Zoocap 2.4
I Believe You Can Get Me Zoo the Night
Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared July 13, 2016 on a now-defunct website (no, not Grantland). It has been republished here for archival.
Join us each week as we attempt to unpack the latest cuckoobananas episode of The CBS Program Zoo, setting ablaze our hottest takes as a burnt offering to the animal gods. Previous episodes: 2.1/2.2, 2.3. This week: Season 2, Episode 4, “The Walls of Jericho.”
For those readers who actually watch The CBS Program Zoo (which honestly might only be like 20% of you), repeat after me: THE CBS PROGRAM ZOO IS NOT GAME OF THRONES. She’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay. If you doubt me, just read this perfect tweet:
I delight in everything about this tweet. I delight in the specific screencap they chose; I delight in the bizarre line of dialogue they superimposed upon it; I delight in the fact that said dialogue could even have existed in the first place. Most of all, I delight in their caption: “Now, that’s love.”
You believe in love, don’t you? Of course you do. Everything’s going to be okay.
What the Hell Did I Just Watch
Costa Rica
In a typical show, “There is a sloth that can cause earthquakes” is not a plot point that a recapper would quickly gloss over. But this is The CBS Program Zoo, and we are barely scratching the surface of this episode’s insanity.
Sidebar: Sloths are the greatest.
New Brunswick
It is NEGATIVE DEGREES, says Jamie, the character who would already be dead in a Jack London novel. If this statement were literally true, she and her mysterious companion Logan would be deep in the final stages of hypothermia; this is not the case, but the point stands that they need to build a fire. Unfortunately, recent rains have soaked the forest with liquid water (a clue that the temperature is not, in fact, below zero — Fahrenheit OR Celsius), and the only dry kindling is… Logan’s big ol’ bag of cash.
Obviously, he refuses to burn the money, then immediately relents because this is TCBSPZ and all obstacles are temporary.
Let’s step through what happens next in bullet form, because while the following events should logically take place in the course of a few hours, the alternating color timing of each LogJam scene seems to indicate that MULTIPLE days and nights have passed.
- In the dark of night, Jamie and Logan huddle around the fire. Jamie spots headlights in the distance and calls out, thinking they’re saved. That’s when Logan puts out the fire and urges her to run. “Maybe I didn’t tell you everything.” Yuh, ya think?
- Seconds later, as they run through the woods in broad daylight, Jamie demands to know what’s going on. SURPRISE! Turns out the sketchy guy with a big ol’ bag of cash stole it, and his cheated co-conspirators are coming to get it back. In no way would this fact have been worth considering before they burned the money! But too late to think about that now, as they are ambushed by what I can only assume is a Kroegerless Nickelback.
- Luckily, the latest cover models of Scraggly Villain Weekly are ambushed in turn by a rare species of white wolf that knows to only attack bad guys, and Jamie flees. Except wait, where’s Logan? The show makes no effort to track what happens to him. He’s definitely dead, right? Or will they just insert him back into the story later with no explanation? (Hint: This is The CBS Program Zoo, what do you think?)
- Seconds later, it is pitch black and Nine-Toe Jamie is sprinting fast as she can. Somehow, one of the dudes who was DEFINITELY KILLED BY WOLVES catches up with her and threatens her with a knife. This is his own dumb mistake, as the struggle inevitably ends with him falling on his own knife. Didn’t he see her plot armor?
- Jamie I guess falls asleep, setting up one of the most bizarre scenes yet (AN EXTREMELY HIGH BAR), in which Chloe appears to her in a dream and urges her to press on. Should we read something into the fact that it’s not Mitch? Or should we just be pleased the show is giving its female leads some screen time together? By the way, this show passes the Bechdel test like all the time because whenever two women talk it’s about insane scenarios involving animals or utter nonsense. (Dariela: “Is that an order? ’Cause I don’t see stripes on your sleeve.” Chloe: “I don’t need stripes; I have a plane!”)
With the assist from Chloe, Jamie finds the car keys and the car. Logan respawns nearby, and they’re off. It appears they will finally reach Caraquet, and only three full episodes after the episode titled “Caraquet”! Oh, Zoo… I love how manufactured your obstacles are, and how convenient your resolutions.
Aboard Zoo Force One
Jackson is mutating and there’s nothing Mitch can do to stop it. See, his DNA has formed a triple helix, and the new genes aren’t switched on yet but HA HA HA HA THERE’S NO REAL SCIENCE IN THIS SHOW! Chloe is upset that Jackson spilled his mutant secret to Mitch (the person most capable of helping him), a plot point that seemingly exists solely so Mitch can refer to them as “Ross and Rachel,” drop the “boyfriend” wordbomb, and cap it off with a deliciously Mitchy “Women don’t like to be lied to; everybody knows that.” Nonetheless, they agree to keep Abe from finding out, since he’s sleeping with the woman who killed their last mutant human. It’s not clear why they believe Jackson’s closest and most trusted friend would blab a life-threatening secret to a casual lover he’s known for a week, but what is clear is that #TripleHelix is the new #MotherCell / #DefiantPupil.
Abe, for his part, is trying to locate Jamie, whom he describes as “uncommonly resourceful for someone who grew up with shopping malls and cable TV.” Uh… dude, have you met Jamie? She is the Kim-Baueriest Kim Bauer of them all! Do the writers think they can make something that has never been demonstrated true just by having another character say it? Well, yes they do, and I love them for it.
Meanwhile, according to The Gang’s intel, General Davies has, for some reason, transported the earthquake sloth to western Canada, and — wait, hang on a second.
This is the earthquake sloth:
This is the picture of the earthquake sloth that The Gang is looking at:
Hmm.
HMMM.
Come on, art design team. Get your shit together.
Vancouver
Whoa, that’s actually Vancouver! They must’ve spent their whole production budget filming on location here!
The Gang arrive at General Davies’s HQ to discover that it has been reduced to rubble by an extremely local earthquake, though Davies managed to escape with his team of sloth transporters in tow, a moment of unintentional visual comedy that I could enjoy for hours:
How does the sloth create earthquakes, you might wonder? With sound. Let Mitch explain:
“A few years ago at a football game in Seattle” —
OH GOD TELL ME THIS ISN’T GOING WHERE I THINK IT IS
— “the Seahawks fans were jumping and cheering so loud” —
KILL ME. KIIIIIIIIILL MEEEEEEEEEEEE.
— “that it actually registered on a nearby seismograph.”
UGHHHHHH. Just promise me no one on the writing staff is a Pats fan. If they mention Tom Brady and the Ideal Gas Law I will throw myself off a cliff.
But the sloth didn’t pull off this controlled demolition alone… THERE’S A MOLE. A lot of moles, actually.
- “We gotta follow the moles to get the sloth.”
- “Moles and sloths? Sounds like my dating life after I got divorced.”
- “Moles, they work alone. They only come together to procreate. Something we should all strive for.”
- “Mole fetish aside, you really think that moles attacked that building?”
- Dariela: “Do moles make a noise?”
Mitch: “Yeah, a high-pitched squeak. Kind of like the ones I’ve been hearing from Abe’s room lately.” - “She’s trying to say that you love moles because you are one.”
We are dropping the word “mole” at a clip of roughly once every eight seconds and I am LOVING IT. “You’re sure it’s moles?” asks Chloe. YES, CHLOE. WE’RE SURE IT’S MOLES.
The Gang has to follow the mole tunnels to find General Davies (don’t worry about this; it doesn’t make sense), so Mitch, Dariela, and Jackson start crawling. “Mitch, you sure these things can’t cave in on us?” Somebody went to the Foreshadowing Store!
Abe, presumably because he is an impressive tank of a man who cannot fit in the mole tunnel like his scrawny friends, stays above ground to assist Chloe with… computers, the only area in which he is a liability. Why didn’t they have Dariela stay back, too? She’s a hacker! “No, she’s not,” I hear you saying, but JUST YOU WAIT. Just. You. Wait.
There’s a bunch of hacking you don’t care about, a big pile of dead moles, a scene of Davies figuring out they’re onto him featuring classic TCBSPZ product placement for some tablet, and of course AN ALLIGATOR IN THE MOLE TUNNEL. In the midst of it, Abe wonders if the satellite feeds they’re using could help them find Jamie, something literally anyone could have figured out. Chloe looks at him in awe. “You’re BRILLIANT!”
During the gator escape, the tunnel collapses on Mitch, paying off that trip the Foreshadowing Store, but they manage to get free and… actually, what the hell was this leading to? Was there a point to this?
Chloe: “It was about getting Davies’s location, and I did.”
Abe: “Where were they coming from?
Chloe: “Raydon Global.”
OHHHHH SNAAAAAAAP!
Back at the lab, they discover that the moles were killed with a dangerous poison gas. Luckily, it doesn’t have an effect on humans. Or does it? (Man, the Foreshadowing Store is doing mad business this week!) Dariela apparently learned just enough hacker skillz in basic training to get through Raydon’s firewall or whatever. She locates the sloth, and discovers General Davies is throwing a fancy party at Raydon HQ. After summarizing how the gas will be used and how they need to stop it approximately forty times, The Gang heads to Raydon Global (spelled “Reiden”) to Ocean’s Thirteen that shit, which can only mean…
FASHION CLUB!
- Chloe: Cute hair. Love the sheer neckline.
- Jackson: Solid classic look.
- Abe: What, no tie?
- Mitch: The all-black thing works for you.
- Dari: That sleek indigo number is odd but the hair and earrings are an A+.
Dariela tries to trick Gen. Davies, apparently thinking he won’t recognize her with straightened hair. When this obviously fails almost immediately, she takes him aside at gunpoint like she probably should have just done in the first place. The Gang orders Davies to give up the sloth. “You took a four-star general hostage for a sloth?” he says defiantly.
Then Jackson SLAPS HIM LOLOLOL.
Abe watches the general while Jackson and Mitch head off to grab the sloth. Chloe and Dariela find the gas, taking care to explain very carefully for the viewers that one canister is poisonous and the other is safe, a totally unnecessary complication. In the middle of this climactic sequence and with no discernible justification, Chloe suddenly gets the info that Jamie is in Caraquet and tells nobody, which is how things always happen on The CBS Program Zoo.
Davies escapes from Abe’s grasp WAY too easily and sounds the alarm (Abe, bruh, come on, bruh), sending soldiers after Chloe and Dariela. Note: Do not find yourself in a firefight against Dariela. The soldiers are quickly neutralized, but a stray bullet has hit one of the canisters. “Run!” says Chloe, and in case we forgot the canister is full of poison gas, adds “This could kill everyone.”
And then it explodes.
Dariela is outside the airlock doors. The cloud of poison gas is coming closer.
No. No no no no no.
Chloe’s still in there. The gas is coming closer.
No no no no no no no no no.
No sign of Chloe. The deadly fumes are almost at the airlock.
Dariela has no choice.
“Jamie’s in Caraquet!” Chloe shouts. Dariela, unable to hear, claws desperately at the doors.
It’s no use.
…Zoo?
Random Stranger of the Week
Bogglements of the Mind
Meet General Davies’s number-one sloth scientist, who is the cornerstone of The Gang’s plan and could be excised from the episode plot entirely without changing the outcome of a single important event.
We first encounter Dr. Superfluous when the earthquake happens, giving an all-time great TCBSPZ line reading:
General Davies: “I thought you said it was safe!”
Dr. Superfluous: “It is! The sloth isn’t causing this!”
Later, The Gang spot him walking the halls of Raydon Global, doing sloth science I guess. Chloe immediately understand that the restricted area’s door scans for authorized individuals by reading their unique heartbeat, a thing that I do not think can be true. “Get the heartprint!” she shouts, making this gesture which I find hilarious:
Then, for fun, she says it again.
Their plan to get the heartprint involves, for unknowable reasons, spiking Dr. Superfluous’s drink with a fast-acting laxative. To accomplish this, The Gang sends Chloe and Jackson, the least nonchalant spies ever, who corner him in a conversation so eager and unnatural that I can only imagine he believes they are propositioning him for a threesome.
And then, just before he is never mentioned again, he collapses.
“He’s having a heart attack,” a nearby woman knows somehow. “We need a doctor!” No… no. Just let him die.
Shipping Manifest
MarzHam
Things are still sexy-sexy between Dariela and Abe. Finding him hard at work, she snuggles up behind him to ask, “Time for a three-to-five-minute break?”
Wait, what?! Three to five minutes? Do you… do you even get your shirts off?
Leaving that aside, this relationship seems low-key and uncomplicated for now, unless — wait, what’s that, Dari?
“When I commit to something, I’m all in.”
Well then.
Jamitch
UGH.
Jamie: “Mitch will find me.”
Logan: “You sure are putting a lot of faith in this Mitch guy.”
Jamie: “Well, you don’t know Mitch.”
PASS.
LogJam
So… is this a thing?
CHLACKSON BABY CHLACKSON
I know you all immediately scrolled down to this section. This is all we need to talk about this week.
Jackson confronts Chloe about the distance between them. “You’ve barely spoken to me.” He knows she’s upset about his mutation issues. But is that it? “My only thought was to fix you,” she tells him.
They reminisce about the day they first met, which remember, involved a lot of people being eaten to death by lions. Cute head-inclining abounds.
All she wants is to save him, you know — like he saved her.
Wait, where have I seen that look before?
And then she says — AND THEN SHE SAYS:
Is this happening?
IS THIS HAPPENING?
YEAAAAAAHHHHHH IT IS
YAY YAY YAY YAY
They’re so happy!
Goddammit.
Zoolight of the Episode
It’s time to drug Dr. Superfluous! Abe, Mitch, take it away.
Mitch: “Just slippin’ him a mickey.”
Zoonifying Theme
So much of this episode, like so much of our lives, was about holding on, making it through to the next obstacle. Jackson may have a deadly mutation, but right now all they can do is stall Raydon Global long enough to find a cure. Dariela’s future with The Gang is uncertain, but for the moment she’s got a bunk — and a bunkmate — on Zoo Force One. Some days, we may be locked in a life-and-death battle for the future of the planet, but we still need to find time in the middle of a heist operation to kiss and giggle like teenagers.
And if one of the six most important people in your life lies dying, her fate unknown until next week?
It’s like Dream Chloe told a despondent Jamie: keep going. You have to keep going. Till you reach the morning light.
