While it is relatively easier to keep one’s moral compass rigid during uneventful times, it is the dire situations that test the character and can even break the most sensible among us. Dr. Aditya Khatri in Sweet Tooth represents such a hapless soul bound by circumstances, which later took their toll by robbing him of his sanity and any sort of human connection he had left. Although that’s not to say he was only a victim of circumstances, he willingly went down a darker path from which there was no return and considered that the end justifies the means.
Dr. Singh has been one of the most significant characters in the Sweet Tooth series, more so than his comic counterpart, as his story progresses in a parallel way with the main narrative of Gus from the very beginning and gradually merges at the end of the first season. We will take a brief look at his journey so far and try to answer some key questions involving him that the second season of the series has raised.
Spoilers Ahead
Did Dr. Aditya Singh Manage To Synthesize A Cure In The Second Season?
As seen in the previous season, in the post-apocalyptic world of Sweet Tooth, synthesizing a cure for H5G9 viral infection was a top priority not only for the oppressive militia “Last Men” led by General Abbot but also for Dr. Aditya Singh, as he had a very personal stake. Aditya’s wife Rani had been afflicted with the deadly disease, and in order to sustain her, Aditya resorted to some pretty questionable decisions, like hiding the body of a dead neighbor who had discovered Rani’s condition or following Dr. Bell’s experimental procedures of harvesting the brain stem cells of hybrid kids to create a temporary cure for the infection. These morally corrupt choices can be excused for the personal stake, with the question of survival being related to them, but gradually they push Aditya to the verge of darkness, from which there is no escape.
By the end of the first season, we see General Abbot seizing Aimee’s sanctuary for her adopted hybrid kids, along with Gus, and blackmailing Aditya to work for him to create a permanent cure, with his wife’s life in the balance. Dr. Singh had to experiment and extract stem cells from Aimee’s kids, and Roy, the chameleon boy, was the first victim. Later, when he interrogated Gus, he came to know that Gus might be the first hybrid baby, who also wasn’t born naturally and is a result of microbe culture experimentation at Fort Smith. At the Fort Smith lab, Dr. Singh finds Gus’ mother figure, Birdie, aka Gertrude Miller’s research on the creation of a viable culture, which is linked with both the creation of the hybrid babies and the viral outbreak. Using Birdie’s research, the test subject Miller chickens on whom the microbe augmentations were used as a trial in the first place, and killing yet another hybrid kid to harvest stem cells, Dr. Singh manages to create an antibody, which is presumably the permanent cure for the infection. Aditya gains some sense of hope that after all that he and his wife have been through, they will get a second chance at life together. However, fate has other plans as, much to his dismay, Dr.Singh discovers that the new cure isn’t permanent either.
By now, Aditya has gone down such a long downward spiral that justifying his actions with survival necessities is not going to cut it. Rani asks him to leave this wretched life behind them, as she wants to live the rest of her life freely with the man she loves, and they even get the chance to do so when General Doug Abbot’s brother, Johnny, presents them with a chance to escape. However, Aditya has been driven to his work so much that he has become sort of a maniac now, whose existence is only justified by his purpose, which is to create the cure. Aditya goes to his lab for one last time to take essential research papers to continue his mission but finds his work ablaze, and after returning, he sees Rani has left him as well. A broken Aditya sees the Ganesha idol his mother gave him sitting right in front of him, the part animal, part human deity who symbolizes perfection, almost as if mocking the futile attempt of the humans who thought they could get one over nature.
Why Didn’t The Purple Flower Affect Dr. Singh?
In the world of Sweet Tooth, the purple flower is of special significance. The flowers first appeared almost at the same time the viral outbreak started and grew at places where the infestation of the virus was at its maximum. This led to the suspicion that the flowers were harbingers of death, and humans tended to avoid them at all costs. Even as Birdie went to explore James Thacker’s (the scientist whose footstep Gillian followed to discover the microbe) ship in the Alaskan Arctic, purple flowers were present at that place as well. However, in the first season, Gus receives a vision of his deceased pubba after getting surrounded by the flower, and later, Dr.Singh uses the same flowers to make Gus see visions from his infancy, thereby deducing Fort Smith’s connection with the entire ordeal. In the final episode of the second season, after losing his purpose, better half, and humanity—in short, everything—a despondent Dr.Singh goes to the room engulfed in purple flowers to infect himself. To his utter surprise, nothing of the sort happens, and he exits unharmed.
This phenomenon might hint that the general perspective regarding the purple flowers might be as wrong as the previous suspicion about hybrids being the cause of the viral outbreak. As the second season highlights, the mutation of the microbe resulted in both the H5G9 outbreak and the birth of natural-born animal-human hybrids, and purple flowers appear in the places where the presence of the microbe is hinted at—even in unmutated form like in James Thacker’s ship. The purple flowers can really be the key to reversing the effect of the infection if we consider the fact that weaker strains of a microbe are used to create vaccines, not to mention that they’re also in sync with the misanthropic message of the source material.
What Is The Significance Of Gus’ Antler That Dr. Singh Possesses?
Alternatively, another important object that can be used to synthesize a permanent cure as well, which is currently in possession of Dr. Singh, who, in all likelihood, is going to use it, is Gus’ severed horn. In season two, the tyrannical, pathetic General Abbot forcefully severed one of his antlers just to make him fear the humans, which later Dr. Singh comes across. From Birdie’s research and stored away video logs in Fort Smith, Dr. Singh already knows that Gus, the acronym for Generic Unit Series 01, was the first hybrid kid to be born, that too by accident when creating a culture for the mutated microbe results in his birth. So far, humans have tried using the brain stem cells of hybrid kids to create a vaccine, which turned out to be temporary, and even Dr. Singh’s effort to create an antigen by Miller chicken DNA and combining that with stem cells didn’t result in success. Gus’ DNA might hold the key, being the very first variant of the mutation and the exact opposite spectrum of another unfertilized egg that released the devastating outbreak. The horn, along with the purple flower, might be the key to preventing the total extinction of humanity and the prosperity of the animal-human hybrid species, which strikes a more harmonious relationship with nature than humans ever could. But obviously, to come up with a definite answer, we have to wait for the third season of this series.
