Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous

I'd been wondering about those two, but I thought I might have Shipping Goggles on. Yaz and Sammy have been an "Extrovert kidnaps and now owns an Introvert" relationship from the start, with Yaz being downright feral about her one true friend. She's opened up to the rest of the cast over the course of the series but Sammy is her extrovert specifically, so those relationships could never really compare.

I honestly didn't expect them to become an actual ship. When Yaz and Sammy were being overly dramatic about their parting, I jokingly commented, "D'aww, Yaz has a crush." Then Yaz started actually talking about it to Ben and I was like, "Oh, shit. Yaz actually has a crush. We're actually doing this. Okay!"

There are certain things that I went into this season expecting to see and was very satisfied by them. But I did not order this LGBT rep. It simply arrived, compliments of the waiter. And it was sweet. They didn't drag out an entire season of aggressive pining like Kenji and Brooklynn; They got together because they liked each other and then spent the rest of the season loving and supporting one another, the way a good ship should be written.

I did not see this coming. I assumed this was going to be a highly shippable close friendship. But it became an actual canon ship instead. Because that's something that happens in the modern age of animation, awesomely enough.

Also, someone on Tumblr pointed out: Yaz is like, "I've had crushes on boys before." And Ben, the person she's telling this to, is probably thinking, "Yeah, I know. It's okay. I'm so glad you've bounced back and moved on!" Background Ben getting out of Yasammy's way was hilarious both times.

My feelings on Kenji are complicated. To be honest, I don't like him very much. But I was never going to like him. I have "rich boy learns the value of not-wealth" fatigue. I'm over this character design. And putting it into a show like this, where the personal stakes are so high, kind of grates against the core premise.

Kenji's character arc is that his father judges him based purely on the consequences his actions have on the family's wealth and reputation. Kenji's father does care for him and demonstrates a strong desire to keep him out of harm's way multiple times, but he also treats Kenji like a financial utility. Kenji is good enough when he's bringing in money. It's only when he stumbles that he meets scorn, even if the problems that arise are in no way his fault.

Kenji can, in fact, be good enough for his father and he earns his dad's love and respect multiple times throughout the season. The point, rather, is that it doesn't matter. That his father's love is even conditional in the first place is the problem, regardless of how achievable those conditions are. It's an unexpected and poignant twist on the "Well Done, Son" Guy.

This is directly contrasted by the camp crew, who love and appreciate Kenji regardless of his merits. They don't care if he's mostly dead weight who is, at best, a helping hand for other characters to do their things. They accept him for who he is, regardless of utility.

But. See. There's a problem here. A poison pill at the heart of Kenji's character arc.

The story that this is happening in is a desperate bid for survival against an unforgiving wilderness, coupled with life-or-death battles against horror monsters and armed mercenaries. The personal stakes here are extremely high. In this situation, utility matters. Utility is the difference between waking up tomorrow and not doing that.

So I knew, when he betrayed the group, that he would see the light and come right back by the end of the season. But I never felt invested in his impending change of heart and return. To be honest, if Kenji had never come back, I don't think much would have been lost.

There's never a moment where it's like, "This would be so much easier if Kenji were here." There can't be, because he has no unique skills or abilities to contribute to a given plan or activity, and he isn't even reliable as a warm body to fill in for tasks that don't call for any particular skillset. The team continues to function at 100% capacity without him.

I'm not saying they should have let Kenji be eaten by Toro seasons ago or something. I'm just saying, when a character turncoats, the intended response is, "Oh no, now they're against us! How will we get by without them?" But when a character like Kenji turncoats, the reaction is more of a lukewarm, "Okay, sure. Bye, I guess. Ungrateful dick."

So, the actual beats worked. Darius and Brooklynn's emotional turmoil over his departure were gold. Kenji dabbling with being on Team Dad, indulging in power over Toro, but ultimately seeing the light was all very well done. Kenji ultimately renouncing his father and becoming a Bowman is a solid ending for him.

The story that they wrote for Kenji is very well told, and its emotional beats land. It's just. Hard to care about in the context of the rest of what the show is about. If that makes sense. Kenji is the hardest character in the show to like, but is simultaneously the emotional core of this entire season.

I'm glad we weren't done with Bumpy. Making Bumpy into Daniel's big line-crossed moment for Kenji was a powerful decision, for both Kenji's character arc and for Ben's. I knew Ben would have murder in his eyes from the moment he found out about that and I was not disappointed.

Bumpy was the big question mark of the show for its entire run. This relationship between Ben and Bumpy is, hands down, the biggest emotional beat of the show. No other relationship even compares. But, from as far back as the first season, it's also felt doomed.

Ben and Bumpy's relationship always had an expiration date. Obviously, they couldn't take Bumpy to the mainland when they escape. The day they leave Nublar would have to be the day Ben leaves Bumpy. And that's just so sad. I had long anticipated a bittersweet conclusion, and we actually got that in season 3. I did not expect to ever see Bumpy again.

But then she came back for one last rodeo! And Ben's epilogue lets them still be friends! And I feel weird about it? Because Bumpy's on Secret Island now. Which kind of... conflicts with her resolution in season 3, where she was accepted by an ankylosaurus herd.

Bumpy's the only ankylosaurus we've ever seen on Secret Island. Season 3 said that it was okay for Bumpy and Ben to part ways because Bumpy had her herd, and then season 5 did a complete 180. Now she has Ben, but no herd. Which feels a lot weirder.

As an aside, we've never been given any indication that Secret Island's ecology would be sustainable. They're having to feed all of the carnivores to keep this random sampling of dinosaurs with way too many carnivores from annihilating each other and themselves. They're still doing that in the epilogue, which states outright that Ben and Mae are accepting meat shipments from Sammy's ranch.

Take those poor animals back to Nublar and/or Sorna! Preferably Sorna, given what happens to Nublar in Fallen Kingdom.

I don't have a lot to say about these two, other than that I love them very much and they're awesome proactive leaders.

I get why people ship them, especially over Brooklynn/Kenji. I don't really feel like they needed to be a ship, but I wouldn't be opposed if they had been. That's kinda how I feel about all of the Camp Cretaceous pairings, to be honest; official or otherwise. Can't really be arsed to offer more than a, "Huh, that's neat."

In this particular shipping war, I don't have a horse in the race. I enjoyed several of the scenes that the pairing off of characters produced, and did not particularly enjoy others. I found Yaz/Sammy had a higher ratio of enjoyed moments to not enjoyed moments than Brooklyn/Kenji did.

But I don't really have an opinion on whether this couple or that couple would be better. My favorite shipping moment of the series was in season four, when Ben (quite reasonably) got the wrong impression and let Yaz down easy. That was hilarious.

Shipping aside, these two are my favorite characters in the show. They figure out what needs to happen to advance the plot and then they get shit done, with input from the rest of the cast. And while Kenji's betrayal complicated that, they were still going strong this season despite their feelings. And it was golden.

I was honestly way more invested in Darius and Brooklynn's reaction to Kenji's betrayal than I was in Kenji's arc.

Dodgson! We've got Dodgson here! ...See, nobody cares.

That sure was a character who showed up. Yes, indeed. Anyways.

To be honest, I was worried about Daniel. This is the guy. The one that the whole show has been building to. The man in charge of Mantah Corp. Kash's boss. Sammy's boss. The guy who sent Wu and Hawkes to the island. The guy.

By all rights, he should be the most vicious, nefarious, wicked monster that the kids have ever faced. But he's also Kenji's dad. Which is another factor in him being the guy, but it also seems like something that might act as an inhibiting factor for his heinousness.

Like. They aren't going to go too far with this character, when his love and support is vital to Kenji's resolution, right? He's the kind of character that has a change of heart, realizes his son's virtues, and redeems himself in the end. Right?

NOPE. Daniel Kon is a reprehensible bastard who goes directly to jail and does not pass Go in the end, and I am here for it. He absolutely lives down to the role, filling in as exactly the villain he's been built up to be. He is gloriously sinister, making it truly cathartic when Kenji renounces him and Sammy kicks him gut. Exactly the kind of villain that an audience can appreciate when he's winning, and savor when he's losing.

The movies may have lost sight of the fact that capitalism is Jurassic Park's central antagonist, but Camp Cretaceous sure didn't. Even the investors were all monstrous assholes. My one regret with this character is that we never got to see Big Eatie give a new meaning to the phrase, "Eat the Rich."

Kind of ironic that, after all the time the kids spent trying to thwart Kash from making "Dino Fights" a thing, the big action set-piece to close out this season is a PVP dino fight. But I digress. Daniel is everything I wanted him to be as a villain.