Review: Sweet Tooth S1 is Different, but Very Good

Netflix dropped Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth on June 4, and it’s quite the trip. The show is based of the DC/Vertigo title of the same name, where Lemire sets us in a post-apocalyptic United States where a disease has wiped out a good chunk of the population and any newborn child is a animal/human hybrid.

The comic is pretty dark, but Warner decided to go more of the all ages, fairy tale route; it was a bold move that pays off.

Gus (Christian Convery) is a deer/human hybrid that is hidden away with his father, Pubba (Will Forte); they are hiding in a national forest because the Last Men, an army of humans, hunt hybrids to try to find a cure to the sick. When Pubba finally succumbs to the sick, Gus goes against his final wishes and leaves the forest with Jeppard, aka Big Man (Nonso Anozie), who happens to save Gus from a few of the Last Men.

Together, Gus and Jeppard, reluctantly, start a quest to find Gus’s mother in Colorado. They encounter more of the Last Men, an Animal Army, and eventually other hybrids. Sprinkled in are scenes from the sanctuary, a safe haven created by Aimee (Dania Ramirez) who has cut herself off from humanity, and the new suburban life with Aditya Singh (Adeel Akhtar) and his sick wife Rani (Aliza Vellani) who are trying to find a cure.

The acting is very good for what many consider a kids show; Convery and Anozie have great chemistry. Convery is actually the perfect choice for Gus; he portrays the character with the innocence and naivety of someone that has never experienced anything other then seclusion. I was a little more skeptical of Anozie as Jeppard; he was younger then the comic version, and that version reminded me more of Clint Eastwood in Gran Tarino. Instead, we got a lot more depth with the younger version.

For those that read the comic, you get the basic gist of the story without many of the details; Jeppard’s character is much different and doesn’t trick Gus like he did in the first volume of the graphic novel. They also changed Singh’s backstory, but, again, he’s got more depth then his printed counterpart along with a moral compass. The important thing is they end up in the same spot as the comic; the season 1 ending matches up with where many of the characters are at the end of volume 1.

Another big change was the sanctuary, as it was rumored to be a thing in the comic but never seen; Aimee was created for the show. It took me a while to realize she was a new character, as I was trying to match her up with some of the characters in the book that hadn’t been seen yet.

I am curious to see where this goes, as Gus’s backstory appears to go a different route then the comic; the original story had more of a indigenous religious slant to it and I don’t see that they are going that route (Screen Rant wrote a good article about the differences between the 2 stories).

I’d recommend this as family viewing; there is no bad language or sexual situations. There might be a few violent scenes, but more of those are implied then actually shown.

Rating: Using the PC Bombcast Universal Untappd Rating System, I give this an easy 4.25 out of 5. I went in expecting the comic, but didn’t come out disappointed when they changed a lot of it (unlike Glenn’s first “death” in the Walking Dead). I highly recommend watching it, but I’d also recommend adults read the graphic novel, because it’s an amazing story as well.