Zoo Recap: Hybrid Theory

We’re almost at the midpoint of this season of Zoo, the best ridiculous show on television. So, naturally, things should be taking shape. An endgame should start to appear — and boy, does it. But first, there are some cliffhangers we have to address.

Most of “Oz is Oz” is devoted to bringing the Zoo Crew back together from their disparate imperiled positions, just in time to drop some Serious Plot Bombs on them. It’s really pretty impressive stuff, a pivot from the getting-the-gang-back-together stuff that defined the first half of the season, and giving everyone a real mission for the second half. Zoo really knows how to keep that momentum going.

Let’s start with what’s probably the most dramatic of last week’s hanging threads: Jackson, summoning Psychic Lions to his defense in Mexico. With the Deus Ex Lions protecting him from The Witch and her rifle-toting associates, he and Tess are able to hitch the trailer with Abendegos in it to a truck and make their escape to the plane.

Meanwhile, Clem is being auctioned by The Gentlemen, but it’s cool because Mitch is there and he saves her — or, rather, the Gentlemen’s unwillingness to risk injuring the only fetus in the world saves her, allowing the two of them to drive from New York to meet the rest of the crew somewhere, it’s not clear. They’re driving for a long time.

Then, we have the funniest cliffhanger, where Jamie is under arrest because she confessed to a murder she didn’t commit because she knew it would get Logan and Mitch to work together to find the real murderer, but now she’s still in custody and won’t someone please let her out because she was just kiddiiiing.

Never, ever try this, because Logan — in the only moment Logan is ever right — tells Jamie there are “no takebacks” when you confess to murder. But that’s the real world, and this is Zoo, suckers.

What I’m trying to say is that Jamie is free again, and it will never make sense. I should probably try to explain how, though, because there’s some pertinent info there — namely, that those lenses Mitch and Logan got from Leanne Ducovny’s body also recorded her final moments. Because Jamie is really good at tech stuff, she’s able to extract the video of Ducovny’s final conversation with her killer: Abigail Westbrook, who says “we” don’t need Ducovny anymore, because “we” have the Nelvatox-B. So now the Zoo Crew has a goal: Find out who “we” is. Luckily for them, they have a hint from the files and start their hunt with a guy named Charles Duncan. With a little bit of government tech magic, they have a photo too … it’ll just take a while to render the photo, because it’s way cooler if the reveal happens at the end of the episode instead of right now.

It’s around this time that the Zoo Crew slowly begins to get back together. Jackson, back on the plane with Tess and Abendegos, watches a news report with Abe and Dariela and find out some disturbing news on TV: Following Ducovny’s death and radio silence from Reiden about the project for which they were permitted to abduct children, the police have breached the facility where the kids were held, only to find it empty. The kids are all missing.

Abe and Jackson put their heads together and deduce that they kids were being given Nelvatox-B  — which has a unique radioactive signature they can track. With Logan’s help, they can track it.

But first, more arrivals: Now Mitch is back, and after a brief blowup at Dariela that Clem talks him down from, he finds the hybrid in the trailer and immediately passes out after a psychic episode of some kind? It’s not really clear.

When he comes to, Jamie gives him the tablet so he can catch up on science stuff (really) while the image of their next target decrypts. Meanwhile, Jackson and Abe, having examined both Abendegos and Clem, deduce that the new hybrids all share a common genetic marker that branches off from a similar origin. But in order to formulate a cure, they need to obtain spinal fluid from each related hybrid — and according to Abe, there are six total, which means they have to find three more hybrids we’ve never seen before. This should be fun.

Finally, there’s Abigail. Throughout all this, she’s recovering in a stasis tank a lot like the one Mitch was found in, having been brought to her partners that are helping her enact Blue Diaspora. As she recovers, we’re treated to a flashback from ten years ago, set during the season two finale. Abigail was working with her father in secret. She had cracked The Shepherds’ alternate plan to save the animals by creating a hybrid using her human DNA: a baby Abendegos. Only, when the elder Oz decides to save Jackson, sick from the ghost gene, by sacrificing his own life, he sends his men to tell Abigail that Jackson — the sibling whom he had previously called a waste — would save the animals, not her. His plan was the only plan, and the NX Gas was the way. In a vengeful fury, she escapes in the confusion following the disaster at Pangaea Island, bringing Abendegos with her and saving one more person whose help she needed.

The mysterious Mr. Duncan. Or, as we find out when Mitch sees the decrypted photo: Dr. Mitch Morgan.

OH SNAP.