Sweet Tooth season two review: Wholesome entertainment with dark undertones

Despite some shaky accents and wooden performances, the fantasy's pace and young talent propel its second season to new heights

Christian Convery plays hybrid child Gus. Photo: Netflix

The second season of Netflix’s Sweet Tooth delivers all the entertainment, excitement and quirky wonder the first season delighted audiences with.

Available on the streaming platform from Thursday, the eight visually striking new episodes are a balance between wholesome entertainment and quirky humour — centred on the themes of power, survival and what makes us human.

Based on the comic book of the same name by Jeff Lemire, the adventure is set in a post-apocalyptic world where 98 per cent of humanity has been wiped out due to the “great crumble”, or "the Sick".

The rise of the Sick, also known as the H5G9 virus, coincided with the sudden births of hybrid children — babies born as part human, part animal. This leads many people to believe that the two occurrences are connected, sparking cruel prejudice against the children, who are often separated from their families and hunted down.

Gus, a nine-year-old, human-deer hybrid, lives in hiding in the wilderness. However, when his father dies, Gus leaves to search for the woman he believes is his mother. On his travels, he teams up with "Big Man" Tommy Jepperd, a lone traveller with a mysterious past of his own as well as Bear, or Becky, the leader of the hybrid-rescuing Animal Army, who is searching for her hybrid sister.

The story also follows Dr Aditya Singh as he and his wife are trying to find a cure for the Sick. Season one ends with Singh, his wife and Gus being captured by General Abbot — the power-hungry leader of the Last Men, a militia group who hunt hybrids.

First airing in June 2021, the pandemic and politics of Sweet Tooth gave its first season a familiar edge. Season two has a new wave of the Sick threatening what remains of humanity, now frayed and living in lawlessness — raising the stakes for all involved.

Gus, wonderfully played by Christian Convery, is imprisoned with a group of young hybrids. He is desperately trying to plan their escape and reunite with Big Man.

All the while, General Abbot is obsessed with finding a cure as a means to assert power over three other leaders who pose a threat to his position in the new world.

Abbot plans to use both Dr Singh and the hybrids to achieve this goal — no matter the cost.

The series is well-paced with a gripping plot, filled with cliffhangers, nuance and more questions than answers. The humour is very unexpected, particularly with the hybrid children. Even the antagonists of the show, Gen Abbot specifically, are not so much scary as they are comical in their villainy.

The strength of the plot is definitely the story, the ongoing mystery of what caused the Sick and how role the hybrids link to it. This was a little messy in the first season but is very cleverly revealed in season two, in a way that feels authentic to the world-building.

What doesn’t work in the show is minor but obvious.

Surprisingly, the acting between some of the adult characters feels wooden, especially in climatic scenes where emotions are running high. Another element that may pull audiences out of the story is the range of unconvincing American accents.

We know that the story is set in the Midwest and while the American accents may vary, with some characters having moved across country, this does little to assuage the inconsistencies. The show is filmed in New Zealand and many of the actors were hired locally, creating a strange mesh of accents that would sometimes change scene per scene with one character.

Despite these minor details, the other, stronger elements of the show work.

The most gripping theme that shines through convincingly in all of the character arcs, from their backstories to the choices they make in the present, is how much each is willing to sacrifice for what they want.

The lines between what is good and bad, what is human and what isn’t, shift constantly as we learn more about each character and see the obstacles they are up against.

In short, season two is a binge-worthy show that will leave audiences with plenty to discuss — be it who their favourite character is, what kind of hybrid animal they would like to be or broader existential questions, like what it really means to be human.

Season Two of Sweet Tooth will be available to stream on Netflix from Thursday