‘Zoo’: 8 Things to Expect in Season 2
Billy Burke, Nora Arnezeder, James Wolk and Nonso Anozie (Katie Yu/CBS)
Last summer’s guilty pleasure Zoo returns tonight for its second season on CBS. We pick up right where we left off, with Jackson (James Wolk) and Co. facing a wall of animals who don’t want them to reunite with Jamie (Kristen Connolly), who’s stranded elsewhere with a leopard and their best shot at stopping the animal-led apocalypse.
We chatted with Wolk, who offered a few teases of what lies ahead.
1. They do somehow get away from that wall of charging animals. “I had no idea how we were going to possibly get out of that,” Wolk admits. “Of course, we did. Otherwise we wouldn’t be on the phone. … That really sets the tone for the level of adrenaline Season 2 has constantly throughout.“
2. The animals up their game. “In Season 2, the mutation has found its way to some animals that can affect environmental change,” Wolk says. “So not only are the animals attacking humans, but they’re making the planet, in certain ways, uninhabitable, which creates a whole new danger and excitement for the show.” He’s wrangled a five-foot snake and been on set with a polar bear.
3. The team will discover a mutation that threatens the life of one of their own. “It becomes a big part of the season,” Wolk says, declining to name names. (The cast preview below, however, makes it sound like it’s his Jackson in danger…)
4. We’ll meet new characters. For starters, there’s Logan, played by Josh Salatin. “When Season 2 picks up, one of the main characters has to find and rescue Jamie and bring her back — which proves to be harder than we initially thought,” Wolk says. “While Jamie is on her journey trying to get back, she runs into this lone survivor of this horrific animal attack, and she forms an alliance with him. That’s Logan. I think it will be interesting for the audience. He’s a little bit mysterious. He provides a really interesting dynamic on the show.”
Kristen Connolly and Josh Salatin (Liane Hentscher/CBS)
5. There’s also Dariela, played by Alyssa Diaz. “She’s part of a military unit that, when the show opens up, is dealing with the animal apocalypse in their own way. We actually bring her in. She becomes part of the team, so to speak. Dariela is really just bad ass,” Wolk says. “There’s a lot of more nuance besides just that.”
Alyssa Diaz (Shane Harvey/CBS)
6. Yes, the idea to kill all the animals in the world is still on the table. General Davies (Peter Outerbridge) is the man behind that initiative, the Noah Objective. "That’s obviously something that we don’t want. That becomes a big part of this season, amongst so many other things,” Wolk says. “We are trying to stop this guy, and he proves to be a very hard guy to stop.”
7. There will be time for romance on the show. “Absolutely,” Wolk says. “The animal apocalypse is full on, but amazingly, while that’s all happening, the writers have done a great job of creating a lot of interpersonal relationships between these characters. Whether it’s love or hate or friendship, all of that stuff is also amped up. There’ll be some romance. There’ll be some good stuff like that going on.“
Wolk’s Jackson recovering in Season 1
8. And there will also be time to see Wolk with his shirt open or off again, like after he had surgery in Season 1? “That’s a great question. I was hoping you would ask that,” Wolk says with a laugh. “I believe so. I believe that will occur again.”
Season 2 of Zoo premieres June 28 at 9 p.m. on CBS.
