The third season of the Netflix and DreamWorks animated series Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous pits the teenaged main characters against the Scorpius rex, a hybrid dinosaur like nothing they’ve ever dealt with before. They successfully defeat her, while simultaneously thwarting an attempt by Dr. Henry Wu to retrieve his research on the hybrids and dealing with the emotional impact of leaving their new found family. This season has a good amount of references to the rest of the franchise, like we have come to expect from the show, and in the final seconds teases the possibility of a fourth season. Here are some notable Easter eggs and other references to the Jurassic World and Jurassic Park canon.
The Helicopter
In Camp Cretaceous season 1, which took place concurrently with Jurassic World, we saw Simon Masrani’s helicopter crash into the aviary from the point of view of our camp fam, instead of Owen Grady and Claire Dearing (Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard) as shown in the movie. Season three of Camp Cretaceous continues to show us events from the movies from another perspective, as the story overlaps with the beginning of Fallen Kingdom. In one harrowing scene, Rexy the Tyrannosaurus pursues a man dangling from one of the helicopters. He gets away, but his relief is short-lived when the park mosasaur leaps out of the water and devours him. If that scene gives you a sense of déjà vu, that’s because it takes place in the opening minutes of Fallen Kingdom, only this time we get to see it from the perspective of Darius, Brooklynn, and Yaz. Even though we didn’t see them in the movie, these kids were never far from the action. (And may have even caused it in this particular instance; Rexy was only in that area because she had been chasing after the kids.) While that may be the most obvious connection to the timeline of the movies, the rest of the season has its fair share of references and homages.
Scorpius rex
Last season, the kids discovered a mysterious experiment known only as E750, which escaped her cryogenic chamber during the cliffhanger finale. This season, we get to meet her: Scorpius rex, an unstable and unpredictable hybrid made by none other than Dr. Henry Wu (played by BD Wong in the movies and voiced by Greg Chun in Camp Cretaceous). She’s big, she’s bad, she’s covered in poisonous spikes, and she may be the most dangerous dinosaur on the island. Oh, and did I mention she can reproduce asexually? Just like in Jurassic Park, when it is revealed that the dinosaurs can change their sex thanks to the frog DNA the scientists used to fill in the sequence gaps, our terrifying tree climbing friend Scorpius has developed the ability to produce offspring all on her own. (You go, girl. You’re a modern woman, you can juggle being a single mother and having a career screwing up ecosystems!) Blue previously battled the Indominus rex in Jurassic World, and later takes on the Indoraptor near the end of Fallen Kingdom, but it turns out those weren’t her only experiences fighting hybrid dinosaurs. While I wouldn’t say she and the campers necessarily trust one another, Darius does save her life when she becomes trapped under a vehicle, and there is an uneasy alliance after that. Sort of an “enemy of my enemy” situation, with them having a similar goal to defeat the Scorpius rexes. (Scorpiuses rex?) It would also appear that Blue and the other raptors, along with their trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), might have been a little bit famous before the fall of the park, at least in dinosaur nerd circles. How else would Darius know how to mimic the nonverbal signals used by Owen to communicate with the raptors?
The Kitchen
While trying to get a compass back from the Compsognathus that stole it, the kids stumble upon the original Jurassic Park, which is rumored to be either haunted or cursed by the spirit of John Hammond (Richard Attenborough). And of course, no visit to Jurassic Park is complete without a trip to the visitor center. Nature has taken over the iconic building where we first met Mr. DNA, and where the first of many dramatic showdowns between Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor marked the dénouement of the first film. Ferns and vines have turned the center into something resembling a greenhouse, and the Compies have built nests on old scaffolding and near the atrium ceiling. And then, of course, there’s the kitchen. When one of the Scorpius girls follows the kids into the visitor center’s kitchen, you can’t help but be reminded of Tim and Lex (Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards) hiding from the raptors in the first Jurassic Park movie. References to that scene abound, most noticeably the dinosaur’s breath fogging up the round window in the door, but this isn’t just an Easter egg hunt. Rather, the scene parallels the original to show the differences between the clever raptors and the… not so clever Scorpius. Scorpius Rex, on the other hand, can’t open the door handle and chooses instead to just bash through it like the chaotic neutral she is. Less of an apex predator and more of a panicking cat with a balloon static electricity’d to her butt, Scorpius is still dangerous, perhaps even more so because she is unpredictable. At the end of the scene, in one final blink and you’ll miss it nod to the original, an instantly recognizable soup ladle is one of several kitchen utensils sent flying through the air. The season ends with most of the storylines wrapped up and the kids seemingly on their way to safety on a boat headed for Costa Rica. Except… remember the door handle in the kitchen? Turns out, boats have the same handles, and one of them is jiggling in that distinctive raptor way. Do we have a stowaway? We’ll find out if we get a fourth season.
