Warning: This article contains spoilers for Sweet Tooth season 2.
Sweet Tooth season 2 may not be as visually disturbing as the original comic books, but Gus’ storyline in the series still seems sadder than the source material’s version. Following the bittersweet ending of Sweet Tooth season 1, season 2 begins on an uplifting note when Gus and the hybrids start plotting an escape from the preserve. While they are at it, Jepperd and Bear try hacking their way into the facility to save the hybrids from General Abbot before it is too late.
Their fight against Abbot’s trappings pays well when they break out of the preserve, flee to Gus’ home at Yellowstone National Park, and even overpower Abbot toward Sweet Tooth season 2’s ending. A tinge of grief still looms over them since they lose Aimee during their battle against The Last Men. However, Sweet Tooth season 2’s closing moments affirm that Gus and the team can handle the challenges ahead. In all of these moments of joy and celebration, though, Gus’ narrative still seems marred with sadness and disappointment, especially when compared with the comics.
Gus’ Sweet Tooth Season 2 Escape Storyline Gets Sadder Than The Comics
In the original Sweet Tooth comic books, Gus braves several odds and endures many atrocities before finding his way out of Abbot’s prison. He watches many of his hybrid friends suffer and even die at the hands of cruel humans, which forces him to shed his innocence and fight back. Gus from Netflix’s Sweet Tooth, too, overcomes a fair share of adversities but never comes close to facing the violence and trauma experienced by his comic version. Still, his Sweet Tooth season 2 story feels sadder than the comics because it shows how even at his tender age, Gus realizes that he must lie to his fellow hybrids to give them hope.
Sweet Tooth season 2 highlights Gus’ futile effort to keep the hybrids hopeful in a scene where he escapes the preserve’s prison but gets caught and sent back to captivity. During his brief tour outside, he finds Roy’s dead body but later lies to his friends that Roy somehow escaped. His lie is tragic because it shows how his circumstances have calloused and matured him to a degree where he cannot help but give his friends a false sense of security. While this scene may not be as graphic as the ones in the comics, it carries enough emotional heft to make Gus’ Sweet Tooth season 2 arc heartbreaking.
Sweet Tooth’s Lighter Show Start Makes Gus’ Arc More Complicated
The Sweet Tooth comics create a contrast between Gus’ initial rose-tinted worldview and his eventual catharsis that inspires him to revolt against The Last Men. While the Netflix show is treading a similar path by emphasizing the sadder bits of Gus’ narrative, its initial overarching storyline was far lighter than that of the comic books. Owing to this, Gus’ rite of passage in Netflix’s Sweet Tooth seasons 1 and 2 seems more nuanced, complicated, and even poignant because it draws a clear line between the sunshine and rainbows in Gus’ opening arcs and the doom and gloom in his transformative years.
