Sweet Tooth – Season 1, Episode 7

When Pubba Met Birdie

Overview

Scientists, surrounded by snow, pack up a deposit showing microorganisms under a telescope. The women tell them to pack it up and send it off to Fort Smith Scientific research, Jackson way, Essex City, Colorado.

We head into a flashback of what the Fort used to look like as Pubba walks in working as a janitor. His life seems mundane, doing the same thing day in day out while observing what is going on around him. Until an announcement is made on the radio that flu season has come early. He spots women fighting and shouting, “we can’t let this happen at each other.” Sitting in his regular bar, he sits and draws every night. He is approached by a woman who was arguing earlier and asked if she is okay. Giving her a few words of wisdom, which happens to be lyrics from a band they both enjoy. She offers him a drink after a slightly awkward interaction, they both introduce themselves to each other. Birdie a nickname her mother had given her.

After getting to know each other, he asks her about the fight, and she tells him she had been transferred after working on something she feels is her best work yet. She reveals that she found microbes in Alaska that no one else had found to create a vaccine. Pubba asks her what happens if they inject the wrong ones, and she replies, all hell breaks loose. Pubba offers to walk her home, and she accepts. Birdie and Pubba stand together looking at the stars when Birdie offers Pubba to go in for a hot chocolate as she has a sweet tooth and not to tell anyone. Birdie opens and tells Pubba her husband had died, and he had died of HBS, which only affect 1% of people, which is why she stopped teaching and went back to the lab to try and help people. Pubba tells her he enjoys drawing and would have loved to have illustrated or wrote children’s books; however, he cannot develop a story. Just as they are about to share a kiss, Birdie is interrupted by a phone call. She suddenly gets up to leave to work as the military had seized their project in the lab. Birdie tells him her co-worker has hidden her project, but she has no keys to the lab anymore. Pubba tells her not to worry can use his keys. When Birdie and Pubba reach the lab, the Fort is surrounded by police as they head into the lab the back way. Pubba asks Birdie what is going on and why they want to take over the lab. Birdie tells him this is all hell breaking loose.

As Birdie and Richard enter Fort Smith, the lab is crawling with people, and she spots them taking her microbes out of the freezer and Birdie begins to rush down to stop them. Birdie jokes with Richard that he hasn’t had to break into a lab on a date before. Richard is stunned that she calls it a date as he unlocks doors for her. Richard asks Bride what is going on. While approaching an incubation box, she explains that the microbe she had discovered had accidentally created Gus. Birdie tells Richard that they have to get Gus out safely and without them noticing him; otherwise, they will probe him and test him. Richard tells her not to worry that he will make a distraction. Richard walks out with a vacuum cleaner, and the men question him. Birdie holds Gus as she tried to escape, Richard tells her to hurry the way out. Birdie tells Richard he needs to take Gus and leave as she needs to go back to destroy and collect her research as it could potentially cause a huge amount of damage if released. Birdie pleads with Richard to take him and keep him safe; no one would look for him as he is a nobody. As Birdie begins to walk back, the gates close as the Fort goes into lockdown and tells them to leave and she will come and find them.

Richard manages to get Gus out into the car without being detected safely. Richard pulls over to listen to the announcement on the radio reporting the hybrids strain is the most dangerous strain of virus they have ever seen. He goes to the back of the car to comfort a fussing Gus and tells him not to worry that he’s going to protect him. He starts to tell Gus a story as they set off into Yellowstone National Park, where he is planning to settle down with him. As Bear, Gus and Jepp approach their new settlement, they sit and have a well-deserved break. Bears concern for not finding his mother grows, and they decide that Jepp should be the one to speak to him. They walk around the corner to find out they are at Sal’s bar.

The group spot smoke coming from a house and follow up on it. Surrounded by beautiful flowers, Gus rushes over to the home and bangs on the door. Gus shouts through the door, mom, it’s me. As we hear women shouting from within the house, she approaches the door and yells at them to get off her property. Jepp explains to her that they aren’t there to hurt her. Gus says to her. Your names, not Birdie, is it. The woman is taken back as she opens the door and is shocked that he is still alive. Bear asks the lady what she should call her, she replies with Judy and explains to Jepp & Bear that she has lived in that house since the sickness came along, she was a work friend of Birdie and that she had saved her life and allowed her to stay at the address with her. Gus asks where his mother is now. With deep regret, Judy tells Gus that she no longer lives there. She packed a bag one night and went on the hunt for Gus, which was 10 years ago, and she has been alone ever since. Gus notices Fort Smith on a vase in the house, and it’s the same as the lanyard his Pubba carried. Judy realises that Richard was Gus’s dad and hands him over a key to the attic. Judy tells him Birdie had made her promise not to show anyone but that she would want Gus to see it.

They enter the attic door and unlock it using the key Judy gave them. Searching through different boxes, Gus finds a picture of his mam and his ‘grandpubba’ Jepp tried to prepare Gus for the worst, and it turns out he had already overhead some of Bears and Jepp conversation. Birdie calls over Jepp to have a look at something. Gus pulls out a file and is over the moon to find out it spells his name. Genetic Unit Series 1. Bear and Jepp try and tell him the files nothing, and it’s just a project his mam had been working on. Jepp pulls out a picture of Gus as a baby surrounded by people and wires and tubes sticking out of him. Gus becomes increasingly agitated with this new information. Bear tells Gus that she was adopted and tried to explain that her parents didn’t make her but still loved her all the same, and the concept confuses Gus. Jepp tries his best to protect Gus from the truth; however, he is insistent on knowing the truth. Finally, Gus comes to the gut reaction conclusion that if these scientists created him, he has no mother and father. Jepp explains that’s Pubba kept him safe and secure. Gus loses his temper with the overload of information. Gus runs out of the house and into the woods and doesn’t stop running when suddenly surrounding him are a stampede of deer. Gus eventually comes to a stop in the middle of the woods as he collapses to his knees.