A year has passed and everything is still bad. Which may
get even worse as Reiden Global’s plan to wipe out all animals and then try and
rebuild the population afterwards
The gang thinks this is a bad idea because it would be “murder.”
I think it’s a bad idea because there’s absolutely no way humanity could
survive the global ecosystem collapse that would be brought about by mass
animal extinction. Besides, how would it even be done? If would could wipe out
rats we would have done a long long time ago.
Still irrational people don’t always think clearly – and
following the end of last season. We had a vast stampede likely to make
things unpleasant for everyone and stopped them going to get Jaime and her bad
CGI leopard (is it just my memory or is the CGI definitely worse this season?).
We have a whole lot of action while everyone is split up and faces off against
various monsters before reuniting at the International Animal Defence Group to
join with new Official Ally person, Eleanor Lewis.
It’s all bad news – cities are being attacked all over,
people are being moved into safe zones (including Mitch’s family) and it’s all very
dramatic and scary. Resources are stretched thin and there’s even more push for
global suicide by wiping out all animal life unless their intrepid team can
somehow make the cure work. Though even if they do, the fact insects have
started to be affected by the virus means the plan to spread it via mosquito
bite seems unlikely.
Still they need that leopard cub – so everyone’s going on
a helicopter ride (except Chloe) and being treated like heroes on the cusp of
victory (their reputation precedes them) to go rescue Jaime
Except in Canada, Jaimie has been driven out (and her
friendly First Nations plot device has been killed) and is running through the
woods chased by wolves, bears and buffalo. The gang find the leopard she hid –
but not Jaime. Mitch (as Jaime’s designated love interest) is desperate to stay
and look for her despite them being surrounded and eventually Abe has to bodily
drag Mitch back to the helicopter
This now begins a terrible sub plot in which Mitch stomps
around like a child snarling and insulting Abe and genuinely blaming him for
Jaime’s loss. This almost has a good moment when Mitch admits he’s acting like
a child and that they’re all family – but then he continues to go on stomping
and snarling and Abe and generally being an arsehole.
To make matters worse, the cure doesn’t work. The whole
theme of this new season seems to be that the virus is mutating and becoming
something even more scary and the old cure just won’t work. It’s also something
of a reboot – centring around Jackson
He was bitten by a dog and this has already managed to
change his blood type. And since several people have insisted that the virus
can’t spread to humans, we know that’s definitely going to happen. Especially
since a tiger decided not to eat Jackson after smelling his bitten arm. To drive
us down this plot path the team decide to go speak to a scientist who has
apparently discovered the “second tier” mutation.
I’m not sure why – is this to help the cure? Is there a
reason why they have to go? What do they intend to do?
Anyway they’re off to Argentina in the shiny shiny shiny shiny ridiculous new plane that some anonymous benefactor has donated it to them. No it’s ludicrous. When shortages must be hitting it’s beyond belief that they’re going to spend the money necessary to fuel a plane that actually has internal balconies and galleries. This is silly. And there’s still no indication that this hyper-luxe plane has any means of stopping birds from bringing it out of the sky
When they arrive in Argentina and catch up to the doctor
and his squad of rangers, they find them all dead but one – ranger Dariela
Marzan who managed to give the creature hunting them a good stabbing
And yes, the creature is human. More on that later.
Since Dariela lost some good friends she’s all for
killing the creature (a Dr. Kovack) out of revenge but now Chloe has gone into
full panic mode because her Designated Love Interest may be infected and zomg
there must be a CUUUUURE
So she decides to keep him alive (good idea). And to lie
to the authorities about him existing so they won’t get the help of a team of
scientists, major laboratories and the rest of humanity can’t prepare for this
upcoming disaster. Because working with Mitch in a lab they’ve packed in a
fecking plane is CLEARLY the best solution here
….
I’m not even going to call this a bad decision. It isn’t
a bad decision. No human would make this decision. It isn’t a decision. It’s a
convoluted plot ploy so the team can run around playing conspiracy and secrecy
AGAIN rather than actually work with the support network they now have. It’s
clumsy, it’s silly and it’s even worse that it comes from Chloe who was already
so badly treated last season.
Apparently Dr. Korvack was bitten by an elephant and…
An elephant?
Just wandering around Argentina?
And it bites? A biting elephant? Wouldn’t it actually be really really hard for an elephant to bite? Considering how much easier it would be for an elephant to kill the human another way?
This show’s annoying me and it’s only the first double
episode.
So they decide to hunt the elephant to get a blood sample
to see what makes it special – while Abe and Dariela wander off to play with
acid-rain causing vultures (no, really). After some more dramatic scenes (Mitch
and Chloe on the plane also duel with the raging Korvack who escapes, rampages
about a bit being nearly immortal before they lock him up) the gang finally
reunites, escaping from vultures, carrying elephant blood and Korvack locked up
in the plane’s big cage.
Only to discover the elephant is pretty much a normal
mutation – and the likely cause of Korvack changing is in his own DNA (which
means Jackson is still at risk)… not that they can cure him now because Dariel
finally snaps and puts several bullets in his head.
Back to Canada – Jaime survived by hiding from the
animals because these wolves have no sense of smell. She goes on a nature hike
to try and find civilisation – and gets frostbitten and awfulness (it is Canada
after all). After suffering mightily for a hellish long time she finally runs
into a guy called Lucas. Who is also pretty much lost and freezing.
Ok, it’s probably notable that towards the end of this
review I became steadily more inpatient. Let me count my frustrations.
I think there was more action packed in than was
necessary (the team frequently split up for their own animal adventures) which,
especially in a 2 episode stretch, felt like padding
As I’ve made clear, I loathe Chloe’s decision making. I
also loathe Mitch’s tantrum. The unity of the team is one of the few things
that has been really good. Abe continues to be the bright spot of the series
being calm and sensible and oozing beautiful compassion, constantly resolving
conflict and being the wonderful heart of the group. Seeing Mitch treat him
like this is doubly intolerable
I also dislike that the opening has pretty much established Designated Heterosexual Love Interests will be Important this season – with both Chloe and Mitch’s ridiculous behaviour being triggered by it. And, honestly, it hacks me off that, in a media climate where people screech about “forcing gay relationships everywhere,” a show like this is so desperate to ram in some heterosexual sexing and it’s considered background, normal and even required
While I snarked about the CGI and the random biting
elephant, my biggest animal beef this episode was the acid rain vultures.
Intelligent, mutated, tough animals I can get behind. But I thought the whole
POINT of Zoo was to invoke the horror of animals all around us turning on us.
The horror was always more the pet dog or cat turning than random escaped zoo
animals (and my gods there’s a lot of them about!) It was the normal and benign
turning against us which was what made it scary. The more outlandish the
animals become, the less it evokes that horror
Speaking of – humans being infected. No. no no BAD idea.
I hate this because it has been done. “I am ill and turning into a monster.”
Done. Humans degenerating into raging monsters? Oh so done. We do not need
another zombie series. You do not want to turn Zoo into another zombie series. Or even an epidemic series. There’s
a lot of these out there. Animals rising up to wipe us all out? Not so much. It’s
only the second season, you can’t be out of ideas already!
