The kids make it off the island, and into a situation far, far worse.

The smart choices the show has made throughout its life really come to the fore in this season. We’re off the island at last, but not out from under the shadow of the science that’s brought the dinosaurs back to life. In fact, this season more than any other is all about the collision between nature and industry, science and business.

That’s embodied in the environment, a Mantah Corp research facility full of artificial biomes and some familiar, and very new dinosaurs. It’s a strange place, one that gives the show a chance to flex its VFX muscles and give the kids some new places to flee from imminent death. It’s also home to this season’s two primary guest stars. Kirby Howell-Baptiste of The Good Place and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off plays Doctor Mae Turner, the first adult the kids have met since the guides who isn’t awful. She’s chipper, kind, an enormous dinosaur nerd and a welcome friend for them. She’s also the embodiment of one half of the show’s central dilemma this year, whether science can exist ethically with business.

The other half of that equation is Kash, played by Hayley-Joel Osment. From his sleeve tattoo to his terrible hair, Kash is the embodiment of bad life choices and the champion of the B.R.A.D. technology. B.R.A.D.s are a wonderfully creepy addition to the show, reptile-form robots that are his eyes and ears and enforcers for the insidious true nature of the island’s science.  An emotionally stunted manchild who lashes out rather than connects, he’s business made feral on an island of feral animals that he hates.

The true nature of the project comes into focus in the back half of the season and it’s one of the darkest beats the show has ever done. Kash and Mae’s employers are working on technology to not only control dinosaurs but to make them fight for sport. Much of the second half of the season explores this, and Kash’s gleeful cruelty in controlling the colossal animals he’s both dependent on and loathes. The show goes some dark places with this, and there’s a sequence with Firecracker, the baby brachiosaurus, being chipped that’s really hard to watch. Firecracker is an adorable half ton puppy and seeing her struggle to move a body no longer under her control, and her terror, tells us everything we need to know about Kash.

The kids don’t get lost this season ether. If anything, the consequences of their months in the wild catch up with all of them. Ben struggles to bond with Firecracker or anyone else, still grieving having to leave Bumpy behind. Darius is confronted by the real human cost of his need to help the dinosaurs and the friction that brings to the group is one of the show’s most maturely handled plots, especially in his scenes with Kenji. Darius spends much of the second half of the season in pseudo deep cover with Kash and it forces him to confront not only where his loyalties lie but the fundamental conflict at the heart of every Jurassic Park story to date.

Best of all Yaz, always quiet, always competent and always one of the first into danger, starts to come apart. It’s not that she’s weak, or it would matter if she was. It’s that she’s a kid who’s fought for her life every day for months and she’s tired and terrified. She’s also not alone and one of the show’s best beats is Yaz’s PTSD, and how it allows the others to express their own. The kids aren’t alright, but they aren’t alone. That’s explored through the burgeoning, and very sweet, romances between Kenji and Brooklynn, and Yaz and Sammy. It’s also an idea blown up in the final seconds of the season as the kids gain access to the outside world, and it gains access to them.

Verdict: This season changes everything. Then does it again. A phenomenal run of episodes that sets up a huge final season. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart

 

Highlights: New dinosaurs! New people! The B.R.A.D.s ! The incredible guest stars!