Hello and welcome back to our coverage of Zoo, CBS’s summer series about the animals of the world rising up to overthrow mankind, which is not really about that anymore, because season two ended with scientists dropping gas all over the world that cured the animals’ evil genetic mutation but also sterilized all humans, and now we’re 10 years in the future and everything is fine except for the sterilization thing and the the part where bloodthirsty messed-up hybrid beasts — gimme a second, I’ll get to the giant furry armor-plated rhinoceros — have taken over the entire West Coast of the United States and no one knows how to stop them so Bob Benson from Mad Men continues to be our only hope.
I missed this show so much.
Okay, quick roundup:
Jackson Oz aka Bob Benson from Mad Men is now fighting hybrid beasts on the West Coast with his new girlfriend and has apparently developed the ability to control lions with his brain. If you do not watch this show and are only following along through my coverage, please know that a) this last thing is a standard Zoo-style development, and b) I’m very sorry. Anyway, remember the thing I said earlier about furry armor-plated rhinos? Well they are part of the hybrAAAHHHH RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, BOB BENSON.
He eventually captures it and gets a sample and then some mysterious lady blows it up with a tiny bomb that makes a blast big enough to take out half a city block. I don’t know. It’ll probably be a whole thing.
Abe and Dariela are off doing homemaker things and science things in the safe part of the country. Abe got his doctorate, I guess, although something weird is up with that. More importantly, the two of them are visited by Mitch’s daughter, Clementine, who insists that Mitch didn’t die in the razorback attack in the season two finale and also appears to be the only person who aged a single day despite the 10 year time jump into the future. She is very attractive now. And might be an impostor.
Mitch is, indeed, not dead, and has been floating in some sort of Austin Powers science tank in, I swear, an abandoned warehouse in Eastern Siberia, because this show never disappoints, not even once. How did he get there from the tropical island he almost died on? Who has been paying the staggering electric bills for an abandoned warehouse in Eastern Siberia for an entire decade? Is it probably some sort of evil organization? No clue, no clue, and almost certainly. Also, once he is discovered and brought back to life and learns to communicate through grunts and bangs, the heavily-armed science-types bring out a surprise and the surprise is his daughter Clementine, but it’s a different Clementine, so one of the two is faking, and that’s a thing that is happening.
And honestly, fine, but I don’t care at all, because now we are going to discuss Jamie. When this series started, Jamie was a low-level investigative reporter and blogger. Then she joined the team and became part of society’s only hope against mutated hellcreatures. Then she got lost in the woods for half a season. Then she had someone chop off her frost bitten toe with an axe. Things have not always been great for Jamie.
Well guess what? When we emerge from the 10-year time jump Jamie is a multimillionaire author and also a crime-fighting vigilante who is using her literary fortune to track down and/or kill the people responsible for the mass sterilization and hybrid beasts. She is essentially like if J.K. Rowling decided to become Batman, which is something I have always supported. Look, here she is at a high class Manhattan party tricking a man into saying words that she is recording so she can edit them together into a passcode…
… and here she is in full-body leather in Chinatown incapacitating some henchman after riding there on a motorcycle like this is Dark Angel or something…
… and here’s the shady ex-military guy who cut off her toe and is now a New York detective discovering the big conspiracy board she’s made as part of her hunt for someone who apparently goes by “the Falcon.”
It’s honestly incredible and it made me so happy. She’s just a superhero now. Like, out of nowhere. We don’t even get an origin story because everything — her becoming a world-famous author, her earning enough money to donate entire wings to important buildings, her becoming a master of hand-to-hand combat — happened during the time jump. I love it so much. Imagine if other shows did this. Like, imagine if Better Call Saul just jumped ahead three years and we opened on Jimmy working with Walter but also Kim fighting crime by night using the fortune she acquired as a TV judge. Can’t rule it out, I guess.
Anyway, please note two things, in closing:
- In addition to being a crazy show about mutated animals trying to destroy the human race, Zoo is also now a show about a rich author who is a loose cannon vigilante by night.
- Jamie’s career path — blogger to author to millionaire vigilante — is extremely aspirational to me.
Welcome back, you weird-ass show.
