It’s been a few weeks since we checked in on CBS’s animal revolution summer series, Zoo. When we last discussed the show, a swarm of kamikaze bats had flown to Antarctica to murder two Brit-pop-loving lesbian bird scientists. The week before that, a pack of wolves staged a Mississippi prison break to spring a convicted murderer. The week before that, a Jack Russell terrier used a plush toy to lure a new father into a Slovenian dog ambush. Bloodthirsty lions have started communicating telepathically. There’s this one hilarious French guy. Zoo is a good show.
Unfortunately, things have really slowed down on the “bonkers murderous animal attacks” front since then. Here’s a quick summation of what’s happened since our last update:
- The kamikaze bats took out half the power in Rio by chewing through power lines and blowing themselves up.
- A bear broke into a French lady’s kitchen and fell asleep on the floor.
- There’s something happening with the corrupt conglomerate that might have caused the animal revolution because of a science thing and I apparently can’t even make myself care about it enough to finish this sentence. Less talky talky, more evil doggies.
All of which brings us to this week’s episode, which featured… rapidly mutating bears hiding in the catacombs of Paris! Hey, now we’re getting somewhere! Also, Abraham — the friend of Bob Benson from Mad Men — told a story about how African warlords told him he had to kill one of his younger brothers as a child to show loyalty, and if he didn’t do it the warlords would kill both brothers, so he let them do that because he didn’t want the surviving one to have to live with the torment of knowing he was chosen to live. Jesus Christ, Zoo. It’s summertime, baby. Dial it back a smidge.
Anyway, the bears. Two things you need to know. One, the reason that bear fell asleep on the French lady’s floor is because it went into a weird, offseason hibernation, not to rest, but so its body could shut down to undergo “changes.” We found this out when Dr. RebelVet — like all the characters on the show, he probably has a name, but whatever — tried to stick the bear with a sedative when it started waking up, and the needle proceeded to bend because SURPRISE the bear has an armor-like exoskeleton now!
Things went… poorly from there. Yeah, let’s go with “poorly.”
The second thing you need to know…
Useful.
The team tracked the bears to the catacombs and waltzed right in carrying only tranquilizer guns despite the thing we just discussed about the bears now being ornery and essentially armor-plated. This also went poorly.
Fun fact: That guy who tried to run like a coward only to get swatted by a mutant Parisian grizzly? That is the former fiancé of the blond French investigator, and the man whose actions led directly to what was the greatest line of dialogue in television history right up until it was topped by “scat means poop.”
Greatest show on television.
So there they were in the catacombs with Kevlar-coated bears growling at them and mauling their philanderous weasel Frenchmen, their tranquilizer darts impotently bouncing off the bears’ abdomens, when Bob Benson got an idea. He lured a bear toward him by waving and shouting, and as the bear made its way over, Abraham — just now dawning on me that this is the only character’s name I know — shot the bear in the butt with the tranquilizers. And it worked! THE BEAR’S ACHILLES HEEL WAS ITS BUTT. IT HAD AN ACHILLES BUTT. THE MUTANT PARISIAN BEAR HAD AN ACHILLES BUTT.
What this meant, unfortunately, is that the bears were captured, and we have now gone three — THREE — episodes without some ridiculous international murder plot concocted by beasts, and that said international beast murders have apparently been replaced by a plot about a duplicitous corporation, like someone up and tried to turn Zoo into Mr. Robot. This will not do at all. STAY IN YOUR LANE, ZOO. DO YOU. HAVE AN OCTOPUS WADDLE RIGHT OUT OF THE OCEAN AND STRANGLE A BEACH VOLLEYBALL TEAM. OR SOMETHING. GEEZ.
That said, I guess I did just get to type “Achilles Butt” two separate times (and now three), so this episode wasn’t a total loss. Still. Got my eye on you, Zoo.
