The important thing to know about this week’s episode of Zoo is that Bob Benson from Mad Men orchestrated a lion attack with his mind and that’s not even the main focus of this post. Like, he did. He and his ex-girlfriend were trying to steal a human-like hybrid that his secret sister created with her own DNA, but they were surrounded by rebels with automatic weapons (one of whom appeared to be a grandmother), so he called a pack of lions with his brain and the lions ripped the rebels to shreds. It was amazing. I have no idea why the rebels didn’t just shoot the lions. Whatever. We have other things to get to right now.
Another thing this post is not about: Mitch — the veterinarian genius who was in a coma for a decade and then woke up to discover his daughter is now humanity’s last hope against sterility and went full-on Liam Neeson to save her from a mysterious billionaire baby auction — turned out to be the mysterious and evil Mr. Duncan, a high-ranking figure in the group that is controlling the hybrid animals, including the screeching hellbirds that committed suicide-by-volcano the other week. But, Mitch might not have realized what he was doing, because while he was in the coma the group implanted a biodrive in his brain that controls his actions, and at the end of the episode Jamie figured it out so he stuck her with a tranquilizer dart. All fascinating and wild but again, not what this post is about.
What is this post about then, if not a telepathic lion ambush or a rebel veterinarian basically becoming the Winter Soldier from the Captain America movies? I’m glad you asked. Oh man, am I glad you asked. Because this post is about A GIANT INVISIBLE SNAKE THAT LIVES IN AN ABANDONED PERUVIAN FUNHOUSE.
Yup, the next hybrid animal they have to hunt down is a giant invisible snake. Well, not technically “invisible.” It just has mutated in a way that allows it to perfectly camouflage itself in any environment, including the forest and, yes, the abandoned Peruvian funhouse — complete with discarded terrifying clown faces — that it calls home. But, look. If there’s a 60-foot snake in front of you and you don’t see it until it’s hissing straight into your big stupid face, there’s no time to nitpick. Don’t “well, actually…” an invisible snake. If you take away nothing else from this post, at least take that.
Also, AHHHHHH.
Two notes before we continue, which we will, because I am very excited about telling you where this all goes:
- Perhaps you are saying to yourself, “Wait, but if the snake can camouflage itself in any environment to the point of being invisible, why didn’t it just camouflage itself inside the mist from the fire extinguisher? And why did it then reveal itself? Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose?” Well, I suppose those are reasonable questions, but also, shut up. We just talked about this. Listen, dummy.
- Earlier in the episode, the invisible snake plucked an attacking wolf right out of the air as it was lunging for the team. This was before we knew about the invisible snake, though, so for one minute there it looked like we were dealing with TELEPORTING WOLVES. The best part of this show is that I was 100 percent ready to roll with that. “Yes, of course the wolves can teleport. I should have seen it coming,” I thought. What a remarkable television program.
So there’s all that. Which I’m glad we got out of the way because now I can tell you that the invisible snake ate Jamie.
Let’s briefly run down Jamie’s arc on this show. When it all started, she was an investigative reporter and blogger. Then she teamed up with Mitch when she uncovered the animal mutation. Then she ended up lost in the woods and had to chop off her frostbitten toe with an axe. Then the show jumped forward 10 years and we found out that, in that period, she had become a world famous billionaire author who also spends her free time hunting the group responsible for the hybrid attacks and mass sterilization, riding around in full-body leather on a motorcycle or flying a multimillion-dollar former government issue science plane using just a tablet computer, all of which makes her like if J.K. Rowling was Batman. And now she’s been eaten by a giant invisible snake inside an abandoned Peruvian funhouse.
Lady had a full life. That’s all I’m sayi-…
Wait.
What’s that?
Is that a knife bursting through the invisible snake’s body?
Are they?
No.
They wouldn’t.
Wait…
She Sharknado’d out of the snake! This is literally the ending of the first Sharknado! The good one! Ian Ziering leaped into a shark’s open mouth and then cut himself out with a chainsaw. Zoo just did the Sharknado thing but with an invisible snake instead of a flying wind-aided shark. Which is… better? Yeah. I’m gonna go with better.
Now, again, I’m sure some of you are saying “But isn’t that kinda corny? Like, one plot is basically The Winter Soldier and then the big action thing is basically Sharknado. And the thing where they threw a car out of an airplane and refer to each other as “a family” is a lot like Fast & Furious. Are they just yoinking stuff from movies? Should we be getting worried about all of this?”
The long answer to this is that Zoo has always been very fun and tongue-in-cheek and it’s not like any of these things were originated by the sources I mentioned. Hell, Pinocchio got swallowed whole by a whale and got himself out by lighting a fire inside the whale’s stomach. And again, they had a giant invisible hybrid snake that ate wolves and then retreated to an abandoned Peruvian funhouse. Let’s not start making wild claims about the show being unoriginal here. The bona fides are very much intact.
The short answer, though, and I want to stress this a second time to be sure we’re all clear about it, is shut up. Don’t you dare try to ruin this for me.
