If you’re reading this then you’ve watched the second season of Jurassic World: Chaos Theory and you’re ready to talk about spoilers from this season of the show. It was a wild ride, and we have lots to unpack and talk about – but I want to preserve the experience for everyone. If you haven’t watched the show yet then don’t read this review as it will dive into the deepest corners of the new series.
For those of you who are sticking around, let’s dive in and talk about some of the incredible world-building and fantastic characters which are prevalent throughout the second season of the show. I’ve been excited to talk about this one!
Diving straight into the plot for this season, we get a branching narrative throughout the second season which I loved. We follow the kids as they uncover where the dinosaurs were being trafficked to, eventually arriving in Senegal, whilst we also follow Brooklynn as she joins Dinosaur Liberation Now and uses her connections with them to leverage access to ‘The Broker’. We will talk about the reveal of that character shortly, but first I wanted to express how much I loved the story this season. Dinosaurs going from mainland USA to across the globe in the years after the events of Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom was a big question mark for many fans, but the idea that this was predicated by dinosaur traffickers is a great explanation which ties into the Malta market seen in Jurassic World Dominion. I’m a big fan of how this story feels so connected to the threads we already know were there after the Lockwood Manor auction.
A big part of the second season is also the revelation of what happened to Brooklynn which led to her losing her arm – and the events are quite brutal. Not only do we get it confirmed that ‘The Handler’ was present when this incident unfolded, but it is also confirmed that Atrociraptor ‘Ghost’ was directly responsible for taking Brooklynn’s arm in a sequence which felt rather vicious and appropriately tense. We also get more story about how Ronnie has been supporting Brooklynn throughout her investigation – with Jensen arriving to poke around Ronnie’s home at one point, forcing Brooklynn to go on the run. I love how this arc was tied back into the corruption we saw in the DPW in the first season. We also get the confirmation that the DPW has been dissolved into other federal entities this season – which explains why it is the Department of Fish and Wildlife hunting the Tyrannosaurus Rex and maintaining the Pennsylvania containment facility in Jurassic World Dominion.
There is some great character development throughout the season which I really enjoyed. We see Kenji dealing with the loss of his father, and also see Ben trying to process the discovery that Brooklynn is in fact still alive. I really enjoyed how Yaz is thrust into the middle of this dynamic – showing the greatest degree of empathy for both of these characters. It’s a nice way of highlighting for us how her own experiences have made her moth empathetic for others. The through-thread in the second season is Kenji choosing not to value his own life much – leading to him putting himself in increasingly dangerous and deadly circumstances. I thought this was an interesting angle for this character throughout the season as it is true that we can often become desensitised to our own wellbeing when processing trauma – so it felt like it was handled well here.
We also get new characters here – and I have to admit, I loved the inclusion of Aminata and Zayna. I loved how they were used to showcase some of the culture in Senegal, juxtaposing against what the Nublar Five knew from their own culture. There were some really nice moments with these characters throughout the season, with Zayna’s ability to outwit Darius on multiple occasions particularly amusing. I also found it funny that Zayna’s dinosaur knowledge had come entirely from her father – who is basically a grown-up version of Darius. These characters serve as a great medium through which the show reminds us that the predication of dinosaurs in the wild is having an impact on normal, every-day people, and I loved how it handled showing us how this family had adapted to life with dinosaurs around them. I also have to shout out Geba the Gallimimus. My account might have to become a Geba stan account going forward…
OK, so I think it’s about time we talk about it. The reveal of Soyona Santos being ‘The Broker’ had me grinning from ear-to-ear – and I especially loved the fact that Dichen Lachman came back to voice Soyona in the season. I really loved how much effort went into establishing her deep connection with dinosaurs. The idea that her mother was part of the dig which discovered a Velociraptor fighting a Protoceratops in Mongolia was a really cool detail to have layered into the story here, adding a deeper level to her character. I really loved how Soyona was communicated as a cold and calculating individual throughout the season. She felt very in-control of the situations she was in throughout the episodes she featured in, and when she was put in dangerous situations, we saw a much more cunning side to her character – akin to the deadly charm we saw from her in Dominion. I felt like Chaos Theory handled her character perfectly and really helped to add so many more layers to a character which many of us had already fallen in love with. I also loved how Red’s appearance in Season Two confirmed that the animal was essentially Soyona’s personal guard Atrociraptor – a very cool inclusion!
Soyona wasn’t the only character I adored in this season, however. I loved how the writers chose to introduce Doctor Sarr in this season – a scientist whose hubris paralleled Doctor Henry Wu himself. Sarr has not only been experimenting with creating more dinosaurs (helping to explain why more dinosaurs are out there than just those that escaped Lockwood Manor), but he has also been creating genetically modified animals in the Santos’s secret laboratory in Senegal. In the season we have the reveal of the Leucistic Baryonyx, a Baryonyx which is blind, but has its other senses enhanced as a direct result. The creepy white colour of this Baryonyx combined with the entirely glossed-over eye sockets make for an eerie appearance which called back to the Indominus Rex in many ways. I adored this, not only because the unique dynamics of this animal are really cool, but also because they show us that Henry Wu is not the only person out there experimenting with genetic modification. Science is all about progress – but sometimes that progress isn’t a good thing, and I like how that is communicated here. The way the Baryonyx and Sarr are introduced and how their story plays out is an incredibly strong inclusion in the second season.
We’ve dived deep into a lot of the details peppered throughout Chaos Theory’s second outing, but it is fair to say that there is a lot of setups in this season which hints at the future of the franchise. Take Soyona’s character as a prime example. We learn that Senegal is just one facility which she has under her possession, and have reference to her travelling to Moscow, Melbourne and London as well as other locations throughout the season. This character is clearly interwoven in a global network of dinosaur smuggling, something which we already knew from Dominion, but it is also implied that her people may be creating dinosaurs and animals in these other locations – suggesting that there could be chaos brewing across the globe. We see in this season that all it took was one modified Baryonyx to obliterate the operations team at the Senegal facility – so we could easily see things get out of hand at her other facilities in the future.
It's also important to note the end of the season – where we get the reveal that Soyona is heading off to work with Lewis Dodgson and BioSyn. We already knew there was a prior connection here given their phone call in Dominion, where Dodgson states that “he didn’t like what happened last time” – but it appears now we are on course to see exactly what it was that happened during this previous event. I’m really excited to see what unfolds and how we get more connections in the run-up to the events of the film, as I think there is potential for some of the creatures that we see in BioSyn Valley to make the leap to the small screen.
I really adored how much worldbuilding was present in the second season of this show. I think it made some really interesting and pertinent connections, and also layered in some classic Jurassic storytelling tropes in new and exciting ways. Season One of the show did a phenomenal job of building a real sense of mystery and intrigue, and Season Two does an equally fantastic job of now pulling the cover back on that mystery a little – giving us a sense of the true players and operations which are making this a truly worldwide affair.
Make no mistake – this is exactly the kind of story I wanted after Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. It is going in an interesting and compelling direction which feels grounded and true to the world it is based in, and I know that I, for one, cannot wait for a third season.
Written by: Tom Jurassic