Sweet Tooth season 1 recap: What to remember before season 2

Sweet Tooth season 2 premieres on April 27th on Netflix. Since June of 2021, when season 1 premiered, viewers everywhere have been captivated by the story of young Gus and his adventures. Season 2 is set to release 8 full episodes and will continue after we saw poor Gus captured by Abbots’ Last Men and brought to The Preserve.

Sweet Tooth is fashioned beautifully with a myriad of plotlines to follow, fantastically fathomless characters, and elaborate elements that tie and mesh together in a mystical story about the preservation of innocence and the innate desire to belong. However, if you’re unlike me and haven’t watched season 1 four times since its release, you may have forgotten some important things you will need to remember before season 2 drops.

What you need to remember about Sweet Tooth Season 1

Let’s go over some of the most important events and plot points that took place in season 1 of Sweet Tooth!

Important things to remember about Thomas “Big Man” Jepperd

A drifter that came upon Gus and saved him from hunters around Gus’ cabin, Jepperd very quickly becomes an extremely important character in the show. The last episode of season 1 shed light on a ton of information we hadn’t previously known. The episode begins by showing a flashback of Jepperds’ past, giving us some insight into why he is the way he is.

Taking place soon after The Great Crumble, we see Big Man frantically bringing his pregnant wife, Louisa, into a hospital as she was in labor and ready to give birth to their son at any moment. We witness, in shock, as Jepperd isn’t allowed into the delivery room as the H5G9 virus is in full swing, and he nervously waits in the waiting room, hoping his child is born unaffected by the virus.

After some time, he is allowed in to see his son, and we all learn together that his son was born half sheep. Jepperd frenetically runs away, torn by the idea that his son is a hybrid. While on an elevator, nervously deciding whether to head down to the lobby and run or back to the maternity ward to his family, he runs into Dr. Aditya Singh. After a brief, but inspiring conversation, Big Man decides to head back up to the maternity ward, realizing that his son is his, whether he is a hybrid or not. To everyone’s horror, both his wife and his son are gone.

Jepperd has taken the unofficial role of Gus’s protector, after Pubbas’ death earlier in the season. In the Season 1 finale of Sweet Tooth, after Gus had run off for reasons we will discuss later in this article, we see Big Man searching for Gus, eventually finding him on the other side of a forest behind Judys’ house on the site of a plane crash.

After a heartfelt conversation between the two, Gus confesses he fixed the radio in the plane and made contact with unknown persons. Jepperd only has moments to react before Last Men take a successful shot at Jepperd, leaving him unconscious and taking Gus with them.

Who is Aimee Eden?

Before running The Preserve, the only haven for hybrids, Aimee was a counselor that had led an incredibly mundane life. Aimee is seen entering what would become The Preserve for the first time after witnessing a large pack of elephants roam the streets around where she was held up and surviving for a long period of time.

After letting the animals in the zoo free, she soon finds a baby hybrid dropped off at the doorstep of The Preserve. She adopts the young hybrid by the name of Wendy, and they eventually begin to amass a group of hybrids that find respite in The Preserve.

In the Season 1 finale of Sweet Tooth, after being marked by The Last Men, Aimee is seen making a stand against Abbot and his army, hoping to distract them long enough for Wendy to lead herself and all the hybrids in The Preserve to safety. After a meticulous attempt involving fireworks and an intense dialogue between Abbot and Aimee is made, we witness Wendy and the hybrids discovered by The Last Men and taken back to the preserve, now run by Abbots’ Army.

Aimee escapes back to her place of work, where she was held up during The Great Crumble, eventually overhearing the conversation Gus had on the radio on the plane with The Last Men. The finale shows Jepperd waking up and realizing he has been saved by Aimee, followed by Aimee’s goosebumps-producing line to Big Man, “Get some sleep. Heal up. Tomorrow we get our kids back”.

What’s going on with Bear?

Earlier in the season, we are introduced to Becky, sometimes referred to as Bear. Becky, the leader of a militia group called The Animal Army, meets Gus at the train station where Jepperd and Gus were going to part ways in Gus’ pursuit of finding his mother, Birdie.

After Jep and Gus are caught by The Last Men, Bear ruthlessly saves Gus and imprisons Jepperd, killing The Last Men, that have them both in custody. She then introduces Gus to their community, which is wrought with everything a child could seemingly want; go-carts, computers, games, and more snacks than one could imagine. Gus turns down the offer to stay.

At one point during this excursion, Bear and her army decide to kill Jepp by the use of a tiger they keep caged on the grounds. This decision was made after Bear realizes Jepps’ past as a Last Man. Moments before the tiger is let loose, after Gus makes a stand against their actions, successfully talking the tiger out of hurting Jepp, Becky changes her mind and decides that killing Big Man is wrong.

This throws the entire community into chaos and disarray, Bear is seen eventually throwing her mask on the forest floor, no longer leading The Animal Army after realizing she no longer stands for ruthlessness and violence. She then follows Jepp and Gus on their trek to find Gus’ mother, Birdie.

In the Season 1 finale of Sweet Tooth, Bear accompanies both Gus and Jepp as they see smoke rising from a house in the distance after stopping at a bar in Essex County. It is discovered that though it is Birdie’s home, it is inhabited by her best friend Judy.

After some troubling discoveries that we will go over later in this article, Bear is left at the house with Judy after Gus runs off and Jepp goes to find him. At the end of the episode, Bear is seen turning on a satellite phone and staring into a box where she has a picture of her family. In a stunning flashback, it is revealed that the sister she had only briefly referenced before is Wendy, the hybrid girl adopted by Aimee at The Preserve.

What happened with Dr. Aditya Singh and his wife, Rani?

Adi was a doctor during The Great Crumble, treating patients during the initial outbreak. Shortly after, his wife, Rani, became infected by the virus. He then quit medicine in the pursuit of caring for his sick wife via booster injections produced by his long-time friend and colleague, Gladys Bell.

During season 1, it is revealed to Adi that Gladys has stage-four cancer, and she asks him to lead the research to find a cure. After looking through the journal Gladys had given him, Adi shockingly discovers that Gladys had been experimenting on hybrid children to foster the injections he has been using to keep his wife alive.

Traumatized and distraught, Adi initially turns down this request to lead the research. With his wife now getting sicker and sicker, they surprisingly both attend a party at a local neighbor’s home. Unfortunately, the owner of the home is found to be infected by the virus, and Rani and Adi watch as the other locals tie him to a chair and then burn the house to the ground, idly standing in the street snacking on the food from the party.

Soon after, another one of the locals, Nancie, becomes very suspicious of Rani and Adi’s behavior. Nancie is afraid of The Sick, consistently citing a ‘second wave’. One day, Nancie takes advantage of Adis’ absence while he is at Galdys’ research lab, and invites herself into Adis’ home. Things get tense, as she begins spewing threats of telling other locals about the suspicious behavior.

As the conflict slowly moves into the front yard of the home, Nancie is killed by a swift kick from Adis’ horse, Trixie. Things become worse, as the locals begin questioning the absence of Nancie. Eventually, the locals find the body of Nancie in the lab and question Rani and Adi. Initially, they believe Rani when she lies and says Nancie got sick and they had to kill her to protect the community.

They change their mind when Rani begins coughing, realizing she is sick and deciding they need to burn down the lab. Surprisingly, Rani and Adi are momentarily saved by Abbot, who feels the research is vital to creating a cure and, therefore, too valuable to burn. Adi and Rani were going to meet their demise but persuade Abbot to believe that Adi could head the research that Gladys had begun and that they are close to a cure. Abbot believes them, bags their heads, and takes them to the preserve.

In the season 1 finale of Sweet Tooth, Adi is now tasked with heading the research for a cure on behalf of Abbot. Abbot explains to him that he can have anything and everything he wants so long as he creates a cure quickly. He shows Adi, his wife, behind a pane of glass, now being held a prisoner of Abbot’s army, her freedom being the reward should he succeed in producing a cure so that Abbot can, “Control who lives and who doesn’t”.

What we know about Gus, Pubba & Birdie

During an expedition in Alaska, scientists discover an undiscovered microbe under the ice. This inspires a slew of research at a place called Fort Smith, where Richard Fox (AKA Pubba) works as a curious janitor. His curiosity piques when he sees the lead geneticist in charge of research, Gertrude (AKA Birdie), in ‘Sal’s Bar’.

After witnessing her yelling at a colleague in the lab earlier that day, he approaches Birdie, asking about her day. The two of them talk for hours, eventually being cut short by a bar employee shouting the last calls. They make their way to Birdie’s house, seemingly having strong feelings for one another, when Birdie receives a call explaining that her lab was being ransacked by the government. Pubba immediately volunteers to drive her to Fort Smith, as he has the keys to all the doors containing the research that Birdie desperately wants to save.

At Fort Smith, Richard creates a distraction for Birdie to sneak into the lab and take young Gus, eventually making their way to the bottom level of the facility to escape safely. At that moment, Birdie tasks Richard with keeping Gus safe, citing “something bad” about to happen. Richard then becomes our Pubba as he takes Gus into Yellowstone National Park and raises him safely away from the rest of the world.

Gus is our innocent, antler-bearing, deer-hybrid protagonist with a taste for sweets. Eventually, Gus’ respite found within the fenced-in remote cabin is interrupted by The Last Men marking their home. Pubba, unfortunately, dies while protecting Gus from The Last Men, leaving Gus all alone. Eventually, a drifter named Jepperd happens upon Gus being hunted and saves his life. The two become a pair, as Gus decides it’s time to leave the fence that Pubba had warned him never to cross, in pursuit of finding Birdie, who Pubba explained was Gus’ mother.

Through prolific adventures and plenty of close calls, Gus eventually finds his way to Birdies’ home with Jepperd and Becky. In the Season 1 finale of Sweet Tooth, Gus is given a key to an attic in Birdies’ home that is full of research from the happenings at Fort Smith. It is revealed to Gus that he was a lab project and that Birdie and Pubba were not his parents.

Distraught and hurt, he runs away from the home and eventually finds a plane crash in a clearing on the other side of a forest. After fixing the radio within the plane and making contact with an unidentified person, he is met by Jepp, and the both of them are swarmed by a small group of The Last Men. Jepperd is shot and left unconscious while they take Gus into custody and bring him to The Preserve, now a faux-research facility run by Abbot and The Last Men, housing hybrids to create a cure for The Sick.

The very end of the finale shows a scientist in Alaska picking up a ringing phone. We realize during this scene that the satellite phone that Becky had turned on was left by Birdie and that Birdie is ALIVE.

Personally, season 2 of Sweet Tooth is what I’m most excited about from Netflix this year so far. Now, you’ll be ready to hit the ground running come April 27th!