Sweet Tooth Theory: The Purple Flowers Can Cure The Sick

Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Sweet Tooth season 1.

Alongside the bizarre births of animal-human hybrid babies and the ravaging sickness of the H5G9 virus, Sweet Tooth also presents another oddity that arose during the Great Crumble: purple flowers that grow up around places where people are infected with the Sick. Humans treat the purple flowers as dangerous and eradicate them when they appear, but what if the purple flowers actually contain a cure for the virus?

Sweet Tooth episode 7, “When Pubba Met Birdie,” reveals that the virus and the hybrid babies came from the same original source: microbes discovered by a science team in the Alaskan ice, brought back to Birdie’s lab and injected into chicken eggs with the intention of growing vaccines. Instead, Birdie accidentally grew a deer-boy hybrid, and before she could get any further her research materials were confiscated and she was transferred away from the project. Shortly afterwards the H5G9 virus began wiping out humanity, while at the same time all babies began being born as hybrids.

Between the virus wiping out most of the world’s population and the systematic extermination of hybrid children, the future of mankind is looking very short indeed. Dr. Aditya Singh is attempting to create a cure for “the Sick” by vivisecting the hybrid children captured by General Abbott and the Last Men – but he could be looking in entirely the wrong place.

What Sweet Tooth Reveals About The Purple Flowers

The purple flowers are first introduced in Sweet Tooth episode 3, “Weird Deer S**t,” as Tommy and Gus are journeying towards the train station. In the distance they see a small town completely covered in the purple flowers, with a large yellow biohazard sign warning people away. Gus notes that they never had flowers like that at his home, and he thinks that his Pubba would have liked them (which may actually have been a sly hint at their true nature, since Pubba dies from the Sick in episode 1). Tommy is not so enamored, telling Gus, “Those flowers show up every time the Sick does. They’re like an omen or something.”

Even the nature-loving Bear thinks that the purple flowers are dangerous. When she, Tommy and Gus are forced to cross the Valley of Sorrows – a great meadow of purple flowers that grew up over a mass grave of the Sick – she describes them as “toxic” and says that no one goes near them unless they have a death wish. In Rani and Adi’s community, the purple flowers are eradicated as soon as they appear. People seem to believe that since the flowers grow up near sick people, that they may also spread the virus. However, people also believe that hybrid children caused the Sick, which is not true. When Gus falls into the Valley of Sorrows, the only effect he experiences from the flowers’ pollen is vivid dreaming. What if the flowers aren’t actually dangerous, but are the key to saving humanity?

How The Purple Flowers Could Cure the Sick

Since the purple flowers in Sweet Tooth appeared at the same time as the H5G9 virus and the hybrid babies, it’s safe to assume that they’re somehow linked the microbes that Birdie was experimenting on in her lab. All three phenomena could even be caused by the same microbe having different effects: causing sickness and death in humans, causing genetic mutations in fetuses during pregnancy, and also causing mutations of plant life. Birdie said that the Sick and the hybrids are two sides of the same coin; the purple flowers could be the coin’s edge. And if the purple flowers come from the same source as the virus, a possible treatment for Rani may have been staring Adi in the face.

Before learning about Birdie’s research and Gus’s origins, Bear believed that the hybrids and the virus were the planet’s natural way of healing from the destructive influence of mankind: whittling the human population down to a fraction of what it once was, and creating hybrid animal-human babies that can live in harmony with nature. While the Great Crumble may have been triggered by a team of scientists in a lab rather than by Mother Nature herself, parts of Bear’s theory could still hold true. The purpose of the Sick may have been to bring the human population back down to a manageable number, while the flowers could save humanity from becoming completely extinct.

Dr. Bell’s temporary treatment for Rani was made by using extracts from the pineal gland and bone marrow of hybrid children to create a “Secret Sauce” that staves off the Sick. If the virus, the hybrids, and the flowers all come from the same microbial source, then the flowers could provide a more permanent cure. Alternatively, the flowers may hold the secret to creating a vaccine that protects the remaining human population from the virus.

Why The Flowers Being The Cure Would Be Perfect

The purple flowers secretly containing the key to curing the Sick would fit perfectly with Sweet Tooth‘s themes of the healing power of nature, and the destructive power of mankind. In their search for a cure, both Dr. Bell and Dr. Singh turned to the cruellest possible type of research: vivisecting live hybrid children and destroying an incredible new species for the sake of preserving humanity. It would feel out of place with Sweet Tooth‘s narrative if Dr. Singh did successfully find a cure by cutting up the poor hybrids at the Preserve. It’s more likely that Dr. Bell was unable to find a cure simply because she was looking in the wrong place.

While Sweet Tooth is overall a pretty uplifting take on a post-apocalyptic world, all of its darkest elements come from mankind’s mistreatment of the natural world. The hybrids are shunned, experimented on and exterminated because people falsely believe that they spread the Sick, so it would make sense if humanity’s belief that the purple flowers are toxic was also false. And there would be a certain poetic irony if nature was offering up a cure for the Sick right on people’s doorsteps, only for humans to destroy and burn it as soon as it appears.

If the purple flowers really are the key to curing the Sick, this is something that could be explored further in Sweet Tooth season 2. Places like the Valley of Sorrows and the town covered in purple flowers are considered no-go areas, so they could actually be hiding something. Perhaps communities of formerly sick people are living in these towns, or perhaps hybrids are using them as safe havens. One thing seems certain: there’s more to the purple flowers than meets the eye.

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Hannah Shaw-Williams
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Hannah has been with Screen Rant since 2013, covering news, features, movie premieres, Comic-Con and more! You can follow her on Twitter @HSW3K

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