‘Sweet Tooth’ on Netflix: That Brutal Ending Explained

Sweet Tooth is just like a bag of candy: it’s just as impossible to stop watching as it is impossible to put down the bag of M&M’s. If you’ve already devoured all eight episodes of Sweet Tooth Season 1, then you are no doubt hungry for more. But before we can even think about what’s next for Sweet Tooth and Sweet Tooth, we need to really think about what the show pulled off in that season finale.

SPOILERS ahead for Sweet Tooth’s sprawling, game-changing season finale. You ready? Let’s unpack what just went down.

Sweet Tooth Season 1 ending explained

Throughout Season 1, we’ve followed three distinct storylines: we’ve followed Gus as he, Jeppard, and Bear made their way to Colorado in search of Gus’s mom. We’ve also watched Dr. Aditya Singh search for a vaccine to save his wife Rani, while also dealing with a neighborhood violently clinging to whatever scraps of normalcy they can find. And lastly, we’ve followed ex-office worker Aimee as she’s transformed an abandoned zoo into a safe haven for hybrids called The Preserve. In the season finale, all of these threads come together.

First, there’s Gus’s storyline: he found his mother’s home but he didn’t find the family he sought. Instead, he learned that he doesn’t have parents so much as a team of scientists who created him. Realizing that his “father” lied to him, Gus’s whole world is shattered. Seeking any kind of community, he reaches out to the Preserve—totally unaware that the Preserve’s been taken over by General Abbot and his Last Men. The Last Men arrive, take Gus, and shoot Jepperd, leaving him for dead.

Second, there’s Dr. Aditya Singh’s storyline: General Abbot finally learned that Singh’s the one who inherited the task of finding a vaccine. He arrived to “recruit” Singh just in time to save him and his wife from being burned alive by their neighbors. Abbot took the helpless Aditya and Rani to the Preserve where the mad dictator is now forcing the moral doctor to go against everything he believes and experiment on live hybrids. When Gus arrives at the Preserve, he’s brought immediately to Singh—who hears Gus talk and realizes that this hybrid can’t be dissected. Instead, an ethically crushed Singh gets another kid to experiment on.

Third, there’s Aimee’s storyline: her worst nightmare came true when the Last Men arrived at the Preserve, aiming to take it over. They accomplished their goal, and not even Aimee’s escape plan for all the kids worked. Aimee’s adopted hybrid daughter Wendy and all of the other kids were tracked down and taken by Abbot’s forces. With the Preserve under Abbot’s control and all of her children abducted, Aimee goes and recruits some help: she finds Jepperd bleeding out, and brings him back to her abandoned office building where she patches him up. When he finally comes to, she reveals the plan: they’re gonna get their kids back.

As if all that interconnected-ness wasn’t enough, the final moment of Season 1 introduces another plot focusing on Bear: we learn that Bear, who’s back in Gus’s mom’s home, is really named Becky and she has a sister. The sister is Wendy, the pig/child hybrid adopted daughter of Aimee—y’know, the one that’s captured in the Preserve and new besties with Gus. And that’s not all: in the last seconds of the season, Becky gets a call from the satellite phone. On the other end is a scientist way up north in Alaska—and that scientist is Gus’s “mother” Birdie.

So, what does this all mean for Season 2? If we get a Season 2, then we’ll most likely follow Dr. Singh as he tries to find a vaccine via gruesome methods, and we’ll probably see Wendy and Gus (and all the other kids) grow closer while in captivity. We’ll also probably see Aimee team up with Jepperd in an attack on Abbot and the former Preserve. And then there’s Becky and Birdie. Birdie’s probably in Alaska trying to find a cure, since the virus originated from an ice sample taken from way up north. Will Birdie hightail it back to Colorado when she hears that Gus is alive?

Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to find out in Season 2.

Stream Sweet Tooth on Netflix