Sweet Tooth Season 2 Ending, Explained: Where Are Gus and Jepp Going?

Netflix’s ‘Sweet Tooth’ is a post-apocalyptic fantasy drama series developed from the comic book series of the same name by Jeff Lemire. It’s a dystopian parable that doesn’t necessarily seek to impart moral teachings to its audience. Instead, it is a cautionary tale warning humanity of its hubris. At the same time, it’s a tale of hope, unlike its source material, which gets quite bleak and dark toward the end. The story is set in a world where 98% of the human population has been wiped out in a cataclysmic event known as the Great Crumble, caused by a disease known as the Sick. The advent of the H5G9 virus, which causes the Sick, coincided with the emergence of human-animal hybrid children, leading many to question whether the two are connected.

The narrative predominantly revolves around Sweet Tooth, or Gus (Christian Convery), a young boy who sets out to find the woman he believes is his mother after the death of his Pubba. In season 2, Gus leads a revolution of hybrid children like him against the Last Men, while Tommy “Jepp” Jepperd (Nonso Anozie) and Aimee Eden (Dania Ramirez) try to find their way back to their children, and Aditya Singh (Adeel Akhtar), having discarded his faith and humanity, doggedly pursues a cure, no matter the sacrifices he makes along the way. Here is what you might want to know about the ending of ‘Sweet Tooth’ season 2. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Sweet Tooth Season 2 Recap

As the second season begins, Gus is a captive of the Last Men along with Wendy and the rest of Aimee’s children. With Aimee’s help, Jepp recovers from the gunshot wound he sustained during the encounter with General Abbot (Neil Sandilands) and his men, and now he and Aimee work together to get their children back. Meanwhile, Singh ardently believes that he has sacrificed his faith and humanity for love, as his wife, Rani (Aliza Vellani), is a patient of the Sick, and Singh keeps her alive by administering booster shots he developed from extracting unique secretions in the Pineal Gland and mixing it with the hybrid bone marrow stem cells. The effectiveness of this mixture was originally discovered by Gladys Bell, who has since perished. As the second season progresses, it becomes gradually apparent that the main driving force behind Singh’s actions is not love but obsession.

In captivity, Gus learns he is not the only hybrid who can traditionally communicate with other people. And those who can’t use other methods, including sign language. Gus gains initial popularity because of his inherently rebellious behavior. However, he tries to hide the truth about Roy, the chameleon boy Singh killed to develop the booster shot and convinces Wendy to do the same. When the rest of the children find out about it, they are livid and effectively ostracize him in that small space.

Meanwhile, Bear (Stefania LaVie Owen) infiltrates the Last Men, hoping to rescue Gus and the other hybrid children. After watching how Abbot has begun to convince town after town to join his cause with the promises of a cure, Jepp and Aimee convince Dolly and her Air Lords to help them with their own promise: the spoils of war.

However, Jepp and Aimee have a falling out after the former confesses his sins. Shortly after the pandemic started and people became aware of the existence of the hybrids, Jepp became a hunter of these children after the First Men promised him that they would help him find his family. For Aimee, who has devoted her life to saving and protecting these children, this is the ultimate crime a man can commit, no matter his reasons. The following day, as they board the plane to attack the zoo, Aimee and the Sky Lords leave Jepp behind. Despite this, he makes his way to the zoo on a bus. Ultimately, Aimee and the Sky Lord trick the Last Men by dropping plastic purple flowers, making them believe they are being attacked with the virus.

Aimee finds her way to Singh’s lab, and it doesn’t take her long to realize the horrors that have transpired there. She sets fire to the lab, destroying everything before reuniting with Wendy and the rest of her children. Jepp reunites with Gus as well, and Bear joins them. Together, the group heads toward Gus’ home, the cabin in Yellowstone National Park.

The finale depicts a climactic battle between the Last Men in one corner and Jepp, Aimee, Bear, and Gus in the other. The Animal Army tries to attack the zoo, but the Last Men kill every one of them. After Rani becomes disillusioned and leaves him, Singh tries to figure out what to do next. Abbot kills his brother, Johnny, after the latter points a gun at him and pleads to him to stop.

Sweet Tooth Season 2 Ending: Where Are Gus, Jepp, and the Others Heading?

During the conflict with the Last Men, Gus gets seriously injured when Abbot shoots him with a crossbow bolt, but he survives. The group mourns the ones they have lost and plans for the future. On her way to get to Gus, Bear, whose real name is Becky, found a cassette left behind by Dr. Gertrude Miller, or Birdie (Amy Seimetz), the geneticist who created Gus at the Fort Smith Labs. After Jepp finds a cassette player in the cabin, Gus is allowed to hear the message. It is addressed to Richard, the man Gus knew as Pubba. Gertrude asks Richard for forgiveness for being unable to go to him and Gus at Yellowstone. She explains that she must find a way to save humanity while keeping dangerous people away from Richard and Gus. She adds that her destination is Alaska, where the virus was discovered during an expedition a year before all hell broke loose.

Being the first hybrid, Gus seems to possess certain abilities that others don’t. Toward the end of the skirmish with the Last Men, he accidentally calls on a herd of buffaloes, and even though they stampede everything in their path, including Abbot, they maneuver around Gus. Later, Gus dreams of Gertrude, trapped in a frozen cave asking for help. Elsewhere, Singh also has a dream in which he sees himself walking through a frozen wasteland with Gus in his arms and arriving in a cave.

Meanwhile, Becky has told Wendy that she is her sister. They find a place called Agvagniagvik, the Alaskan outpost that the expedition used while doing their research, marked in one of Pubba’s maps. And that becomes the next destination for Gus, Jepp, Becky, and Wendy. As the rest of the hybrids stay with the Andersons, the four embark on their journey, with something inside Gus calling him there. After they leave, Singh arrives at the cabin, finds the map, and follows them, knowing that his and Gus’ destinies are now connected.

What Caused the Sick?

In this season, we get a complete picture of what caused the Sick and the subsequent Armageddon. Gillian Washington was the head of Fort Smith Labs in Goss Grove, Colorado, where Richard worked as the janitor and Gertrude as a geneticist. She oversaw Project Midnight Sun, the main goal of which was to find a way for humanity to age without disease. Dr. James Thacker of the United Kingdom, an ancestor of Gillian, had a muscular degenerative disorder. Trying to find a cure for himself, he traveled to the Arctic in 1911 in search of a mythical village where people were free of disease and lived way past hundred. Thacker never returned and was presumed dead. All members of Thacker’s line, including Gillian, have the same muscular degenerative disorder as him. So, it became an obsession for Gillian to find what her great-grandfather sought.

What the expedition team to Alaska brought back was injected into several unfertilized eggs. Only two among them were able to grow viable cultures. One egg became Genetic Unit System 1 or Gus, the other the H5G9 virus. Desperate for results, Gillian injected herself with the virus, becoming Patient Zero of the pandemic. So, it seems both the disease and the hybrid were developed together; neither came before the other.

However, things become a bit more complicated when we consider the opening scene of the season. Gertrude finds Thacker’s ship in Alaska and what appears to be Thacker’s body, covered in purple flowers. This means he was infected with the Sick over a hundred years ago. Furthermore, someone pulls Gertrude out of the hole where she finds the ship. When she reaches the top, she discovers hoofprints. Toward the end of the season, Gus also sees hoofprints in his dream. He believes that it’s the entity calling him to Alaska. This implies that one hybrid has existed for years. They likely possess the ability that Gus does, allowing them to contact Gus across the continent.

Are Abbot and Aimee Dead?

Yes, both Abbot and Aimee are dead in the second season of ‘Sweet Tooth.’ After eradicating the Animal Army and learning the location of the Hybrids from them, Abbot leads his remaining soldiers to an attack on the cabin in Yellowstone. This is when his brother rebels, urging him to reconcile with the fact that humanity is fated to die out. In response, Abbot kills Johnny before greenlighting the attack.

However, with the rest of the hybrids already moved to safety, Gus, Aimee, and Jepp prove to be more than a match for the Last Men. Trying to protect her sister, even Becky joins the fight, taking out Abbot’s second-in-command. Jepp confronts Abbot himself, and even though he initially gains the upper hand, Abbot takes advantage of the other man’s bad leg. He then runs through Aimee’s defenses to get to Gus. But before he can kill him, Gus instinctively calls a herd of buffaloes, which rushes over Abbot, fatally injuring him. However, before he dies, Abbott shoots Gus with a crossbow bolt.

Toward the end of episode 6, Aimee discovers that she has the Sick. She later informs Jepp and Wendy, and Becky figures it out by herself. She gets the chance to say goodbye to Wendy and the rest of her children, though she only explicitly informs Wendy among them about what happened to her. She passes away likely a few days after the fight with the Last Men and before Gus wakes up.

Who is Helen Zhang? What Does She Have in Her Cage?

With Abbot dead and his Last Men destroyed, Helen will likely serve as the next primary antagonist in ‘Sweet Tooth.’ She was of the three feudal leaders whom Abbot was trying to convince to join him before she killed the other two. Ruthless and resourceful, she seeks what Abbot once did: the cure.

The growling in the season finale most likely belongs to hybrids with predator DNAs. They appear in the comics as well. Zhang has left them locked and mostly hungry to draw out their bestial nature. In all probability, she will use them against Gus and the others in the prospective season 3.