Welcome back, Multiversity readers, for the season two finale of Sweet Tooth! Things were looking up for Gus and his little crew as they settled into the Yellowstone cabin, but with that being the penultimate episode, things had to gear up for this finale. General Abbot, much like any crazy villain, can’t be defeated off-screen, and so he overheard the instructions to the cabin, and it’s time for one last battle. Let’s jump right into “The Ballad of the Last Men.”
1. Doctor’s….Still Going?
Gearing up for the season finale with Gus and his crew preparing for General Abbot’s imminent attack, we get Dr. Singh smashing the model of Evergreen at the zoo instead of that. While it shows the doctor’s frustrations over losing his research and wife, it doesn’t land. Dr. Singh was so hellbent on “the cure” that he didn’t care about the love of his life and was starting to buy into Abbot’s crazy rhetoric about a safe place to live. He killed two hybrid children and used Gus to find the base with Birdie’s research. So when I saw him moping around the zoo and smashing things, it was more of a sweet taste of karma. It’s a safe assumption that he’ll be on a rehabilitation tour for the next season, but I’m hoping he gets more of what’s coming than he believes he deserves.
2. Preparing For War
With Tiger’s last breath, she tells about what happened at the zoo and that Abbot’s men had hidden away before killing everyone in the Animal Army, and he would soon be there. There was no time to mourn as the leaders of the crew (Tommy Jepperd, Aimee Eden, and Gus) got the cabin ready with all the weapons they could find and laid traps in the surrounding forest. Aimee also gave Becky a special mission: to help the children find a safe place to hide while all of this was happening. I wouldn’t call this a suicide mission by any means, but all of those at the cabin seemed prepared to die as long as it meant that Abbot would go down with them. While Gus’ cabin was primarily filled with tools used to do chores around the cabin, he did pull out a container with two syringes filled with “The Sick,” which I thought was weird, but I guess it was like an “in-case everything goes south” tactic.
3. The Truth Will Set You Free
Becky leads the group of children to the couple who helped Gus and Jepperd in season one and asks if they could help house the kids briefly. While the couple was rightfully skeptical, they couldn’t say no once Becky dropped Gus’ name. On the other hand, Wendy wasn’t too keen on being stuck on the sidelines as her mom, Gus, and Jepperd tried to take out potentially a small army on their own. Just as the gondola lift would take them to safety, she bailed, and Becky followed to keep her promise. Becky gets her time to show off how fighting skills and reminds the audience she’s the only one with some real hand-to-hand combat (Jepperd is more of a tank than a strategic fighter). After the takedown, she tells Wendy the truth about being her sister and vows to find her way back to her no matter the costs. It’s almost hilarious how little Wendy cared after hearing that because her mind was solely on Aimee and the cabin. It does come into play later when some animals corner them, and Wendy looks for protection, so it’s a feel-good moment, but it shows they both have that hard-headedness when it comes to the mission at hand.
4. Abbot’s Rampage
Abbot uses this episode to show his teeth and his power. Before his rampage against the crew at Yellowstone, Abbot takes out his brother Johnny at the forest’s edge. It’s cold-blooded, calculated, and encapsulates everything we’ve thought about him throughout the season. Abbot also manages to take a severe beating by Jepperd and delivers a swift kick to his knee after hitting him in the emotional gut by mentioning his dead wife and son. Aimee does her best Shooter impression by trying to take him out with a long-range gun, but he goes one-on-one and beats her down too. What is it that ultimately takes him down? Gus, with the help of a group of buffalo in the forest. Another old school comparison with The Lion King, but it does the job of keeping him down, well, not before he shoots an arrow into Gus’ back. The man is all kinds of evil, and much like any other good villain, he gets as many dirty shots as he can, even if it’s right before he dies.
5. Time For A New Adventure
Despite a damn near close call, Gus miraculously survives the arrow to his back and is healing in bed while Jepperd listens to the tape Birdie made and knows what they need to do next. At the same time, Becky notices the maps to Alaska beneath the stories that Pubba had made Gus, and everything starts to click into place. They’re going on a trip to see Gus’ mom (again) and maybe find a cure for “The Sick” as well. It’ll be interesting, to say the least, because, as Jepperd had mentioned to Gus previously, it’s not somewhere they can walk to. They’re going to need some help with transportation which means new, and hopefully fun, characters to come into place for the show’s final season. There’s plenty to work with due to the source material, but with the writer’s strike, it will likely take another couple of years before we Gus and the crew again.
