Over the weekend, notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman escaped from a maximum security Mexican prison. According to reports, he crawled into a hole in the shower that led down to a ventilated, fully-lit, mile-long tunnel, hopped on a motorcycle, and rode to freedom. Authorities now estimate that the tunnel took a year to plan and construct, and came in at a cost of approximately $5 million. It was a daring, elaborately planned escape that captured the attention of the media all over the globe, and would have been the best prison escape of the year if a pack of friggin’ wolves didn’t break someone out of prison on CBS’s summer series Zoo three days later.
I feel like I should explain.
First of all, Zoo is terrible and everyone should start watching it immediately. Last week, an adorable Jack Russell terrier led a British man into a murderous dog ambush inside an abandoned Slovenian warehouse. There are lions communicating telepathically. A mysterious French guy — Note: Very French, like you expect him to light a cigarette and pick up a paper grocery bag with two or three baguettes sticking out of it at any moment — is travelling around the world to put together a team to push back against the animal uprising. A swarm of bats took down a plane carrying Bob Benson from Mad Men. He survived. Watch Zoo.
Anyway, the most recent episode also introduced us to a death row inmate whose execution date was quickly approaching. He was really weird, and comically evil, going so far as to bring his victim’s wife in to “apologize” to her, but then telling her exactly how he killed her husband instead. He also kept staring through the fence at this lone wolf that was just, like, chilling in the yard. Almost like the two of them had a connection. Almost like they were planning something. Almost like…
WOLF JAILBREAK.
Two things:
1. I like to picture the director shouting through a bullhorn at the guard at the gate, like, “Okay, the warden has just been mauled to death in front of you, the wolves are coming, they’re angry, they’re angry, you’re very frightened aaaaaaaaand ACTION.”
2. I choose to believe the buzzer the guard on the inside hit is specifically for wolf jailbreaks, and there’s a whole chapter in the manual about it.
Chaos.
The best guy here is the one making the hand signal, like he’s somehow coordinating their cowardice. “WE GOT A WOLF JAILBREAK, PEOPLE. THEY HAVE BIG SCARY TEETH AND THEY’RE COMING THIS WAY. MOVE IT. MOVE IT”
FIRE CHAOS.
The kitchen fire triggers some sort of alarm that opens all the doors to the cells, which seems, uh, bad? I mean, I’ve never designed a prison or anything (although I am available to do so if you’re in a pinch), but it seems like releasing all the inmates every time there’s a grease fire might be somewhat less that ideal.
But it’s good news for the inmates, I guess…
Oh. Never mind.
And the episode ended with the murderer giving a little “That’ll do, wolf” nod at the ringleader. Just incredible. In three weeks this show has gone from Brentwood Tree Filled With Menacing Housecats to Slovenian Dog Ambush to Mississippi Wolf Jailbreak. I half expect them to open the next episode with a koala sneaking into a lawyer’s office and strangling him with piano wire. Which they might actually do, now that I think about it. It’s a pretty short walk from Wolf Jailbreak to Koala Assassin.
