Weird Deer S**t
Episode 3 of Sweet Tooth Season 1 begins with a new set of characters – the Animal Army. This group of enthusiastic kids are all involved in virtual reality games. When an alarm blares, they all hurry out the arcade they’ve been in and prepare to strike. Meanwhile, Tommy and Gus head off on the road again. They travel across vast stretches of land, eventually making it to Tommy’s stash. This happens to be a kitted out bus. It’s an interesting dynamic between the two here, with Gus’ innocence playing off the Big Man’s regret and poignancy surrounding his own past. In the morning, Gus learns the people after them are the originally named Last Men. They’re scavengers – and dangerous. Tommy is well aware of this and gives Gus a disguise to act as a human child dressing up as a hybrid to disguise that he is, obviously, a hybrid. There are hybrids at the town but only in cages. Meanwhile, Singh continues to practice medicine while praying that he can keep his wife alive for long enough to see a vaccine through to completion. There are numerous depictions of different experiments and ideas within Dr Bell’s journals too, echoes of words including “dissection” and “hybrid”. Right now, Singh can’t bring himself to face this. Rani’s hand shaking and the inability to control the virus however, may challenge Singh’s conviction here. For now, this idyllic community continues to live life like normal but there are echoes of savagery at work here. In fact, Rani points out Hanson’s burned down house, allegedly so because he decided against attending these parties. Well, the party they attend is all fun and games… until their host Doug finds his hand starting to shake. Immediately everyone dons their masks, leaving it up to Adi to check his blood. It’s not good news. He’s infected – and potentially because of Rani. Everyone leaves Doug tied up in his house and sets it on fire. They all watch it burn, believing another wave of this virus is on the way. Meanwhile, Tommy and Gus make it into town, following the newly departed train up to a military checkpoint. After paying off the guard with a couple of batteries, Tommy leads Gus up and they start eating caramel apples. Tommy grabs him and takes the kid aside, telling him to stop with the weird deer sh*t and not to talk to anyone unless they speak first. Well, Tommy manages to get them train tickets but it involves giving up laces and driving a hard bargain to do so. Tommy hands over the tickets and prepares to let him board. Only, Tommy gets distracted by Gus’ sense of smell, where he manages to suss out a box of medicine lying dormant in a carriage nearby. It all goes horribly wrong from here. The train departs, Tommy is tackled to the ground and the truth about Gus is revealed. They’re blindfolded and led away, eventually stopped by the Animal Army, who happen to be sporting the same skeletal outfits we saw outside the visitor venter last episode. As they show up before the pair, things are left on an ominous cliffhanger. Just before we leave the episode however, we cut across to a guy called General Abbott. Although to be fair, he might as well be called Dr Robotnik part 2! Anyway, he’s approached by one of his men who confirms that they’ve found “her”, prompting him to give the order to start packing.
The Episode Review
Sweet Tooth continues to expand the lore and ideas in this series, with the introduction of the Animal Army and a human settlement. The scanners and the whole paranoia surrounding the military is a nice touch and the production design overall in this has been absolutely superb. That’s to say nothing of the story though, which is really interesting and peppered with enough mystery to keep you watching to find out what happens next. Quite who these kids are and how they formed the Animal Army remains to be seen, but it does look like they’re integral to this whole plot line. Speaking of which, Dr Singh’s idyllic settlement with parties and freedom turns out to be just another cage. The way the townsfolk just left Doug to burn without batting an eyelid hints that they’ve been doing this for a long time. It’s clear that all these storylines are going to start converging together soon, leaving the door wide open for where the rest of the season may go.
