Since its first episode, Sweet Tooth has been dropping hints about the origin of the Hybrids and the Sick. Season 3 solves the mystery once and for all, answering fans’ most pressing questions.
Set in the most hopeful post-apocalypse ever, Sweet Tooth follows a Deer Boy named Gus (Christian Convery) as he crosses America ten years after a mysterious virus killed 98% of the human population. During the same time the Sick began to circulate, newborn babies started coming out of the womb as human-animal hybrids. The Hybrids were immune to the Sick, which led most of the survivors to blame the children for the plague that decimated humanity.
From the beginning, it was clear that Hybrids and the Sick were somehow related, but no one knew precisely how until season 3. As it turns out, the history of the Hybrids and the Sick began in the early 20th century.
The Sick was born in a cave in Alaska
In 1911, Captain James Thacker departed for Alaska aboard a ship, hoping to track down a legendary fountain of youth that was supposedly capable of healing any illness. Thacker’s sister was suffering from a rare degenerative disorder, and Thacker was willing to do anything to save her. Amidst the frozen deserts of Alaska, Thacker finally found the cave housing the planet’s most well-kept secret.
Inside the cave, Thacker came across a tree shaped like deer antlers. The sap of the tree, which Thacker described as the “Blood of the Earth,” contained unique healing properties that could cure humanity from disease. However, the tree also manifested the planet’s vital energy, a sacred symbol of balance.
Willing to take the Blood of the Earth for himself, Thacker struck the tree’s trunk with an ax. The sap he retrieved would be able to produce the miraculous medicine he hoped to give his sister. However, a deadly virus also leaked from the tree, Nature’s response against human greed.
The Sick poured from the tree’s wound, slowly infecting all crew members of Thacker’s ship. The Captain wanted to return to civilization and share his discovery with the world, but the crew knew that whatever their Captain did in the cave awakened a curse that would spread among humans. So, they committed mass suicide to ensure the Sick would remain frozen in Alaska, together with their dead bodies.
Thanks to their brave decision, Thacker’s crew postponed the apocalypse until the 21st century, when Fort Smith Labs dug up Alaska’s ice and found the microorganisms pouring from the mystical tree since Thacker harmed it. Thacker’s descendant, Gillian Washington (Robyn Malcolm), wanted to retrace the steps of the missing Captain. In doing so, she doomed humanity.
The Sick and the Hybrids are part of Nature’s goal for the planet
The Sick represents only one side of Nature’s plan for the planet. Thacker’s blasphemous action made Nature realize that humans do not deserve to inherit Earth, which is why the Sick comes from the antler tree. However, the virus also changed human physiology so that newborn babies gain traits of animals.
In 1911, one of Thacker’s companions had an affair with an Inuit woman named Ikiaq. Ikiaq was pregnant when the disease spread through the ship crew, but she wasn’t affected by the Sick in the same fashion. Instead of falling ill, Ikiaq’s baby suffered a mutation in the womb, being born as a Hybrid. That means Gus is not the first Hybrid, a title that actually belongs to Munaq. Munaq is half caribou, a deer relative that lives in the frozen wastelands of the North. It’s clear, then, that deer-like Hybrids have a critical role to play in Nature’s plans, a fact that’s also reflected in the sacred tree’s shape.
With the Hybrids, Nature intends to create a new species to rule the world. However, instead of destroying their home planet for selfish reasons, this new species should live in harmony with animals and plants, which is why they present traits from other species. Still, the Hybrids are half-human, keeping all the good things about humanity. They are loyal to their family and friends, willing to help those in need, and surprisingly optimistic regardless of how grim a situation might look.
Hybrids and Sick play different roles in the same master plan. The Sick kill humans, deemed unworthy to live on the planet. At the same time, the new babies are Hybrids because Nature still wants to preserve the best aspects of humanity.
The origin of the Sick and Hybrids serves as an uncomfortable reminder of how cruel and wicked humanity can be, especially when it comes to respecting other species and preserving the environment. Indeed, the final season of Sweet Tooth is anchored in some surprisingly trippy concepts, but the new information we receive about the origin of the Sick and the Hybrids expertly tie into everything we’ve seen in previous seasons.
All eight episodes of the third and final season of Sweet Tooth are available to stream on Netflix starting June 6.