In post-apocalyptic dramas, scientists are either portrayed as megalomaniacs who seek to defy the natural processes and who, due to their obsession with making a discovery, end up destroying the world, or they become the saviors who toil hard behind closed doors and restore balance to the world. Dr. Gertrude “Birdie” Miller, in “Sweet Tooth,” at the beginning of her journey was just seeking to increase the life expectancy of human beings, but eventually, she realized the damage she had done and then sought to redeem her mistakes by sacrificing her life for the cause of humanity.
Spoilers Alert
Fort Smith, the medical facility where she worked, had undertaken an ambitious project under the leadership of Dr. Gillian Washington where they wanted to see if the world could be free of diseases and if it was possible for humans to never get ill. Gillian had gotten this idea from her great-grandfather, Dr. James Thacker, who had gone to Alaska after he came to know about a native tribe that had been able to achieve the same feat. Dr. Thacker wanted to cure his degenerative muscle disorder, which he knew could be genetically inherited by his future lineage. Nobody heard of James Thacker after he reached Alaska, and so the research on whether the life expectancy of humans could be increased and whether we could have a disease-free world came to a halt. Years later, Gillian wanted to find out if what her great-grandfather believed had some truth to it or not. Gertrude Miller was the lead scientist for the project called Midnight Sun. She and her team had gone to Alaska and collected samples of plants and animals. Their quest had led to an unimaginable discovery: they had found a very unique type of microbe in the ice cores. These microbes were not found in any place on earth, and Dr. Miller believed that they were the key to helping them achieve their dream of a disease-free world.
How Did Gertrude Miller Create The First Hybrids?
The microbes that were discovered beneath the earth’s surface were injected inside chicken eggs, and the results were beyond anybody’s imagination. These microbes made some modifications inside the immune system of the chicken, and the team of scientists was very sure that they could do a similar thing with humans too. But still, there was a long way to go before human trials could be conducted, and Gillian Washington wanted to get there as fast as she could. Dr. Miller noticed that in one of the eggs, she could hear a heartbeat, similar to what we hear when a child is in its mother’s womb. That was how Gus, the first hybrid, was created, and it somehow derailed the entire research for which Dr. Gillian initiated Project Midnight Sun in “Sweet Tooth” in the first place.
Gillian wanted Miller to focus on researching Gus and his biology as she believed that it could help their cause, but Gertrude Miller got so fascinated by the accidental creation that she stopped working in the direction of increasing life expectancy. Dr. Miller felt responsible for the little one, and when she took him in her hands, she found herself acting on her motherly instincts for him. Dr. Miller knew that Gus would be treated as a mere subject of medical research, and the scientist wouldn’t even bat an eye before taking his life in order to demystify the riddles of nature. Therefore, after the virus spread and people started dying, she made sure that Gus was taken to a hidden location where no scientist could find him. She only knew one man on whom she could place her trust, and surprisingly, she had met him only a couple of times. Richard worked as a janitor in the same research facility, and he had taken a liking to Gertrude Miller. They had met in a bar one time and were instantly attracted to each other. Dr. Miller asked Richard to take Gus with him, and though he was hesitant at first, he eventually did take on the huge responsibility and promised to look after him like his own son. Gus might have been created in a lab, but the people who took on the responsibility to protect him loved him more than any parent could ever do.
Will Gertrude Miller Make A Breakthrough In ‘Sweet Tooth’ Season 3?
Gillian Washington was very disappointed in Gertrude Miller, and when she met her after the breakout, she told her to reveal where she was hiding Gus so that humanity could be saved from the wrath of the deadly virus. Gillian had self-injected herself because she wanted to see what the microbes did in a human body. Gillian had become impatient, and she didn’t wait for proper permission to conduct human trials. Gillian believed that Gus was the key to stopping the pandemic and increasing the life expectancy of humans. But Gertrude Miller believed that there had to be another way, and after learning about James Thacker and how he was related to Gillian Washington, she decided to go to Alaska in search of answers.
It had been more than a decade since Dr. Miller was missing from the scene, though, until the end of “Sweet Tooth” Season 2, she hadn’t been able to find a cure. For Gertrude Miller, it was important that Gus knew that she hadn’t left him to fend for himself, and she did feel responsible for him like any mother would. To make Gus understand why she had chosen to leave him, she left behind a tape recording for Gus explaining to him her intentions and motivations. Dr. Miller knew that if she stayed with Gus, she would endanger his life, and sooner or later, the authorities would catch hold of him for medical experimentation.
In “Sweet Tooth” Season 3, though the responsibility to save the world and develop a cure would lay upon Dr. Gertrude Miller, we believe that she would greatly benefit from Dr. Aditya and the research work that he had been obsessing over since his wife was infected with the virus. We believe that Dr. Miller would have felt that she was very close to getting those answers; probably, that is why she had stayed in the Alaskan region for such a long time. We think that she would have already made certain path-breaking discoveries and was waiting until she understood everything in its entirety. It is quite possible that Dr. Miller was not the only one who was in Alaska in search of answers, and probably there were other scientists too who had established a setup and were conducting their research on the subject matter.
