Warning: Major SPOILERS lie ahead for Sweet Tooth season 3!
Summary
One of Netflix’s most acclaimed shows is coming to an end inSweet Toothseason 3. Based on Jeff Lemire’s comic book series of the same name, the post-apocalyptic adventure show has centered around Gus, a deer-human hybrid boy who left the only home he knew in the middle of the forest following the death of his father, all in the hopes of finding his long-lost mother. Along the way, Gus befriends the former pro football player Tommy Jepperd, who gives him his affectionate name of “Sweet Tooth”, the leader of an army out to free hybrid children, Bear, and fellow human-hybrid kid, Wendy.
InSweet Toothseason 3, Gus and his friends set off to Alaska after Bear discovers a radio message from his mother, Birdie, indicating she is located in the northwest corner of the state. In addition to facing the elements, the group find themselves hunted by Mrs. Helen Zhang, one of the remaining members of The Three following season 2’s ending, who wants to use Gus to try and prevent one of her daughters from giving birth to a hybrid child. All the while, Birdie and Dr. Singh seem to have discovered the origin of The Sick and hybrid children, culminating in an epic finale.
Sweet Tooth Season 3 Review: The Netflix Series Sticks The Landing With Death-Defying Final Season
Sweet Tooth season 3 continues Gus’s voyage to Alaska in hopes of finding his mom and the cure for the Sick, with a fitting ending to the series.
Christian Convery and Nonso Anozie return to leadthe ensembleSweet Toothseason 3 castalongside Adeel Akhtar as Dr. Sing, Stefania LaVie Owen as Bear, Naledi Murray as Wendy, Rosalind Chao as Zhang, and James Brolin as the narrator, with Amy Seimetz also getting a bigger role as Birdie after appearing in a recurring capacity in prior seasons. Expanding the show’s scale and answering some long-gestating questions of its universe, the final season of the Netflix series is an emotional and thrilling conclusion.
In honor of the final season’s premiere,Screen Rantinterviewed creator Jim Mickle to discussSweet Toothseason 3, the challenges and goals he faced in “sticking the landing” of matching the comic book’s ending, the show’s potential future, and the biggest spoilers from season 3.
Mickle Always PitchedSweet ToothFor 3 Seasons (Including Many Of What Made It To The Screen)
While many shows struggle to find themselves able to close their stories before cancellation,Sweet Toothseason 3 proves to be the unique exception, as Mickle gets to close out his original vision, which he always pitched as a three-season show to Netflix:
Jim Mickle: Yeah, it’s fascinating, because I looked back at this pitch deck that I put together in 2017, seven years ago, and it talks about the three seasons and what they were going to look like. Obviously, you leave it open-ended, in case it’s gonna go longer than that, but it always felt like it had a definitive ending to that story. So, even down to the last scene, even, that had its own paragraph in there, it’s pretty, pretty crazy.
As he looked to bring his story to a close while also expanding theSweet Toothuniverse, Mickle recognized a few major elements were not only key to “sticking the landing”, but were also ones he had been eager to explore since the beginning. One such storyline was Birdie’s arc in Alaska, with the creator pointing towards a John Carpenter classic as having influenced this passion for it:
Jim Mickle: The Alaska part was super exciting. I’m a big fan of John Carpenter’s The Thing, and for me to get to play in that world and bring that part of the story to life, I kind of never thought that would happen. Honestly, I thought we’d have to find something else, especially shooting in New Zealand. But I was so glad the story that we had told sort of spun off and wove back into that. So that was a huge part, I think just creating that world was super fun. But playing with the Zhang storyline, and having new villains once Abbott said farewell at the end of season 2, it was like, “Okay, now we’re in uncharted territory from the comic book.” That was really fun to take on a new version of what the threat was going to be this season, and to make that a mom to counteract Birdie was super cool.
Sticking the landing was a big one, because I always loved the ending of the comic book. You sort of go out on these new limbs, because characters sort of inform you in different ways, and suddenly, you find that you’re telling different stories than the ones that are in the book. But they still feel like they’re in the heart of that, which is always kind of fun territory. But then, as you start to get to the end, it’s like, “Alright, how do we sort of merge back into this?” And it just happened very organically, and I think the best stories find a way to be told no matter what, which is great. So yeah, that was a big part of it.
The Singh storyline was another big part of it, being because obviously, when we meet him in the comic book, it’s basically where we meet him in season 3, in a way. So, we gave him two seasons of finding how he had gotten to that point, which was so cool. When I first met Adeel, it was like 2019, and I remember basically begging him to do the show, even though he was only in the pilot for a scene. I remember him being like, “So, I read the comic, and he’s hurting little kids,” and I was like, “There’s more to it than that, there’s a lot more to it than that!” [Laughs]
So, I was so excited that we had two seasons of what made Singh Singh. And then for him, I was so excited, just the range that he has, every season, he’s such a different version of that character. And there was only a few weeks between season 2 and season 3 shooting, but he just came in with a completely new man, new look, new everything. It was just so cool to see an actor do that.
Building Out The Zhang Family Was Important For Season 3 (Particularly Kelly Marie Tran)
Though it largely keeps its focus on its beloved characters,Sweet Toothseason 3 does also introduce a few new faces, includingStar Warsalum Kelly Marie Tran as Mrs. Zhang’s estranged daughter, Rosie, who is the mother of triplet wolf-human hybrid children. For Mickle, he wanted to ensure that the show’s final season had a worthwhile threat for Gus and his friends, and while expressing himself as a fan of Tran, he recalled her “shimmering intensity” in the role proving to be a welcome surprise:
Jim Mickle: I think with both her and with Rosalind, and with Ginger, it was interesting, because we knew that we wanted a new threat coming into season 3. I think we always knew that with Rosalind coming off of season 2, she comes, and you meet her, and then you’re like, “Oh, wow.” It was such a luxury to get to meet her, see what she did, see who she was as a person, and sort of write towards that for her character. And then it was kind of the same thing with Kelly, too, because, I think that the fun part was that we were not trying to recreate Abbott, in having this one person threat.
The fun part was coming in and going, “Alright, we have this triangle of women, we have this domineering mother, and we have these two sisters, and this sort of impractical family that comes along.” But when we met her, she’s just got this great sort of shimmering intensity to her that I didn’t expect at first. I think more from the sort of the comedic side, that stuff that I’ve seen her in, so that was super cool to write towards. And then, by the time we get into the rhythm of things, we were probably about halfway through the season 3 writing, and getting those scripts, and then you’re just like, “Now I know who you people are, and it’s quite fun to sort of match up to that.” So, it was a great case of being able to cast and write at the same time, basically.
Sweet Tooth’s Narrator Reveal Was Part Of The Original Pitch (But Big Man’s Fate Will Remain A Mickle Secret)
After successfully defeating Zhang and her henchman,theSweet Toothseason 3 endingsees Gus destroy the tree that created both The Sick and hybrids, leading to the end of humanity and a future for hybrids. The ending also leaves Jepp/Big Man’s fate unclear, with him seemingly prepared to succumb to his wounds outside the cave, though Gus tells a story in which he makes it down the mountain and helps build the hybrid sanctuary in Yellowstone. When asked for an answer, Mickle was similarly mysterious about whether Big Man survived or not:
Jim Mickle: I honestly don’t know, I’ve gone back and forth myself so many times. I think that’s kind of one of the best parts of it is that it works either way. I have my opinion of what it is, but I don’t want to put it out there and spoil it for anybody. [Chuckles]
Another of the major reveals from the show’s ending is that the narrator,voiced by James Brolin since season 1, is actually that of an older Gus, telling the story to a younger generation of hybrid children, who also include his and Wendy’s grandchildren. Mickle recalls that this reveal was always part of the original pitch for the show, and led to moments in the writers room in which he and his team had a “strictness that we had to abide by” to avoid spoiling it too soon:
Jim Mickle: Yeah, that was all part of the original pitch to get to the end there. Again, it’s like when you’re pitching something that far out, you’re putting in pie-in-the-sky ideas, and you’re like, “So many things are gonna happen, who knows if we’re gonna get to this, but wouldn’t it be cool if this is the end?” And then suddenly, it’s like, “Holy s–t, here we are. We’re just in here, and here’s Brolin, and here’s Christian, and they’re meeting each other for the first time.”
So, yeah, that was always part of the hopeful pipe dream, you know, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could actually stick this landing?” And that was always part of it, which is interesting, looking back and writing his voiceover, we always had to be a bit careful about the things that he would say in there. Because there was a lot of times that he’s obviously talking about characters and things that he wasn’t there for, so there was sort of this strictness that we had to abide by in the writers room. I remember thinking at the time, “Who cares? No one knows.” But now that we actually pulled it off, I’m glad that we stuck to it.
Mickle Has Ideas ForSweet Tooth’s Future (But It’s All Up To The Audience)
Though the show ends on a pretty conclusive note, Mickle confirms he has some ideas of howSweet Toothcould continue beyond season 3 that would “fit very neatly” into Lemire’s source comics. He does note, however, that the chances of this happening are ultimately up to both audiences and Netflix for whether these ideas ever come to fruition, and he’s thrilled with how the show has closed out regardless:
Jim Mickle: Yeah, we’ve talked about ideas, and definitely have some of what that would look like that I think would be very cool, that would be a very different turn of what it is, but that I think would fit very neatly into Jeff’s world and the stories that he tells, and how we’ve told them. So, I have had those ideas in the past, it’s really all up to whether the fans want it, whether Netflix wants it, and what TV becomes as we go forward. I’m kind of always in a position of like, “Yes, there’s something there if we want to go forward, but it’s also in a really beautiful place where we landed it.” So, I’m happy either way.
AboutSweet ToothSeason 3
Having defeated General Abbot in the battle at Pubba’s Cabin, Gus (Christian Convery), Jepperd (Nonso Anozie), Becky (Stefania LaVie Owen), and Wendy (Naledi Murray) embark on a journey to Alaska in search of Gus’s mother, Birdie (Amy Seimetz), who has been working to uncover the mysterious origins of the deadly Sick. Along the way, they are joined by Dr. Singh (Adeel Akhtar), who may have his own dangerous beliefs about Gus and his role in reversing the virus. Meanwhile, a new threat emerges in the form of Helen Zhang (Rosalind Chao), her daughter Rosie (Kelly Marie Tran), and the ferocious Wolf Boys, who seek to restart human birth and view Gus as the solution to their plans.
As they navigate through perilous terrain, Gus and his group of friends find refuge at the Outpost in Alaska, where they meet a new ensemble of characters including Siana (Cara Gee) and her hybrid daughter Nuka (Ayazhan Dalabayeva). With the clock to find answers running out, alliances are tested and destinies intertwine, all leading to a thrilling climax that will determine the fate of humanity and hybrids. Based on the DC comic book series by Jeff Lemire, Sweet Tooth is executive produced by Jim Mickle, Susan Downey, Robert Downey, Jr., Amanda Burrell, and Linda Moran. The series is produced by Warner Bros. Television.
Sweet Tooth
Cast
Based on the comic series of the same name, Sweet Tooth is set in the not-too-distant future, post-apocalyptic United States in the wake of a devastating viral pandemic. After the disease decimated the world’s population, some children began to be born with human and animal hybrid characteristics. Many people are afraid of the hybrids, believing them to be the cause of the virus. When his father is killed, a young deer hybrid named Gus (Christian Convery) embarks on a quest to find his mother with the help of a traveler and loner named Tommy Jeppard (Nonso Anozie).
