We must begin with the elephant in the room. Wait, no. My apologies. Poor choice of words. You can’t just throw around animal-related metaphors like that when discussing Zoo because there could be a very literal elephant in a room one day, possibly using a computer or holding a bazooka in its trunk. Let’s be more straightforward, for clarity. We must begin with the unavoidable, unpleasant truth: Zoo has not yet been renewed for a fourth season, which means this week’s season three finale could end up being the series finale as well. And this brings with it a set of problems, ranging from my fragile emotional state about it all to the difficulty in crafting an end to this season. You can go one of two ways, basically:
- You can make a season finale that can also double as a series finale by tying up most loose ends and providing a tiny bit of resolution
- You can just say screw it and have Bob Benson from Mad Men crash an airplane through a cement wall, thus opening up America to attacks from newly-contagious bloodthirsty zombie animals, and leave the future of humanity hanging in the balance with a cliffhanger of epic proportions
Guess which option Zoo went with. I love this show so much. But we’ll get to that. First, let’s discuss how we got there.
Mitch does a computer thing and sends all the demonic hybrids on a mission for a beacon in St. Louis and the world’s only hope is that Jackson can turn it off manually by marching through sonic waves that are as thick as chowder, which only he can do because the waves are pulsing at the same frequency as the part of his brain that can controls the actions of non-mutated animals
Hoo boy. Some notes on this:
– One of my favorite things about Zoo is that everyone is an expert on everything, regardless of education or training. This is how we end up with Mitch in charge of the high-level computer business in a facility staffed with computer experts, even though Mitch is a veterinarian who just spent 10 years in a coma. To give you an idea how crazy that is, the very first iPhone came out 10 years ago, in 2007. But sure, let’s put Mitch on it.
(Yes, technically Mitch was the one who designed the entire system, when he was imprisoned in his alter ego Mr. Duncan, but he has no recollection of that and also leave me alone.)
– The whole business with the beacon is important for two reasons: Long term, to prevent the hybrids from taking over the world; short term, to prevent the hybrids from attacking the barrier’s generator and killing the team, which provided another great example of why you should always watch television with the captions on
– A quick note on the barrier. If this all sounds familiar, all this stuff about an impenetrable barrier manned by an elite force who serve as humanity’s last line of defense against mythical and powerful monsters who want to kill them all and destroy their world, there’s a pretty good reason for that: it is almost exactly like The Wall from Game of Thrones. Except now the White Walkers are razorback wolves and invisible snakes and pterodactyl-like birds that can cause volcanic eruptions, and the Night King is an evil science genius with a rocket launcher. So I guess what I’m saying is that it’s better. Zoo is better than Game of Thrones. Fight me.
Moving on.
Logan tries to rush Clem and the baby away from the barrier so they can protect humanity’s only chance at curing sterility, but one of giant screeching hellbirds rips him out of his car by his face and Abigail kidnaps the baby
Which is not ideal.
With all the beacons now deactivated, the hybrids stop attacking and the team begins to mow them down, which is great, except for the part where a military dog that was killed in the initial attack wakes up as a bloodthirsty demon hellzombie hybrid dog and rips its owner to shreds, because that is also a thing that is happening now
There’s a longer explanation for all of this that has to do with the hybrids now being contagious or infectious or something, but I think the simplest way to do all of this is to just tell you that it’s a problem and post a GIF of the mean dog. Yes, let’s stick to that.
Also not ideal.
To save the baby and the entire human race, Bob Benson from Mad Men must crash a remote controlled jumbo jet through a giant concrete wall
Right, so this is happening. Abigail — his supervillain secret sister who created the hybrids and also just revealed that she has been brainwashing the son he thought died in a gas station explosion that happened 20 years ago — has the baby and will only give it back if her monsters are allowed to roam free, and the only way that can happen is if the barrier is destroyed, so he takes the tablet that controls the multimillion-dollar science plane and sends the plane speeding toward the wall to knock it down.
A few notes:
– My favorite thing about this is that the plane crashed last week and was left abandoned and powerless in an uninhabited wasteland, but now it just works via remote control again, all of which would imply that they could have just done this instead of trying to make the dangerous trek on foot, but again, shut up and leave me alone, I’m having fun
– With the wall down, the hybrids will be able to break through and ravage the East Coast, which they kind of already did once when the hellbirds attacked Manhattan, but now there’s the infectious thing that can turn all the world’s animals back into murderous zombies, which kind of brings us full circle back to the beginning off the show, but now with giant invisible snakes
– This is one hell of a cliffhanger to end on without knowing if the show will return and I kind of love it because it’s the most Zoo thing possible short of that elephant with a bazooka I mentioned in the first paragraph
– I still can’t believe this show vaporized all of Tokyo a few weeks ago and no one is talking about it
– I am more worried about the science plane than I am about most of the people on this show.
Pictured below: Me showing up at CBS headquarters if they cancel this show. I am barely kidding.
