Screen: CBS
Zoo Flies In The Face Of Logic Like Bats Into Airplane Engines
Tara and Dave raise some pertinent questions about animal self-interest and human priorities.
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Now that Zoo has brought all its characters together into a Dream Team of animal pandemic fighters, I'd like to talk about who's going to be most and least helpful in this effort, starting with Jamie Campbell, Girl Reporter. She's way too mired in her biases against Reiden -- which very well may be legitimate, but if that's not what's causing the animals to go nuts, I'm not sure I trust her ability to pursue a different line of inquiry. Furthermore, if she really thought she could get away with using her corporate credit card after getting fired at least a week ago, I am dubious about her baseline level of s-m-r-t.
I like that they found the French version of Adam Baldwin to lead the Zoo Crew. Also of note: Marcus Dixon is assembling a team to save the world, but he's too busy to hang out, so he leaves Chloe in charge. What's more important than saving the world?
He bought a package of spin classes and they're about to expire? Yeah, if I am going to buy in to this premise, I need to see a lot more concrete evidence that Frenchy is good at her job; from what we've seen, her training mostly seems to have been focused on mime. That scene in the alley she was bugging her eyes out so much I thought Jackson's dad was going to come back from the dead and gouge them out for her.
I really enjoyed the thinking behind the eye-gouging. So the defiant pupil -- through methods -- makes animals see old threats as conquerable foes or something? Like beer goggles? If so, why not just put a sleep mask over those poor horses instead of scooping their eyes out?
I'm sorry, Dave, are you a widely discredited zoologist living out his final days in a dangerous level of radioactivity? No? Then maybe you should let the world's second most reviled Dr. Oz get on with his "work." But seriously, everything about the trip to Oz Island was crazy. Why had the projector been left on so that it fired up at just the right spot when Abraham turned on the generator? Once it was established that they needed to get the research so they didn't die of radiation poisoning, why did they spend so much dicking around flipping through it instead of just cramming their bags with whatever would fit and taking photos of the rest? Why introduce his wife at all if they were going to kill her literally two scenes later?!
Bats.
Bats! Look out, Austin! Shield your tacos!
That's the problem with this whole "defiant pupil" thing. It doesn't seem it make the animals any smarter, just more organized. If you're a bat in a colony and suddenly Bat Central commands you to take down a private jet, you're still a dumb bat. You're just going to fly into the jet. Raw deal for you. So in the end, when the animals take over the world, there's going to be a lot of animal inequality. You think the great apes, dolphins, and lions are going to share power with the bats? All animals are not equal here.
You're right. If you're a rhino that tramples a Danish family to death, you get to live to trample another day. A bat that flies into an airplane propeller is on a kamikaze mission. (Speaking of that rhino: I'm furious that attack happened offscreen. You don't have the budget for a CGI stomping? Cut one of your people. I recommend Frenchy.)
Lots of kids died offscreen on this episode. Kids are easy pickings. Slower, dumber. Good eating. So let's get to the best part of this episode Lupine Prison Break! Aooooooooo!
Lesson learned: being a species turncoat has definite advantages! And wolves > hunters, so who's the real criminal here? Aquarius got very boring very fast for me, but I'm intrigued by the idea of a Charles Manson of the animal kingdom.
To recap: Reverend Grease is to be executed tomorrow and the warden asks him one last time to see the wife of the man he killed. He refuses but changes his mind when a wolf appears in the prison yard. There's some Bible bits about this and that, and sure enough, a few minutes later the wolves attack the prison! It's AMAZING. First they get the warden outside of the gates and when Barney Fife opens them to help, a whole pack runs in! Then, THEN, they somehow run around the whole complex because (1) the guards keep not closing doors behind them, and (2) the security protocols make all the cell doors open. One wolf attacks a prison cook and starts a grease fire that burns the whole place to the ground! Amazing!
And, as far as we can see, the wolves all survive the conflagration. Take a lesson, stupid bats! Direct all your destructive energy outward! Use humans' tools against them, not yourselves!
The show also makes sure, right before he gets wolf-mauled, to let us know the warden's also a pig by having him make a sexist remark about the murder victim's widow. Confidential to Zoo: I'm fine with animals killing innocents. Set the Slovenian dogs loose in the orphanage for all I care.
Zoo needs to flip the script. I'm not interested in the humans finding things out about the animals, I need everything from the animal point of view. This includes what names they give each other. Animals don't have much experience in that department and I think we’d end up with stuff like Furp: Lord Of Lions and a goat named Jeep Wrangler.
I'm with you 100%. Let's hope before the season's out a pack of wolves swarms the writers' room and does some "retooling."