Zoo – Stakes on a Plane

By: Patience Kapfer

All of our fearless characters have managed to wind up in some less than ideal situations when we pick up in this week’s episode of “Zoo.” After attempting to find Sam (Clayton Chitty), Jackson (James Wolk) has unfortunately been captured by Abigail (Athena Karkanis) and she definitely isn’t just trying to catch up on all their long lost sibling time. Abigail has Jackson chained up in Denmark and is determined to figure out how Jackson controls and communicates with the animals. Trying to make the most of his time with Abigail, Jackson questions her on the hybrids and why she created them in the first place, but as can be expected Abigail doesn’t wish to give up her secrets just yet.

Back on the plane, Max Morgan (Robin Thomas) witnessed Mitch (Billy Burke) stab Jamie (Kristen Connolly) with the tranquilizer dart and thus confronts his son to understand what is going on. Mitch explains that he has a biodrive in his brain that can cause him to do whatever he is told to do and becomes Mr. Duncan. As Mr. Duncan, Mitch did a lot of bad things and he can’t have the rest of the team knowing that he is Mr. Duncan so his only option was to stop Jamie. Max offers to help short circuit the biodrive, preferably without killing him. Max’s master plan involves shocking Mitch’s head with an EMP stick that is plugged right into the plane’s power supply. In order to fry the biodrive, Max must shock Mitch three times with his EMP stick and then it could be safely removed. This sounds like a great idea (Great? Terrifying? Both?) until Max is only able to complete two out of the three jolts, as the plane all of a sudden starts to run out of power. Being unable to complete the third jolt leaves Mitch unable to see and, even worse yet, the jolts have somehow alerted Abigail that the biodrive has been initiated.

While Mitch takes some of his father’s blood thinners to help him regain his sight, they both finally have a nice heart to heart. Mitch is still less receptive to the efforts his father attempts to make, but his father tries to tell him that he loves him regardless. During this nice little bonding session, the plane’s artificial intelligence (A.I.) is activated (ironically enough the A.I.’s voice is that of Logan). The A.I. warns the group that the plane’s power is down to only the bare essentials and at that moment they realize that if they do not act soon that Clementine’s (Gracie Dzienny) tank could lose power. Mitch pushes to take Clem out of the tank, but Abe tells him that if they remove her from the tank her baby is still at risk and is likely to die, while the stasis tank will slow that process. The A.I. suggests utilizing the auxiliary generators and rerouting the stasis tank to keep it from losing power. The group manages to reroute the power, but the plane will experience complete engine power in ten minutes. In order to gain control of the plane they need to kill the hybrid and restart the plane.

Abigail dumps animal blood on Jackson and releases a tiger that she hasn’t fed in days to test Jackson’s mind control abilities. As the tiger rushes towards him, Jackson uses his ability to stop it dead in its tracks and back it slowly into the cage Abigail released it from. When Abigail asks Jackson how his power works he tells her that he has no idea and even if that is true Abigail won’t accept that as an answer. After she notices that Mitch’s biodrive has been initiated, Abigail tells Jackson that if he won’t tell her how he controls the animals that she will bring the plane down and kill all of his friends using her hybrid that is currently wreaking havoc on the plane’s electrical system. She finally tells Jackson that she used the last ten years to create new hybrids that are hidden all around the world just waiting to be awoken.

Jamie discovers that there is a hybrid wrapped around the battery and Abe (Nonso Anozie) insists they need to harvest the spinal fluid while the creature is still alive, but Dariela (Alyssa Diaz) has had just about enough of all this mad science and just wants to kill it. As Jamie and Dariela open a panel to get to the hybrid, the power failure causes the doors to lock, thus locking them in the cargo bay. To make matters even worse, the cargo door opens forcing Jamie and Dariela to hold onto anything that is strapped down. Dariela’s efforts to manually shut the door prove to be useless so Jamie tries to call Mitch down to help but his earpiece is broken. Lacking any other option, they manage to get a hold of Abe who rushes down to save them. Since Abe is also unable to open the doors, Jamie directs him to open the control panel and manually use the wires to close the cargo door and open their doors. Thank goodness Abe is a good listener and is able to sort out which green is the correct one and override the plane doors.

Logan (Josh Salatin) may no longer be with the team, but he is still an integral part of this puzzle as we catch up with him at an IADG headquarters outside Colorado. Here, they have been keeping track of any and all hybrid activity and are currently most concerned with the deaths in Germany where there have been no reported hybrids. The IADG says that the DNA found in the Black Forest doesn’t match any current hybrid, but Logan knows from a previous case that it is possible the DNA could be coming from somewhere other than a hybrid directly. He hypothesizes that the victims inhaled airborne toxic spores that were released from some type of hybrid. Logan locates spores travelling in the wind from what they believe to be a hybrid nest and find two more nests near Atlanta and Seoul.

Jackson makes a valiant effort to attack Abigail, but since he is chained to the ceiling and has no other weapons, his attack is very short-lived. She explains that she has the ability to control the hybrids in a similar fashion to how he communicates with the animals and it stems from the same part of the brain that controls emotions. Therefore, Abigail knows if she can infiltrate Jackson’s emotions she can get him to use his powers, thus allowing her to obtain the data she needs. Abigail recounts the story of how Jackson lost his family in the tragic accident while he was in a gas station to make him use his anger and hatred to control the tiger and force it to attack her. Abigail also explains to Jackson that Mitch has her biodrive in his head and has been completing tasks for her as Mr. Duncan for the last ten years. Then, to make matters much worse, Abigail turns on the biodrive, thus activating Mr. Duncan.

Jamie instructs Mitch to restart the plane once Dariela and Abe kill the hybrid, but unfortunately his biodrive is restarting, which can only mean bad news. Dariela arms herself with a sword and other weapons, while Abe opts for a syringe to try to extract spinal fluid while the hybrid is still alive. The group sets out on a mission to kill the hybrid and restart the plane, but little do they know that Mr. Duncan has been activated. Mitch/Mr. Duncan attacks his father and knocks him out and proceeds to take a call from Abigail who tells him to make sure the plane crashes. I guess Mitch isn’t going to be much help in restarting the plane. Jamie successfully sets up the plane to be restarted, but is unable to get in contact with Mitch so she goes to restart the plane herself. When she gets to the switch she sees Max on the ground and Mitch completely unresponsive to her requests to flip the switch. When she tells him to move so she can do it herself, Mitch refuses and instead attacks Jamie.

Meanwhile, Dariela and Abe team up to destroy the hybrid and acquire its spinal fluid. As Mitch fights Jamie to keep her from restarting the plane and Dariela and Abe attempt to kill the hybrid, Abigail finally succeeds in angering Jackson enough to use his power. In quite possibly the most suspenseful episode this season, we end with Abigail informing Jackson that she now has the last piece she needs to “activate the beacons and then the hybrids rise.” That can only mean extremely bad news for the group and the rest of the world; who knows how many hybrid nests are actually out there. The final scene shows the plane in total freefall as Jamie frees herself from Mitch’s attack, but is still unable to get to the switch to restart the plane.