Last week the show riffed on THE SHINING, this week it gives us ZOO’S version of THE BIRDS.
Mitch is on the run after having thrown a chair through a window. He sprints down staircases, desperately looking for a way out of the building he’s in. He was about to give Reiden Global the mother cell but before he could he spotted someone familiar in the background, the very same man who had gotten the team that Mitch is part of together, the man who had been helping Chloe and them investigate these animal attacks around the world. So Mitch decides not to hand over the mother cell and finds himself desperately looking for a way out of their building. He finds a door and walks through it, out into the car park, and… hops over the fence, away from Reiden Global? That’s it, that was his thrilling, tense escape from this evil and powerful company. He literally walks out the door and jumps over the fence. The best part? Steven Culps half bothered “Dammit” as they realize he’s escaped, as if they actually tried to do anything to stop him.
Here is a major problem with ZOO; there’s no tension. Besides the sub par acting, lazy writing and awful CGI, there is a complete lack of suspense when things happen. Mitch’s escape is just the starter for an epic meal of blandness, with the main meal consisting of a bird attack and the dessert being a shoot out at a warehouse. To begin we have ZOO’S version of THE BIRDS, meaning we have about ten minutes of set up, including birds making awful shrieking noises and a sudden pay off, meaning a random bird attack that happens in the park, which of course Mitch’s ex and his daughter are caught up in. I’m beginning to think that Mitch’s reunion with his daughter last episode only happened so that he knew which park to go to this episode, but I don’t want to give the writers too much credit. In the end Mitch typically saves the day and his ex, who was randomly cold with him at the beginning of this episode after being fairly reasonable beforehand, is thankful to hi, for saving them. So really the bird attack was just one big set piece to get Mitch and his ex back on good terms. Now all he needs is for an animal to kill the step dad and Mitch is basically part of the family again.
Chloe and Jackson confront the man who Mitch saw at Reiden Global and it turns out that him and the head of Reiden Global put the team together to “protect Reiden’s position” Huh? How does including someone who outright hates your company and wants to see you go down help you guys out at all? Surely by providing them with the tools they need and access to the animal attacks, it was only a matter of time before the learnt about Reiden’s involvement? This plan makes no sense! Xander Berkeley is also on the teams trail, putting out an warrant for Chloe and Jamie’s arrest. Jamie contacts a reporter friend of hers to help them, but Berkeley gatecrashes their meeting. It seems he didn’t know that his friend, agent Shaffer, was working for the enemy. It’s an interesting development which might mean they’ll all team up to take Reiden Global down but for now the team is being hunted by the FBI. First they need to find a way to get to Africa and to the leopards who might be the key to stopping what’s happening.
