Wait, So Gus Isn't the First Hybrid in 'Sweet Tooth'? Season 3 Revelations Explained (SPOILERS)

Spoiler warning: This article contains spoilers for Season 3 of Sweet Tooth.

When viewers first became engulfed in the Sweet Tooth series, they were led to believe that Gus (Christian Convery) was the first hybrid to walk the Earth. After all, he is the first of his kind to develop from a sample the Fort Smith Labs team took from Alaska.

Little did they know, they hadn’t actually stumbled across a phenomenon (i.e. the ability to create half-human, half-animal beings) but instead, were recreating history.

The third and final season of Sweet Tooth not only confirms that The Sick originated from Alaska, with the first wave beginning in the early 1900s, but also reveals that Gus isn’t actually the first hybrid. So, who is the first hybrid, and how many others were there before Gus?

When Gillian Washington (Robyn Malcolm) set out to complete her great-grandfather’s mission to find a cure for all illnesses, one pertinent piece of information she likely wasn’t privy to is that he, Dr. James Thacker, had already found it. Upon making his discovery, he grew greedy and, in return, died for his sin.

You see, in 1911, during his mission to the Arctic, Thacker uncovered a mythical cave housing a tree containing the blood of the Earth. After obtaining a sample of this blood, which possesses the power to both cure and spread disease, as well as create hybrids, Thacker unlocked The Sick while simultaneously paving the way for hybrids to be born.

While The Sick died with Thacker and his men, Ikiaq, a native woman who became impregnated by one of Thacker’s crew, Nathaniel Burke, died shortly after giving birth to the first hybrid, a half-boy, half-caribou being. He would come to be known to the outside world as a mythical creature called “the caribou man.”

The caribou man’s real name is Munaqsriri or Munaq, and he is actually the first hybrid to be born in Sweet Tooth. He is the son of Ikiaq and Nathaniel Burke and lives to be over 100 years old. We learn all of this after Munaq rescues an unconscious Birdie in the snow after she was attacked by one of Zhang's men.

Unfortunately, Munaq meets his demise after Rosie (played by Kelly Marie Tran) releases her wolves, aka her hybrid sons, to find Gus and they attack Munaq in the process. Shortly after, he succumbs to his injuries.

Munaq spent much of his life out of sight inside a small church nestled deep in the lands of Alaska. He made it his mission to prevent anyone from finding the cave to ensure nature could take its course. Munaq acknowledges how unkind humans were to him and tells Gus and Birdie that they do not deserve the world.

Although Munaq believes the cave’s location dies with him, Gus and Birdie use Ikiaq’s carvings on a walrus tusk and a map to lead them right to it.

So, while Gus may not be the first of his kind, he is the first to cure The Sick, allowing what few humans are left to live out their remaining years.

Seasons 1 through 3 of Sweet Tooth are now available to stream on Netflix.