James Wolk on the Animal Apocalypse Threatening the World in Season 2 of Zoo

CBS’ Zoo is back for another season of lions and tigers and bears — as well as the rest of the animal kingdom — running amok as Abraham Kenyatta (Nonso Anozie), Mitch Morgan (Billy Burke ) and Jackson Oz (James Wolk) try to come up with a plan to heal the animals before the Noah Objective wipes them from the face of the earth as a way of saving humans.

On tonight’s episode, with the mutation to Phase 2 having made the team’s initial plan to solve the animal crisis nonviable, tragedy strikes their only ally within the government, and they are left on their own to stop a surge of animal-related attacks from destroying Geneva, Switzerland.

Also, new team member Dariela (Alyssa Diaz) makes a shocking discovery about General Davies (Peter Outerbridge), head of the Noah Objective, and in the Canadian wilderness, Jamie (Kristen Connolly) witnesses the animals’ broadening effect on the environment and uncovers a troubling detail about Logan (Josh Salatin).

Series star James Wolk spoke to Parade.com about the underlying message of Zoo, the face of the villain in Season 2, animal encounters and more in this interview. Check it out.

Season 1, I would say, was all about identifying the cause of the altered animal behavior and trying to find the cure. Is that still what we’re dealing with in Season 2?

Season 2 is also about figuring out the cure, because what we find is that there’s a Phase 2 of what’s happening to the animals and that starts to kick in, so the science of it continues. The science is always like one step ahead of us. We’re trying to figure out why these things are happening, and what we thought was going to be the answer doesn’t necessarily turn out to be the perfect answer.

So what you find a lot in Season 2 is the phenomenon has grown. It’s not just isolated, localized incidents that we go to see. It’s truly global. The world is now under this animal apocalypse. My favorite part about Season 2 is you get these little snapshots of different places all over the world and how different communities are dealing with this apocalypse, all the while, our team is still on this mission to put an end to this. To find the cure. But it gets really, really messy, because every time we think we have the answer, we don’t, and I think it provides some really good dramatic tension in the show.

What will we learn about the big, bad villain Reiden Global?

They’re still the villain, but the villain starts to take more of a specific face, and it manifests in the form of a particular character that is introduced in this season, who is fantastic. I think that’s going to also be a great dynamic because evil takes a specific face, and that’s interesting because it’s not just the animals. There’s obviously this greater evil in the show.

So last season you told me that there were rats, bats, and bears, but that the birds were the creepiest because they came from above. So what are your animal encounters like this season?

We have a lot of animal encounters, but  also character development is really realized in this season. There’s more interpersonal relationships that start to provide the dramatic tension of an episode. I think that that is a great aspect about Season 2, but to answer your question, I would say that this year we had some polar bears on set, and you just don’t want to [mess] with a polar bear, you know? It’s not something you want to do.

Bears are just fierce. That’s one takeaway I’ll have from Zoo is that bears are just fierce. They’re just unbelievable, and polar bears, apparently, are some of the more dangerous or aggressive bears out there. We had some on set and it was pretty incredible.

The series has come so far from the original book now. Has James Patterson contributed anything to Season 2, or he’s just given you his blessing and said, “Go do what you want with the story?”

I think both. I think he’s given his blessing, but he’s also involved in the show. He’s involved in the storyline. They’re sent to him. You know, I’m not in the writer’s room, but I believe that he has ideas and thoughts that the writers take seriously, and so his spirit is still very much in our show.

The theme in the show and the book, to me, is the same about how mankind is doing irreparable damage to the environment and it changes the planet around us to the point that we may not have a planet. Would you agree that the theme of the series is  that we do need to take better care of our environment?

I think that that’s one of the underlying themes and I love that about the show. The show is obviously heightened. It’s totally fantastical, but at the same time, that one thread of an idea, I think, is true, which is we do need to take better care of our environment, and so I like that the show and, certainly, the book has that spirit to it.

Zoo airs Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.