one revelation, where Gus learns he was made in a lab, there is suspicion that the lab is also the origin of the hybrids and the H5G9 virus. However, aside from Gus and a couple of his closest friends, few are aware of this experiment.
The First Hybrid and Patient Zero
Dr. Singh (Adeel Akhtar) is motivated to understand the cause of the sickness, so he can find a cure for his wife Rani (Aliza Vellani). Both are taken as hostages by General Abbot (Neil Sandilands), who threatens their lives if Singh does not find a cure soon. As Singh is interviewing and dissecting some of the hybrids in captivity, he comes across Gus, who does not have a belly button and states he is older than the virus. This evidence has Singh identify Gus as an outlier in comparison to the other hybrids, and an asset in his journey to find a cure.
A sleep-deprived Singh persuades Gus to explore his subconscious to uncover where he was made to create a similar process to make a cure. After an investigation at Fort Smith, Singh and Gus learn that Miller was one of the scientists working on Project Midnight Sun, where they injected microbes from the Arctic into chickens and chicken eggs in hopes of eliminating diseases in human subjects. Gus was the first viable egg which they called Genetic Unit Series 1 (GUS).
Unbeknownst to both Gus and Singh, the origins of the virus are revealed. The head of Project Midnight Sun, Gillian Washington (Robyn Malcolm), injected herself with matter from another viable egg and inadvertently became patient zero for the H5G9 virus. Although most hybrid children are likely a result of the virus, Gus and the action taken by Washington are separate incidents. Similar to a Greek tragedy, it was Gillian’s hubris and desperation to cure her own genetic disease that led to irreparable consequences.
Factions and Power Plays in the New World 
As a new Doomsday strain of the virus spreads around the country, General Abbot’s attempts to gain more power introduce new territories and groups who may also pose a new threat in the show’s final season. Abbot travels and meets with the leaders of three groups, including horse-riding Dutch (Tawanda Manyimo) of the Lowlands, spiritual Voss (Daniel Watterson) of an unnamed group that believes the hybrids to be space aliens, and the most powerful among them, Mrs. Helen Zhang (Rosalind Chao), who seems to be the leader of Texas. After, he is determined to work with Zhang and she with him. It is inferred Zhang possesses resources that surpass what he and any of the other leaders already have at their disposal and Abbott claims to have both a cure for the H5G9 virus and a location in which to establish a city for a cured population.
While Gus and the rest of the hybrids are confined in the Last Men’s new base of operations at an abandoned zoo, Aimee’s former hybrid sanctuary, the series elaborates on Jepperd's years of trying to find his family with abysmal results. It continues from the season one flashback of Jepperd abandoning the hospital where he last saw his wife and hybrid child alive, realizing his mistake in leaving them, and documenting his emotional breakdown from an inability to find them on his own. Desperation takes him to a recruitment rally for the Last Men, where he reconnects with the rally leader, his former football coach. Jepperd is nicknamed, 'the hybrid catcher' after years of efficiently capturing hybrids. His actions were in exchange for the promise that the Last Men use their resources to help him find his family. He is duped as they know he has a hybrid child which they hunt. When he forces the truth, Jeppard learns that his wife has been dead for many years.
Jepperd is haunted by his desperate and devastating acts of violence which hit him full force after the cavalier treatment of him by the Last Men who drop his wife’s body bag at his feet and depart before he opens it, knowing it will end his affiliation. His old coach withheld information, betraying Jepperd to benefit from his capabilities. Jeppard’s journey as Gus’s protector is his attempt to make amends.
The End of the Last Men
The season concludes with a final showdown between Abbot and Gus’s found family. The hybrids escape from the Last Men with the help of Gus, Jepperd, Aimee, and Becky. The whole family including the saved hybrid children go to Gus’s cabin in Yellowstone. An infuriated Abbot now in alliance with Zhang, who took over the resources of the other groups, storms Yellowstone with the intention of taking the hybrids. Gus and his friends are able to kill Abbot and stop the Last Men, which leaves a power vacuum for Zhang to fill as the new antagonist.
As the battle ends, the series sets up a new mission for Gus and his family and identifies potential threats. Thanks to Miller's tape which was found by Becky, Gus and his family learn of Miller's plan to 'save the world' in Alaska and find a map that indicates her location. Obsessed to find a cure, Singh who has lost Rani by refusing to spend time with her, is hunting down Gus and discovers the map left behind in Yellowstone. Zhang is in a position to fill the power void with her vast resources and those she acquired from Dutch, Voss, and Abbot following their deaths. In addition to these resources, the scene ends with Zhang feeding raw meat to mysterious growling creatures in a cage.
The series will likely follow the characters' journey to Alaska. There, similar to the show's comic book roots, will be the final confrontation and last revelations about the microbes from Alaska and Gus' visions. In the comics, there was a group of dog-hybrid children, ‘The Dog Boys,’ who through abuse and mistreatment were turned into monsters who follow their leader and eat anyone in their way. Mrs. Zhang calling the mysterious cage creatures ‘boys’ and Abbot’s mention of how little she cares about hybrids, likely indicates they may make an appearance. Also, potentially crucial in the show’s final season are plot points that may be drawn from Miller’s boss Gillian’s references to her relative Dr. James Thacker and his expedition in the Arctic. Miller is in possession of Thacker’s journal from his abandoned ship. Gus’s vision of a deer creature and Miller’s encounter with a hoofed figure indicate a supernatural force may figure prominently.
ncG1vNJzZmibn6G5qrDEq2Wcp51kwLixxK1kraefqbVuv8SaqqimXWd6prrDoqWgZZWtva2tyKecnWc%3D