Sweet Tooth Season 3 parents guide: Netflix’s dark fairy tale ends

It’s been a long time coming – the show first premiered in 2021 – but Sweet Tooth is coming to an end on Netflix after three short seasons. The show is presented as a dark fairy tale, and if you and your kids are already fans, you may know what to expect from Season 3. But let’s discuss the age rating, and who it’s appropriate for – because, without spoilers, things continue to be pretty dark in these new episodes.

In the show, Gus (Christian Convery) is a hybrid – a kid who is half animal, half human. We’ve followed him, Tommy Jepperd (Nonso Anozie) and other friends as they’ve trekked across the post-apocalyptic America that has been ravaged by a virus known as The Sick. And in the final season, Gus, Jepp and company are headed to Alaska to find Gus’s mom Birdie (Amy Seimetz), and perhaps stop The Sick once and for all.

Along for the ride are Wendy (Naledi Murray), a half-pig hybrid kid, Becky (Stefania LaVie Owen) who is Wendy’s human sister, and of course James Brolin as the unnamed Narrator. We’ve also got some new characters including Siana (Cara Gee) and Nuka (Ayazhan Dalabeyeva), who live in Alaska. And we’ve also got new antagonists including the devious Mrs. Zhang (Rosalind Chao), and her daughter Rosie (Kelly Marie Tran).

Again without spoiling things – all episodes are on Netflix now – the show comes to a definitive conclusion, and that means not everyone makes it out alive - right? Read on for what you need to know.

Sweet Tooth Season 3 Parents Guide: Explaining The TV-14 Age Rating

Sweet Tooth is rated TV-14 on Netflix for “fear, language, smoking.” But how scared do your kids need to be of the language and smoking? Read on to find out.

Sex & Nudity: None. There’s some flirting and hints of romance, but that’s the sum of it.

Violence: A lot, actually, and surprisingly left out of the age rating by Netflix. Characters get stabbed, hurt, and killed. In earlier seasons animal kids were dissected. And throughout there have been big, brutal battles with the season’s bad guys. This season there’s the addition of a bunch of wolf cub kids who are particularly scary, and tend to rip their victims to shreds. There’s also (and I don’t think this is too much of a spoiler) several action movie style climactic battles, complete with explosions and bodies flying.

And not strictly violence, but there are a lot of dead bodies lying around because of The Sick.

Language: There are some mild curses, and I will spoil one thing for the sake of this parents guide: they get in one F-bomb by the series’ end.

Drinking & Drugs: For the adults, there’s some drinking since it is the apocalypse and all. One character gets pretty wasted at a bar at one point.

Overall Verdict: What Age Is Sweet Tooth Season 3 Appropriate For?

The show has been charting Gus’s slow move towards adulthood, and while this still is a kids and teens show, it is appropriately the most grown-up season so far. While the wolf kids are scary in particular, it’s not much worse than an original Grimm’s fairytale; though my blood-averse children might disagree with that assessment.

Also, there are some serious topics throughout, and less of the adorable animal children from Season 2, so it’s fair to say the show grew up with the audience.

Overall estimation? If your kids are okay with action violence and are interested in a viral apocalypse that is full of whimsy and heart, anyone 10 or up should be okay with this. If your kids are scaredy-cats or afraid of blood, though, you might want to wait a year or two to show them the series.