Previously on Zoo: Bob Benson from Mad Men is kind of a werewolf now! Elephants are terrorizing the villagers! Graverobbing vultures are causing acid rain! Or something!
Last week, I made a big deal about the thing where a bloodthirsty elephant chased after our heroes and their only hope of escape was to speed down a runway and up into the cargo hatch of a plane that was in the process of taking off. I stand by this decision passionately. I have always said television needs more evil elephants chasing SUVs into airplanes, so if that happened and I just ignored it, well, that would make me quite the hypocrite. But in all my excitement to tell you about that scene, I glossed over something rather important: The team has a plane now. A very fancy plane with an unknown owner and a science lab and, because why not, a full bar.
This is the plane they used to escape the aforementioned elephant, and the one they’re apparently using to zip around the world from notable animal rebellion to noted animal rebellion. Last week they went to South America to investigate human monsters and grave-robbing vultures. This week, it’s Geneva, because millions of electrocharged ants are trying to short circuit a particle accelerator and blow up most of Switzerland. You know, that old TV trope.
But first, let’s check in with the reporter lady who’s stranded in the woods…
Happens.
So anyway, ants. Swiss ants. Evil Swiss ants.
Evil ants are kind of a big deal on CBS this summer, between these little guys and the ones from the alien space rock on BrainDead. Think about that for a second. Right now, at this moment, on America’s most popular television network, there are two separate shows about ants that are hellbent on world domination. That’s something. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it’s definitely something.
While the ants on BrainDead are occupying the brains of our politicians and turning them into hyper-partisan zombies, then ants on Zoo are doing… uh, this.
A few fun facts!
- This woman is some sort of government figure who is the leader of the team’s off-the-books operation.
- Or rather, she was the leader of the operation, because at some off-screen moment shortly after this GIF ends, the entire bottom half of her face gets blown off. Rest in peace, lady who entrusted the world’s safety to a reporter, a French spy, a drunk veterinarian, and two zoologists, one of whom is Bob Benson from Mad Men.
- With her gone, the team must now answer to some sort of hardass general, who is also a scientist, and who presumably has a name, but will be known going forward in these posts as General Scientist.
- General Scientist has a plan to save the human race that involves killing almost all of the animals. He also murdered a guy.
I should also point out that the drunk vet scooped up some of the ants and extracted some of the dead lady’s spinal fluid by siphoning it with a straw, which you would think would be Step 1 in the show’s plan to explain how Swiss ants developed the power to harness electricity like Zeus himself, and it sure looked like they were gonna do that, but BOOM KABOOM there’s no time for that because the ants just blew up a transformer at the train station! And now they’re headed for something called the “large particle accelerator,” with the goal of shorting it out and causing some sort of fusion explosion that will level a 1,000 square mile area. Ants! Ants are trying to blow up Switzerland! With fusion!
The team rushes to the accelerator. Their plan involves, I think, pulsing the accelerator thing to fry the demonic ants, but they’re having a tough time getting that going, so they jump to Plan B: Firing bullets at flying fire extinguishers.
Which doesn’t work, but it pauses the ants long enough for Bob Benson to smash open the case guarding the controls for the accelerator (and here is where I would nitpick about the controls for the accelerator, which are guarded by an uncrackable security code, being kept behind a thin enough piece of glass that a zoologist can break it with a few swift thwacks with his elbow, but I just got done explaining that mutated ants are attempting to fry a Swiss particle accelerator with self-generated electricity, so… nah), which leads to this.
The day is saved! By science! That went almost totally unexplained! Eat accelerated particles, you electric bastards!
Two notes in closing:
- I have now gone almost two full episodes without explaining that there’s a new character on the show. I’m almost proud of this. But I kind of have to now. She’s the one who fired the bullet at the fire extinguisher. She’s a military-type person with a hot temper, which we can tell because earlier in the episode she was punching tires. It turns out she swallowed an ant during the excitement. So the team essentially has to fry her with jumper cables to kill one single ant. Zoo is a very normal show.
- I think the reporter lady — who I still wanna call Caitlin? — got her frost-bitten toe chopped off with an axe?
The end.
