“Wild Things” is episode twelve of season one of Zoo.
In the previous episode, “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”, Chloe was kidnapped from FBI custody by Gaspard Alves, who was working for Reiden. Alves had a man hurting Chloe’s sister when Delavenne entered the room that Chloe was being held and shot the man watching her. Then shot Alves when he returned. In Paris, Chloe’s sister had also been rescued. In “Murmuration”, Delavenne had appeared uncertain with what was going on – especially when it seemed that the team he recruited might actually be able to find a cure, but that Reiden’s executives did not seem as interested in that as stopping them. So, either Delavenne has changed sides or he’s playing a complicated and bloody game. In Africa, Jackson and the others managed to get a leopard cub but, whilst escaping from some armed men who had captured them (with the help of some annoyed leopards), Jackson was shot. Badly.
The episode opens in Harare with them ten miles from the hospital. Jackson isn’t doing too well and birds are behaving oddly. On the way they pass a lot of people heading in the other direction, by foot and by car. That does not look good. When they arrive at the hospital they discover people panicking, the doors locked and lions and crocodiles roaming the streets.
The doctor says they are evacuating the hospital and that they need to go to another hospital – he has lost a dozen colleagues and many patients. One that is four hours away. Jackson will not survive for four hours without surgery and, when Abe gets a bit demanding, he pulls out a gun and shoots. Not at Abe, but at a leopard in the hospital building itself. The doctor says that the last bus is leaving in an hour; he will do the surgery but after that they are on their own. The animal attacks started two days ago and they attacked the young and elderly first and then went to the hospitals where they were taken for treatment. The hospital is suffering more attacks as the doctor tells Abe this.
As Jackson is being treated, Jamie and Mitch head to the haematology labs with Abe so that they can extract the leopard cub’s stem cells and start making a cure. Wandering around a largely deserted hospital with dead bodies, blood splashed on the walls and strange noises? Very survival horror. All that’s needed are flickering overhead lights too. Mitch also needs an animal – and a domestic one at that – to try the cure out on. Abe is the best qualified to do this.
In Washington, D.C., Delavenne and Chloe are heading so that she can speak in front of a group of scientists who are having a conference about the animal attacks. If Chloe can convince them, Delavenne says they will get the whole might of the U.S. government behind them. The people at the conference are not receptive. Mostly.
The episode has a cliff-hanger ending leading into the season finale, “That Great Big Hill of Hope”.