Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Sweet Tooth’ answers all its questions in the third and final season as Gus and his friends fight for their lives. They discover the origins of the Sick and the Hybrids, search for a potential cure for humanity, and try to figure out what a peaceful world with the Humans and Hybrids co-existing happily looks like. Their journey takes them to all sorts of places, but when thinking about where it all began for Gus, the epicenter remains Fort Smith Labs. The location plays a crucial role in the story, but luckily, a lab such as this does not exist in real life. SPOILERS AHEAD
The Fictional Fort Smith Labs was Created for the Netflix Series
‘Sweet Tooth’ is based on the DC Comics of the same name and borrows a lot of the comics’ fictional elements to create a story of its own. The Netflix series takes a lot of liberties in its adaptation, where Fort Smith Labs comes into the picture, as this plot point is created outside of what already exists in the original storyline.
In the show, Fort Smith Labs is situated in Goss Grove (also known as GoGro) in Colorado. In real life, there is no such place in Centennial State, but it does exist in Boulder, Denver, which is more of a coincidence than an inspiration for the fictional city in the series. What makes it even more interesting is that even though the whole story is set in the United States, with Wyoming, Colorado, and Alaska serving as the primary locations throughout the three seasons, none of these places actually appear in the background of the show. The entirety of the series has been filmed in New Zealand.
The scenes for the Fort Smith Labs were filmed in Park City, Auckland. The building that serves as the headquarters for the research that eventually leads to the creation of Gus and the deadly virus that wipes humanity off the face of the Earth is actually a community center for the Te Tauoma housing development residents. In the same vein, the creators of the series turned towards several other locations in the country, described as “a treasure trove of beauty” by the executive producer of ‘Sweet Tooth,’ to create the post-apocalyptic US.
The inherently cinematic nature of the locations allowed them to present the horrors and the beauty of this new world where Hybrids like Gus and Wendy have to find a place for themselves while the remainder of humanity struggles to keep itself alive. In all of this, Fort Smith Labs becomes the most important location because this is where it all started for Gus and where he comes upon the clues that lead him to the answer to all his questions.
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