Jurassic World Chaos Theory Season 3 - SPOILER REVIEW and Summary

Alrighty, I’m finally getting around to writing a review on this series and I’ll focus mostly on this season anyway. But, I just finished Jurassic World Chaos Theory Season 3 moments ago and it was, excuse my hyperbole (FAN-FLIPPIN-TASTIC!). The writers have brought back elements of the first season while pushing the story forward in a thrilling way.

From the trailer, it was pretty clear that it was setting up a Jurassic World Dominion-adjacent storyline and I know this brings out mixed reactions for those who did vibe with the 2022 film, inside and outside the immediate fanbase. But, as a bit of a Dominion defender myself, who feels it’s in line with a lot of Crichton-esque story-telling, this show further enhances what I felt were undercooked plot ideas from the last two films. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a fun time with Fallen Kingdom and Dominion. But, some concepts could’ve been expanded upon further and having a TV show among other expanded media is a great way to capitalize on that.

Season 3 of Chaos Theory kicks off with the Nublar Five in a state of disbelief of Brooklynn’s decision to abandon them and head off with The Broker, Soyona Santos. What added a bit of nuance that I don’t see that often in ensemble shows like this is that some characters you think would want to get Brooklynn back, in fact, feel the opposite. They, in turn, think that it’s Brooklynn’s decision, which brings up some interesting and heartbreaking traumatic subtext in the mix.

Brooklynn, on the other hand, you see she’s not taking things completely well but feels that she “has a job to do”. She’s so far built a decent level of trust in Soyona, but how far is she willing to go with that.

Onto the villainy side, the eerie elusive enigma that is The Broker is back and she brings back more of the corporate spy thriller aspects that were sort of in the backseat in Season 2. She uses her atrociraptor squad to…convince… Professor Desai, from Ben’s old university to give into Biosyn. And, Soyona is revealed to be working with The Handler for contracted hits/missions. She’s also revealed to be working with Biosyn to expand her business as well.

The Nublar Five coincidentally bump into Barry Sembene from the Jurassic World films and he is already established as the CIA operative that we know him to be in Dominion. What adds a level of spy thriller to his role in this show is that with how much the Camp Fam are finding themselves in the midst of dangerous operations and run-ins, the trust circle is very thin. So, Darius, immediately thinks that he can trust Barry, but they realize they need to keep it a low profile for their own safety.

After crash-landing into the snowy mountains, Ben convinces the crew to go bunk at his girlfriend’s house. And to everyone’s relief, she is very real. Gia is very resourceful and has her own arc with her Nonna who is over-protective in the traditional sense, but also learning to show that dinosaurs are not a curse to humanity.

Bumpy’s baby is the key to showing that. And what an adorable little ankylosaurus he is- little Smoothie. Once they find him after losing him in the house, the baby stumbles into Kenji and when everyone tears up, I’m not ashamed to admit, I teared up. They needed this sweet innocence amongst the chaos they’ve endured and I felt really happy for them in that moment.

But, things are not all that they seem. I’ll first talk about the Pyroraptor. That fire floof brought the scares in this season! First, when Darius and Kenji try to get some fresh air on a drive. Then, especially, when Smoothie gets lost in a market after Nonna lets him out to relieve himself, that reveal was terrifying.

That’s when we also see that the Atrociraptors that through The Handler are working with Biosyn to bring the Pyroraptor back to Biosyn valley.

This further brings to question, what Brooklynn has got herself into.

This season expands even further on the choices Brooklynn has made to get herself further in on the operation that Soyona is running. It costs a lot and leaves her a lone ranger for a good sum of this season.

And in this season, she is mostly in Malta and learning about the operations surrounding the Amber Clave Black Market from Jurassic World Dominion.

There is a point where she has enough alone time to retrieve info on Lewis Dodgson’s operations and send to the Nublar Five. But some of them are not having it. They want an apology and you can see from Brooklynn’s end, she wants to make things seem like how they used to, but she’s undercover and doesn’t want them to get caught into this even further than she has.

But, overall, Brooklynn’s end goal here is to gather enough intel and with the right authorities, bring Soyona down once and for all.

She does have moments where she questions her own morality. This is seen with her run-ins with Davi, a journalist, who is “Once a Brooklander, always a Brooklander”. The moments where she tells him to back off and then impulsively pulls the lazer remote on him, were quite shocking. And, I’m sure quite shocking to herself.

Although this was an unfortunate breakup, I think it was an important one, because I believe that in this case, what once was lost, can be found again. With not everyone being on the same page about Brooklynn, there is a bit of fracture. Sammy and Yaz try to talk this out, but as a result reveal some pent up issues that were present before the events of Season 1. We also learn that Sammy’s family abandoned her and when she needed Yaz the most, Yaz was isolating herself. Kenji more clearly just wants to go home and let Brooklynn do her own thing with how Brooklynn was very much absent in the flashbacks we saw in the previous seasons.

So, Kenji, Sammy, and Smoothie head towards the airport, while Darius, Ben, and Yaz head towards Malta after Gia figures out the video Brooklynn sent was from the Catacombs there.

Now, to cut to the chase a bit, it felt pretty clear that the journey was far from over for Kenji and Sammy as the pyroraptor escaped once again and they make the effort to lure it away from skiiers and snowboarders in the area.

Now with the Nublar Three in Malta, they finally see what the black market is all about and Darius is quite traumatized especially with all the work he did for the DPW. Eventually, Brooklynn decides she can’t do this alone and meets up with them with the goals of stopping the hit on Davi and bringing down Soyona’s sale to Rainn DeLacourt from the Dominion sequence.

Things get a little haywire and we start to see how the pieces fit together with the Dominion sequence and the final few episodes of this season. Brooklynn’s quarrel with The Handler is what sets the pyroraptor cages out that sets the movie chase sequence in motion.

Also, through the chaos in the streets and the catacombs, The Nublar Three and Davi, fortunately through Brooklynn’s USB learn more about what Biosyn’s up to with the locusts and where things are headed next.

A determined Brooklynn tries to pursue The Handler and Soyona to bring the whole operation down, but Soyona still believes she’s on her side.

But, here we get to see a shot at redemption from The Handler. Loyalty was nurtured with the Atrociraptor squad, but in a shocking twist, it seems Biosyn has been training more dinosaurs in similar fashion with The Handler going the way of a Carnotaurus.

Just when things seem at a loss and Brooklynn could abandon her friends again, the Carnotaurus is tranq’d and Soyona is properly detained this time by Barry.

Barry lets The Nublar Four now to take the self-piloted Biosyn copter to the valley to set things right.

Also, after an encounter with a pyroraptor-induced avalanche, Sammy and Kenji find out from a tablet that more dinosaurs were transferred over to the valley, including Bumpy herself, with the end shot of Kenji, Sammy, and Smoothie on their way to tie up loose ends of the final act of Jurassic World Dominion.

From a technical standpoint, the lighting continues to be fantastic and really enhances the cinematic scope of this series compared to the intial run of Camp Cretaceous. That first show is still really well-animated, but this one is taken care of on a whole new level. Some of my favorite moments in the lighting include the Amber Clave scenes where Brooklynn is investigating and even some of the calmer moments.

The writing also really steps up with really diving into the mental health aspects of what the Nublar Six are going through personally and as a team. It’s very nuanced, especially for a family-friendly rated show.

With how this season fares compared to Season 2, I must first say I enjoyed Season 2 more than Season 1 with how much it really captured Dominion’s message from Charlotte Lockwood. With learning how to coexist instead of stowing fear, life can find a way. I know Season 2 seemed to be a bit mixed in reception and seen as filler, but through that filler, I believe helps to build characters. We see that for example, with how Sammy craves for a strong family foundation that she saw with the M’Ballo’s.

Onto the action and scares, they stepped it up a notch, especially with pyroraptor. It has a moment that’s reminiscent of the Spider-Man 2 video game trailer where Venom emerges from the alley. I was genuinely afraid that some of the supporting characters we really get attached could get hurt or bite the dust. The lighting as well, factors into all of this, which again, I am in awe of.

There were a good bunch of nods to Jurassic World Dominion and glad we got Barry in on this as I feel the CIA angle is a fun area to explore where the story of the franchise was at, during this point.

We also had nods to Maisie and Beta’s capture along with Owen and Claire heading to Malta. But, I was a bit bummed that many of these moments were near misses and we don’t even hear from those characters. This is something that I hope maybe Season 4 could fix, which apparently from a Toy Fair suggests it releases sometime after Jurassic World Rebirth comes out.

Dodgson’s demeanor was perfectly translated from film to animated once again, with how many projects he’s running and out of touch he really is. It ultimately makes me wonder, for Season 4, who the villain is considered. Is it his negligence or something entirely else? I’m also feeling that with how little Henry Wu there is in the third act of Dominion, we could get more of him as he was relevant to the plot of Camp Cretaceous and setting Fallen Kingdom’s plot in motion.

Soyona’s tie-ins were quite strong as we even get an animated version of a scene from the movie, which was super cool. Once, all is said and done, even with Season 4, I’d like to see a mash-cut of the Chaos Theory scenes of Season 3 and 4 and Dominion.

Being in the Jurassic fandom space, you hear a lot of intersting facts and rumors and one of them is that originally this was intended be a 3 season show. But, I feel things had changed rather recently, especially with all the positive reception and accolades it has received, that gave the opportunity to fully flesh out into another season. Malta was a beast of a scene and Biosyn valley sure is as well, and I felt from the get-go that 5 episodes covering each is not enough, so I’m glad we get more time.

Now, if this is indeed the finale, it is hard to say goodbye to the Nublar Six. The journey has been a long one, but a rewarding one, as it’s not often you get explore the growth of characters across 9 seasons (especially in animated form).

I personally think that the Nublar Six will make amends and relationships will be healed by the end of this, but I do wonder if they’ll set anything up as a spinoff to continue alongside and beyond Rebirth.

I’ve also been saying that the creatives in both DreamWorks and Universal are probably in very experimental territory here in that given how Rebirth could be received and how Chaos Theory is actively being received, we could see areas to make Dominion plot threads work in the future of this new era we are entering.

In terms of spinoffs, I’d like to not only see animated ones, but also live-action series through Peacock. The Jurassic franchise is arguably a crown jewel for Universal and given the success of some of the Clone Wars/Rebels live-action spinoffs with Star Wars on Disney+, Universal could do the same alongside the main films.

How they make sure that it’s not over-saturated, could be up to Koepp’s Commandments.

But, overall, with this season included, I believe Chaos Theory shows that Jurassic can thrive across multiple media.

(And speaking of multiple media, if Dreamworks and Universal were to ever do a limited screening the series finale theatrically, before it goes to Netflix, I’d go see it.)