Zoo – The Black Forest

By: Patience Kapfer

As the plane plummets toward the ground and Jamie (Kristen Connolly) hangs on for dear life the A.I. warns they only have fifty seconds to flip the switch before they will crash into the North Sea. Dariela (Alyssa Diaz) and Abe (Nonso Anozie) glance at each other over their son, Isaac (Jesse Muhoozi), but brace for impact. Jamie crawls forward toward the switch as the countdown from twenty begins. Just as the A.I. reaches ten seconds, Jamie is able to throw the switch to keep the plane from crashing and her friends from dying. Jamie wakes up to Max Morgan (Robin Thomas) gently saying her name and she tells him that Mitch (Billy Burke) was acting like someone else, not at all like himself. Max assures her that she saved the plane and everyone on it, but Mitch/Duncan is not on the plane. Mitch is gone.

Abe goes to the lab and is glad that somehow the stasis tank kept Clementine (Gracie Dzienny) alive and the spinal fluid samples are all safe so he can still work to solve the sterilization problem. But when Abe turns around, he sees Dariela is standing there holding their bags and she tells them all three of them are leaving. Dariela tells Abe that it isn’t safe there and they cannot make Isaac part of this; they have to go home to keep Isaac safe. Abe tries to reason with Dariela and tells her he needs to keep working on the cure, but she tells him that it’s not their problem and he should let the others finish it. Even through her tears and pleas, Abe tells his wife that he can’t go with them. Abe tells Isaac he will come home later, but Isaac must promise to look after his mother.

Mr. Duncan contacts Abigail (Athena Karkanis) and tells her that there was no crash and he parachuted from the plane. When Mr. Duncan tells Abigail that his head feels off she informs him that his biodrive is malfunctioning. Unfortunately, it is not possible to reset or fix it remotely, he must come home immediately. Abigail gets to work resetting the biodrive and asks Mr. Duncan to report what he has learned from being with the group. He tells her that they are attempting to collect spinal fluid samples to deal with sterility, but she tells him it’s a dead end without the last hybrid. He also drops a massive bombshell-that Clementine is pregnant and the baby needs a transfusion. Learning that Clementine is pregnant seems to cause Abigail to be both intrigued and a little concerned (what does the pregnancy have to do with Abigail?).

Abigail and Mr. Duncan hold a secret meeting with a new mystery man in which Abigail informs him that they found Clementine and that she’s pregnant. This mystery man says that that is completely impossible and he wants to get Clementine back. He insists that she take him to Jackson so that they can find out where Clementine is. Mr. Duncan asks who this mystery gentleman is only to find out that THIS is Sam Parker (Delon de Metz) – the father of Clementine’s baby.

Sam Parker is taken to see Jackson (James Wolk) and once he tells Jackson who he is Jackson tries to tell him that whatever Abigail has said is a lie. But since Sam is not unfamiliar with Abigail he doesn’t take any of Jackson’s negative comments about Abigail. Sam tells Jackson that all he cares about is Clem and that he won’t let Jackson take him back with them so that he and his group can just do experiments on him like they did with Clementine. Sam says that Jackson destroyed his life once and he will not let him do it again. Once Abigail takes Sam away, Jackson receives a visit from Mr. Duncan who explains to him that the biodrive replaces Mitch’s consciousness with that of Mr. Duncan and therefore it is impossible to reach Mitch. Abigail returns smug as ever to tell Jackson that Sam lost both of his parents on Pangaea when they released the razorbacks. Abigail tells Jackson that she has perfected Robert Oz’s legacy as by making these hybrids they are now able to thrive. She is met with Jackson’s desperate attempts to convince her that this is not what their father would have wanted; a world where animals are threatened by these hybrid monsters. Their father abandoned the hybrids because he couldn’t control them, but that is when Jackson comes to the dramatic realization that Abigail can control the hybrids as she has a connection with them that their father never did. He realizes that the common DNA that all the hybrids share, Abigail shares it too. Abigail is the last piece that they need to cure sterility. Abigail is a hybrid!

Abigail lies to Sam and tells him that Jackson and his people created the hybrid nests and they plan to activate the beacons and allow the hybrids to become active. Abigail and Mr. Duncan tell Sam that the baby has a rare blood type so that they need his blood to do a transfusion. They also developed a solution that they believe will make sure his blood is compatible for when they do the transfusion, which takes little to no convincing to get Sam to allow them to put it in his blood (but why would Abigail ever want to help Clementine and this baby? This seems fishy to me). But at that moment they are alerted the plane is headed their way and Sam is more than ready to meet Jamie and crew head on. Sam is left tied up to pose as a victim and acts completely innocent, luring Jamie and the group into thinking he was taken by Abigail and that they can take him to help Clementine.

Jamie goes straight to work contacting people to look for Mitch/Mr. Duncan and is ready to spend whatever she has to in order to find him. She has an array of technology set up to track his phone and search facial recognition, to which Abe notes is a very impressive collection. Jamie expresses her hopelessness towards the mission and finding Mitch and Jackson and how maybe they will never succeed. Abe tries to reassure her that it will be okay and that even though Dariela left he stayed because he has faith in her and their mission. They will find their missing members and find a cure to sterilization.

Logan (Josh Salatin) and his group at the IADG get to work searching the hybrid nests and attempting to eradicate the problem. The hybrids release deadly spores whenever anyone gets near them and even though they were able to clear one nest, twenty-two soldiers died in the process. They have no idea how to neutralize the spores and still don’t know how many nests there are in total after Seoul and Atlanta. He receives a call from Jamie who asks him to bring in a former Shepherd to learn more about the biodrive because they were created by the Shepherds. When the Shepherd remains uncooperative Jamie attacks him with a knife, threatening his life if he won’t help them with the biodrive and to find Abigail.

Max shows Abe the sample from the tentacle hybrid and says that it has an anti-pathogen enzyme which catches Logan’s attention. They tell him that it could most likely be responsible for producing spores and he tells them to give him all the information they have on that pathogen ASAP. Logan takes this new information back to the IADG and it creates a way to eliminate the hybrid nests without losing numerous people to the spores.

Jackson manages to dislodge his chain from the ceiling and escape into Abigail’s lab. When Abigail comes to find him, he grabs her and almost succeeds in knocking her out before Mr. Duncan comes in and hits him over the head. Jamie and Max are able to find Jackson and he tells them that Abigail is going to activate the beacons. Once on board the plane, Sam runs to the tank keeping Clementine alive and says he is sorry and he had no idea. Abe believes that Sam is innocent and just wants to help Clem. Abe tests his blood and tells Sam that he is an exact match and that this transfusion will allow the baby to develop and grow. As the blood goes into the baby Clementine’s eyes suddenly shoot open and she starts to have a seizure. Jamie manages to find Mitch and she walks right towards him as he points a gun at her. Instead of using the old “but it’s me, Jamie, and I know you’re in there” trick, Jamie knows he is out of ammo and she knocks him out so that she can deactivate the biodrive.

While Jackson and Max search for Abigail, the Shepherd already found her and plans to dispose of her and her hybrid plan. He asks her what she plans to do with the hybrids-it can’t just be take over the world. Right before he plans to shoot her, Jackson rushes in and engages in yet another epic battle and at the last moment Abigail shoots the Shepherd because she is not done with Jackson. Jackson then tries to get a spinal fluid sample from her, but she is in really bad shape and he needs help to keep her alive. Jamie lies to Max that she has restored Mitch but actually she needs Mr. Duncan to go through with something that Mitch would never do (talk about ominous). But perhaps most ominous of all-the sheer number of all the hybrid babies just waiting to hatch.