“Jurassic World: Chaos Theory” Season Two Review – The Rift Deepens!

The second season of Jurassic World Chaos Theory offered a stellar new chapter in the adventures of the Nublar Six. I want a third season so bad!

With the gang having grown up, the debut season of Jurassic World Chaos Theory in May of this year was about the Nublar Five coming together while continuing to deal with Brooklynn’s death in their own way. However, the audience knew that Brooklynn was still alive, and I was looking forward to seeing how the second installment would handle her side of the story and her inevitable reunion with her friends. And I have to say that the 10-episode-long Jurassic World Chaos Theory season two didn’t disappoint.

The creative team was able to perfectly balance progressing two separate narratives. The Nublar Five found themselves all the way in Senegal dealing with escaped dinosaurs while Brooklynn’s story led her in the same direction from Dubai. The current season also introduced a new character named Zayna, who served as a guide for the Nublar Five, while the mysterious Broker is revealed to be Soyona Santos from Jurassic World Dominion. I enjoyed seeing how Zayna and Soyona added positively to the story.

Zayna, who was close to the age of the Nublar Six when they were first stranded at Camp Cretaceous, was a capable young girl. She was smart and understood a lot about her surroundings and the dinosaurs. Her character arc involved being confident in her abilities to leave home and lead the Nublar Five upriver toward the supposed source of the dinosaurs. She’s also quite emotionally mature, realizing not to take Sam’s outburst personally when Sam freaked out about the group accidentally leaving Yaz behind at night.

As for Soyona, I don’t know about you, but I was intrigued by her character in Jurassic World Dominion and I’m glad to see her return via the animated series, with actress Dichen Lachman reprising her role. She’s shown to be quite a ruthless businesswoman, and kudos to the creative team for not giving her a troubled childhood to have her come across as misunderstood. Nopes. Soyona was all about the business and she’s capable of a whole lot to get what she wanted.

From what I understood, while capturing dinos and selling them off to the highest bidder was lucrative, Soyona was looking at the bigger picture. The number of dinos was going to dwindle and their demand would continue to increase. That’s why she had built several secret underground labs to begin the process of creating (or cloning) genetically modified dinos. If she could get a supply chain running, she would never run out of dinos to sell.

I wasn’t expecting the narrative to have Brooklynn become Soyona’s assistant. However, such a creative decision made sense due to Brooklynn’s mission. If she wanted to put an end to Soyona’s operation, she needed to gain her trust, even if it meant continuing to distance herself from her friends and being seen as one of the bad guys. The sequence where Brooklynn broke into Soyona’s penthouse in Dubai and used the Atrociraptor against Soyona was well-written. Brooklynn’s got a little bit of evil inside of her and I love it. 

With how things were left between Brooklynn and the Nublar Five at the end of episode 10, the rift between them has indeed deepened. Even though I feel Darius and the rest can kind of see why Brooklynn’s aligning herself with Soyona in such a manner, with how things are rapidly progressing, Brooklynn might be faced with making a bad guy-esque decision she might not be able to fix later. Soyona’s taking Brooklynn to meet her new partner Biosyn. So, I take it that the third season of Jurassic World Chaos Theory will connect with the events that transpired in Jurassic World Dominion. You just know that drama involving human cloning is coming.

Also, in my opinion, the creative team handled Brooklynn’s losing her arm quite well. She’s shown to still harbor trauma over the tragic ordeal and there are moments where it takes her a second to realize she only has one hand to do stuff with. For those of you who might now know, Brooklynn’s current voice actress Kiersten Kelly was born without a right forearm. And series writer Peter Lee is an amputee. Kelly and Lee recently talked to People about featuring authentic disability representation and I think they more than hit the mark.

Talking about the rest of the Nublar Five, the narrative focused on Kenji shutting himself off from emotional pain. He’s lost Brooklynn and his father. Not addressing those emotions led him to put himself in numerous dangerous situations just so he could feel something. Apparently, Kenji wanted to experience some kind of physical pain to help distract him from his emotional turmoil. I liked how Yaz noticed something was wrong with Kenji and reached out. She even urged Darius, his best friend, to speak to him. Kenji being angry at Ben for keeping Brooklynn’s status a secret was an understandable response. And though the two ex-lovers couldn’t reconcile in the current season, I think they will get back together soon enough.

Ben’s story arc was about him figuring out that Brooklynn was indeed alive and then being told by Brooklynn to keep it a secret from the rest of the group. Ben’s confused emotions made sense as he tried to do good by his friends.

Darius didn’t have much to do during the second season. But that’s okay because the first season of Jurassic World Chaos Theory focused a lot on him. The same was true for Sam and Yaz as they continued to be a loving queer couple. Trying to tell a huge chunk of the story in 10 approximately 20-minute-long episodes while giving each character in an ensemble equal screen time can be a tricky ordeal. So, I’m okay with certain seasons focusing more on specific characters.

As for the setting, I think Senegal worked quite well. It allowed for the Nublar Five to encounter a location that wasn’t yet another secluded island. That also meant that not only did they have to be aware of carnivorous dinosaurs but the naturally dangerous wildlife, too. There’s a sequence where the Nublar Five and Zayna were chased by an aggressive hippo because, of course, they would find themselves in such a situation while traversing through the thick jungle.

All in all, Jurassic World Chaos Theory season two was another highly enjoyable piece of storytelling in the long-running Jurassic Park/Jurassic World IP. I have my fingers crossed the Nublar Six return for a third season soon.

What did you think?

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Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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