Zoo: Eats, Shoots, and Leaves / Wild Things Recap

Synopsis for 1×11 & 1×12: Animal attacks begin to crescendo and the team is forced to look for new allies, deal with gunshots, and steal a leopard cub in the hope of a cure.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Last week ended with Chloe being taken into FBI custody, and this week followed up with it. With her hands bound, stuck with an FBI agent who has a chip on his shoulder, she tried to explain to him exactly what was at stake. He had no interest, even up to the moment of his death when another car pulled up alongside them and killed him. The men in the car quickly worked to abduct Chloe and took her to an undisclosed location where Gaspard, the Frenchman who started it all, threatened her sister with torture if Chloe didn’t speak up about what the team was doing.

Back in Zambia, the rest of the team continued their search for a leopard to use to try and make the cure. There were doubts about whether or not they’d be able to, especially once they found out the leopards were using military tactics to get people to leave the area. Yet Jackson insisted they had to continue, because in the words of Mitch, the sooner they find the leopards the sooner they save the world.

Their plan to find the leopards becomes dangerous once they make camp and end up in a confrontation with the very creatures they were seeking. Ray ended up dead, taken away tranquilizer gun and all, and Abraham chastised Jackson for being reckless yet again.

Chloe, trapped, was forced to watch as a very unfriendly man broke into her sister’s home and waited for her. He then proceeded to hurt her while Chloe watched, helpless as she refused to give up the location of her team. Eventually, once some sort of taser-sounding thing was utilized, she agreed to tell Gaspard where the team was. It was a lie that bought her very little time, and ended with him more angry than before. Just when it was looking bad for her sister, Delavenne appeared and shot him dead along with his backup. He rescued a skeptical Chloe and begged her to come with him and to help solve the animal attack problem once and for all.

In a scuffle with a militia group in Africa, after the team managed to get their hands on a leopard cub, Jackson was shot. The team was able to escape thanks to Mitch’s quick thinking, but not without a cost. They rushed to the nearest hospital, which was being evacuated due to animal attacks. Abraham managed to convince a doctor there to operate on Jackson while he searched for a domesticated, infected animal to try the cure on. Jackson underwent surgery, Abraham had his quest, and Mitch and Jamie set out to figure out how to construct the cure.

Delavenne took Chloe to what appeared to be some sort of UN meeting about the animal attacks. Even though she didn’t necessarily understand the science behind it, he wanted her to get up and speak. Obviously out of her comfort zone, she got up anyway and began to talk about the defiant pupil and what was really happening with the animals. Many of the scientists in the room scoffed at her and left before she had a chance to tell them everything she knew, though she managed to attract the attention of one woman who looked like she believed her.

In Zambia, Abraham managed to find an infected dog that a man was about to shoot. He captured it and brought it back to the hospital. As that happened, Jackson had to deal with a leopard attack in his recovery room and managed to get himself and three young children to safety, stashed away behind a solid wooden door. Jamie and Mitch worked on the cure, though managed to find time to have a little heart to heart moment as Mitch admitted to her that he’d learned a lot from her and was grateful she’d dragged him into the insanity.

With the cure in hand, Jamie went to look for Abraham only to find a leopard right outside of the door. Naturally, instead of immediately shutting the door she just screamed and ran back into the room, allowing the leopard in. In an attempt to get away, they had to sacrifice the remnants of the mother cell and just took what little bit of the cure they had with them as they ran away to safety. They met back up with Abraham who had the dog chained up, and they tried to give the dog the cure. Waiting, the dog did not seem to change and they worried for a while that the cure hadn’t worked.

Of course, after Abraham bullied Mitch about it, he realized it was the way they’d administered it and had the grand idea to administer it orally. It worked, and the team had their cure… except they’d lost the mother cell and used up nearly all of the cure along the way.

Chloe got a chance to meet the intrigued woman, and it was revealed that her team wasn’t the only one looking into the animal attack problem. Amelia Sage (played by the beautiful Jayne Atkinson) admitted that her team had figured out the information regarding the defiant pupil, though they had another name for it. Amelia believed Chloe because they had tangible proof that what she’d been saying all along was valid. On top of that, they offered to help Chloe and her team get to safety. Their resources were now the team’s resources. They made a powerful ally.

Just when the rest of the team was about to get attacked by leopards after reuniting and trying to escape the hospital, a military unit showed up. They were connected to Amelia’s team and managed to rescue the merry bunch of misfits and got them on a plane headed to DC to meet back up with Chloe. Unfortunately, the plane ride didn’t go as expected. Right after Mitch and Jamie finally kissed, something terrible happened, as tends to be the trend in this show. Some birds flew into the plane and caused the side to bust open, leaving everyone in a perilous situation.