Friday, July 8, 2016

Zoo, Season 1, Episode 3: Collision Point



Ok, looking again at the opening spiel – when did the narrative become “we have to save the animals!” rather than “animals be killing us all?!”

Anyway, the gang is all moody after Dariela killed their little monster man and Mitch continues to be an utter arsehole (best moment of the episode, Abe finally calls Mitch out in epic terms. Abe remains awesome. By far and away the most awesome character on the show.) Dariela snarls at everyone but Chloe quickly steps in to prove who is Officially In Charge, damn it. And I’d cheer her if it weren’t for the fact every decision Chloe has ever made has been wrong wrong wrong. Most recent example being her utter insistence that they don’t tell anyone that Jackson is infected with the evil death animal plague.

Abe and Deriela also have a fling. And I’m both glad isn’t the glaring man out while at the same time more than a little tired by everyone having to couple off at all times.

The evil animals this time are… ants. Nasty electric ants. Yes, electric ants. Electric ants that crawl inside people and electrocute them. Electric ants that want to reach the particle accelerator in Switzerland and cause massive explosions

As I said last episode, I’m more engaged by the animals that are a little warped, rather than those that barely even resemble the creatures they were before. Electric ants? Where one ant can electrocute someone to death? Really?

The team naturally rallies and kills lots of ants and saving the day before the particle accelerator does scary things. Perhaps more important to the characters rather than the random animal weirdness of the week is some level of co-operation between the group – with Mitch seeming to bury the hatchet sufficiently with both Abe and Dariela to not snarl like a bad tempered child every 5 seconds. Please let this continue because it’s beyond tiresome!


While struggling against the ants, Mitch also realises all the evil animals ignore Jackson. After which Jackson realises that Chloe the wrong one is, indeed, wrong and he needs to tell Mitch the truth. Remember, whatever Chloe says is wrong – always.

One of the casualties to the electric ant assassins (the sentences this website makes me type!) is Eleanor, alas. Apparently by total random coincidence and not to stop her exposing a conspiracy (uh-huh… actually to doesn’t seem to be total random coincidence which is just sad. Either that or the Noah plan supporters are secretly working for/with animal kind)

The conspiracy is led by General Davies, a big fan of the Noah project who will do absolutely anything to implement it. Including assassinating anyone who opposes it (or conveniently benefitting from electric ant murder…). He even goes so far to shoot Eleanor’s assistant in order to search him for her files – except those files have already been taken by Jackson and the gang

What is on those files? The explosive evidence that the Noah project which Davies is such a fan of will not only kill lots of animals but also, *gasp* over 2 million people!

Wait… 2 million people?

Is that all? I’m not downplaying how big a number that is – but if you slaughter animal kind you are literally destroying ecosystems, you are annihilating agriculture – and that’s with animals that aren’t fighting tooth and nail to kill you. Destroying the number of animals the Noah project calls for will kill way way more than 2,000,000 people. You don’t need stolen files and a computer model for this – you just need even a basic idea of how ecosystems work. If anything it isn’t even a secret – it’s a propaganda piece that radically DOWNPLAYS the damage of the plan.

Amazingly, I don’t find this revelation all that shocking.

But Dariela witnessing the murder of Eleanor’s lackey seems to cement her as a member of the team. Not a bad thing – so long as Mitch can stop snarling at her and everyone else.

Meanwhile, Jaime still isn’t dead despite frostbite. She is hilarious though – because when wandering through the wilderness she decides a RIVER HAS MOVED rather than accept she’s reading a map wrong. I kid ye not. That’s the ultimate stubborn refusal to ask for directions

Also the guy she’s hiking with turns out to have been stalking her – claiming to be a pilot paid to claim her leopard which she doesn’t have and isn’t that useful any more. That’s all a little irrelevant though compared to her frostbitten toes…


I’m not sure how I feel about wall-to-wall conspiracy theories – we’re three episodes in and it feels vaguely like Zoo doesn’t know what story to tell. Or whatever story it wants to tell, it doesn’t want to tell the story of animals rising against humanity which is how it started – it wants government conspiracy and plagued zombie men and whacky powered animals. It feels almost like they’ve lost faith in their premise.