Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS ahead for Sweet Tooth season 3 finale!
Summary
- Sweet Tooth creator Jim Mickle explains the reveal that the narrator is an older Gus in season 3.
- Keeping the narrator's identity was carefully crafted, only being revealed at the end to reveal the results of the show's emotional journey.
- The decision informed older Gus' voiceover throughout the series, to ensure he didn't say anything he wouldn't have been present for.
Sweet Tooth season 3 ends by revealing the narrator to be Gus himself, now an older man telling his story to a gathering of young hybrids. This contextualizes the story within the world, giving the narration a grounded explanation within the series.
Speaking with Screen Rant, Mickle explained what it was like keeping the identity of the narrator a secret until the ending of Sweet Tooth, and what the reveal was like. The creator explained how the decision had been carefully crafted since the very beginning, saying how the decision informed what older Gus did and did not say in his voiceover throughout the series. Check out what Mickle had to say below:
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 [James] Brolin, and here's Christian [Convery], 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 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.
Sweet Tooth is based on the DC Comics series of the same name.
Why Sweet Tooth’s Narrator Revelation Makes For The Perfect Ending
Despite having plenty of storylines happening at the same time throughout the series, Sweet Tooth’s cast has always orbited around Gus' journey. The final episode of the show sees him make an ultimate decision, opting to burn the antler tree down in order to allow nature itself to decide the fate of the world. While the virus is destroyed, hybrids continue to be born, signaling that humanity prior to the outbreak is going to go extinct slowly over time.
By having older Gus be revealed as the narrator, it contextualizes the importance of the story being told, while also explaining why the show had a narrator in the first place. The story of Sweet Tooth is an origin for hybrids eventually becoming the dominant species, something that required a time jump to see fully take effect. By using the narration as a jumping-off point to showcase that future, the series made the storytelling device all the more important. The reveal serves as a bookends not only for his journey, but for how his decision shaped the world.
Given Sweet Tooth season 3's positive reviews, it seems making older Gus the show's narrator was the right call in formulating the show's final episode. It also seems to close the door on any possible continuation for the character, since his story has now been told alongside how it impacted the world. By making the narrator role such an important part of the series' ending, Mickle and crew gave the show a proper finale that felt earned by the journey its characters experienced.
Sweet Tooth
- Release Date
- 2021 - 2024-00-00
- Showrunner
- Jim Mickle
- Directors
- Jim Mickle
Cast
Will Forte
Christian Convery
WHERE TO WATCH
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).
- Writers
- Jim Mickle
- Seasons
- 3
- Streaming Service(s)
- AppleTV+
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