Zoo Review: The Yellow Brick Road (Season 2 Episode 10)

Some episodes of television are so lovely that you can’t put thoughts to paper (or screen, in this case).

Zoo‘s “The Yellow Brick Road” is one of them, but not because this is an incredible episode of high-stakes television.

It’s challenging to develop thoughts when nothing of any note happens that should be discussed.

I’m serious.

Most of the hour surrounds the Zoo Crew trying to figure out what Jackson is trying to do. Okay. I’m on board for that. I miss James Wolk’s face just as much as they do.

Though beyond that, there isn’t much movement of plot. It truly feels like watching an hour of the lives of people on a plane.

Jackson wants a reunion with his father, but he also knows that he has a responsibility to his friends (and, you know, the world) to help create a cure so that the Noah Initiative doesn’t go forward.

Jackson actively makes the choice to find his father. He needs answers. He’s a man who has just realized that the majority of his life has been a lie. That’s not something he can reconcile without talking to the man responsible for it.

This is what I’m thinking about as I watch this episode, despite the fact that James Wolk has very little time on-screen, aside from making animals squirm and a quick call to Davies.

On one hand, I think this is a testament to the character of Jackson. I care about him and think about his actions, even when he isn’t around actively saying or doing anything.

But on the other, it shows a serious crack in Zoo‘s structure.

Without Jackson to be the glue to the episode and without his presence, I lose interest in every other character, including Mitch, which honestly surprises me. My time watching is spent not focusing on Dariela’s pregnancy, or the snooze-worthy love triangle brewing very suddenly between Mitch, Jamie, and Allison.

It’s spent contemplating the absent character.

I don’t think that’s a sign of great television, but it is a sign that Jackson remains the most important person in Zoo‘s universe.

Jackson’s decision to move forward in search of answers does not mean that he’s forgotten about the cure. He sends Vera to the Zoo Crew, a widowed older woman who is also infected with the Ghost Gene. She knows everything about everyone, it seems. Jackson has given her the full crash course of their mission.

Vera is lovely. She’s an outsider who doesn’t immediately throw herself into the thick of it, the way that Dariela did back in the beginning of season two. I find that her age allows her to shed life wisdom on a group of people who all seem to need a little motherly guidance. I hope this a route that the writers take with the character.

Allison’s sudden love for Mitch is manufactured. Viewers didn’t see it happen. They were quickly told about it so that it wouldn’t come as a complete shock when Allison ended up in bed with her stepson.

It feels like cheap storytelling at the cost of a relationship between Jamie and Mitch.

I’m not even referring to the almost-lovestory that Mitch and Jamie were in the thick of. I’m talking about their friendship and their fun and flirtatious banter that’s been missing for the last 10 episodes. The disconnect between them is a sin to the series.

Allison’s confession to Jamie is awkward, and comes across in a way that I struggle to describe.

The tone is not bitchy. It’s not conniving. She doesn’t feel like a villain. She also doesn’t comes across as a woman who’s found her Prince Charming either.

The words “I’m in love with him,” hang in the air like a light fixture without a bulb. The switch turns on, but no light is shed. The fixture just exists, uselessly.

As for Abe and Dariela, and the baby on the way (totally called that), I’m a bit surprised that this reveal is going so slowly. With death presumably coming at them from every angle, and their dangerous mission to ostensibly save the world, I’d think Dariela would want to speed up that discussion.

She doesn’t. It’s fine. I can be patient, I suppose.

I’ll just think about Jackson instead.

Why did Robert wait until that very last moment to contact him? He was clearly aware that General Davies would turn on Jackson. Why is this reunion shrouded in such dark secrecy? I’d like answers. I’d like the questions left from season one to be re-introduced. I want to understand why the Robert Oz that I remember is suddenly this man I don’t recognize.

I think I’m still in Jackson headspace.

It’s a fine place to be while I wait for something with a little more excitement to happen on Zoo.

What did you think of this episode of Zoo? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Zoo airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on CBS.

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