Zoo – Wham, Bam, Thank You Sam

By: Patience Kapfer

Hold onto your seats and get ready for another action packed episode of “Zoo.” Without skipping a beat we jump into Hudson, New York where the stolen children are all sitting in cubicles under surveillance by our newest mad scientist, Abigail (Athena Karkanis). She proceeds to ask the children what they see while monitoring their brain activity. It is obvious that the children are not seeing what Abigail wants them to see and as her anger begins to escalate she has to be told that scaring the children will make her desired outcome even less likely. Abigail finally begins to make progress with one of the girls and says that now that she has discovered what she was looking for she can use humans to benefit the hybrids. Now she no longer needs the children. Conveniently enough, this is right as the group bursts into the facility to rescue the children and Abigail is alerted to the intrusion. The group doesn’t have an easy time locating the children once inside. Instead, they find empty corridor upon empty corridor, until they come to a stasis tank and the police outfit that Abigail was wearing when she last escaped. Jackson (James Wolk), being the scientist that he is, determines that he needs to bring the stasis tank with them so that they can learn more about what Abigail was using it for.

Mitch (Billy Burke) and Jamie (Kristen Connolly) plan their own mission to find the next hybrid on the list to help save humanity. Clementine (Gracie Dzienny) offers to help them save the children, but of course her father says that would be far too dangerous and she needs to stay on the plane. Regrettably, the plan to have Clementine stay on the plane is more dangerous than actually allowing her to help in the rescue mission, as Abigail escapes the facility and boards the plane undetected. She corners Clementine in one of the labs and they have a pretty epic battle with Clem giving Abigail a run for her money (but seriously, where did Clementine learn to fight like that?!). Abigail is looking for her most prized hybrid, Abendegoes (Breanna Watkins), and puts up quite the fight. Clementine manages to hit her on the head and thinks she has knocked Abigail out but she is sadly mistaken as Abigail throws Clementine to the ground and knocks a shelf on top of her.

While Abigail and Clementine are fighting on the plane, the rest of the team finally locates Isaac! When they ask him where his captors went he tells them that “the lady said ‘game’s over’” (talk about ominous). Since Logan (Josh Salatin) is the only one of the group that is actually law enforcement, he is interviewed by the news and then finds himself being offered a bear claw and a job in Germany. The man offering him the job has insanely high security clearance with the IADG and says that there were bodies in the black forest that were found with traces of hybrid on their body. Logan says that is impossible considering there haven’t been any hybrids or hybrid attacks in Europe, which makes this case all the more interesting. The man also tells Logan that the group will find the next hybrid that they’re looking for in Peru and this final tidbit convinces Logan that is necessary he go to Germany to pursue the case.

Back on the plane, Jamie says she is going to check the image from the security cameras to see if she can finally determine who Mr. Duncan is, but Mitch says he forgot to tell her that an error message popped up and the image was never able to finish loading. Clementine tells them that Abigail managed to board the plane and take Abendegoes, but she also lies and says that Abigail didn’t hurt her or even touch her. Jackson struggles to get the stasis tank to work, which frustrates him to no end because without the tank he can’t obtain more information on Abigail or where she’s going. However, Clementine doesn’t only have crazy fighting skills she’s also apparently great with electrical systems and helps Jackson to get the tank operational. During this process, she admits to Jackson, Abe (Nonso Anozie) and Dariela (Alyssa Diaz) that Abigail did attack her and Abe deems it necessary that he take a blood sample to check on the baby.

Abe tells Clementine that when she was attacked it led to a blood complication in which her blood and the baby’s blood may have mingled and so now her body is making antibodies to attack her baby’s blood. This is obviously not an ideal situation as the baby has an extremely rare blood type and no one on the plane can give the blood needed for a transfusion. Clementine tells them that the father’s name is Sam Parker and she hasn’t seen him in six months because she left him as soon as she gained information on a decommissioned shepherd facility and couldn’t tell him where she was going. Jackson goes to work trying to hunt down Sam based on the information Clementine was able to provide, which wasn’t much. He succeeds in locating the type of truck that Clementine described belonged to Sam getting a parking ticket outside of Pittsburgh which just so happens to be his home town, according to Clementine.

It is imperative that the baby get the blood transfusion within three days or the baby will die. So, Jackson suggests putting Clementine in the stasis tank to keep the baby from getting worse while they try to find the father. As can be expected, Mitch is definitely not a fan of the idea of placing his daughter in the tank that took so many years from his life, but Clementine agrees in order to save the baby.

Once in Peru, Mitch and Jamie head out in search of the newest hybrid. On this pursuit they encounter a very large wolf that suddenly just seems to teleport away. But how on earth can a wolf, especially one of that size teleport? No sooner does the wolf disappear then Mitch finds himself with a tranquilizer dart in his neck. But that’s not all; he was shot by his own father, Max Morgan (Robin Thomas). Once Mitch recovers from that dart to the neck, his father tells him and Jamie about a 60 foot snake that no one has ever seen and is rumored to be invisible. Mitch offers the possibility that the snake isn’t invisible, but instead this hybrid has adapted to use extra intense camouflage that keeps it from being seen as it moves throughout the jungle. Therefore, it is also possible that the snake came through and ate the wolf and they were completely unable to see the snake, just the disappearing wolf.

Jamie manages to locate the snake den in an old abandoned building and determines that if she sprays a fire extinguisher it should make the snake visible if it gets covered in the spray. When they all hear a loud noise behind them they turn with their guns at the ready and are met with the largest snake any of them have ever seen (or I’ve ever seen, thank goodness). The snake disappears from view only to sneak up behind Jamie without her knowledge. She’s then gone leaving nothing but the fire extinguisher in her wake. Being the strong woman that she is, Jamie cuts her way out of the snake and as it dies we can finally see the entirety of its enormous size.

Once everyone is back on the plane, including Mitch’s father, Clementine is lowered into the stasis tank. Later, Mitch’s father notices a specific compound on one of the computers Jamie is working on and points to a certain area that he calls “Mitch’s signature.” As he says this we can see the gears working as Jamie thinks through what he just said about that particular compound that to her knowledge Mitch has never worked on. It is then that she puts the pieces together and realizes that Mitch is Mr. Duncan. She tells Mitch that she knows that he is Mr. Duncan and says she has to tell the rest of the team, but she doesn’t blame him because he has that biodrive in his brain. But as she goes to hug him, Mitch uses one of the tranquillizer darts to knock Jamie unconscious. While all of this is happening, Mitch’s father pulls something out of his bag. It appears to be the hybrid fetus from earlier this season, but what is he planning on doing with it?

In Pittsburgh, Jackson goes to get Sam and explains how Clementine is pregnant and desperately needs Sam to do a blood transfusion with the baby. However, Sam tells Jackson that he has been away in the air force and doesn’t know anyone named Clementine. And then just like that Sam has been shot, by you guessed it, Abigail. In the final scene, Abigail tells Jackson he has something she needs and it’s finally time that they get to know each other.