Season 3 Initial Thoughts
- ℂ𝔸𝕄ℙ ℂℝ𝔼𝕋𝔸ℂ𝔼𝕆𝕌𝕊 𝕊ℙ𝕆𝕀𝕃𝔼ℝ𝕊 𝔸ℍ𝔼𝔸𝔻-
Holy shit, this Season was a doozy. I absolutely loved this season. It was a lot more intense than both Season 1 and 2, but had the realism from Season 1 that I loved so much.
Also I was fucking wrong, boys. Well not completely. I did make the prediction that they’ve been on the island for at least 2 months, because for some reason that was a reasonable number in my head. A nice believable number for the kids to have survived and did all they did, but six months!? Like half a year!? They would have been 1.5 years away from getting blown up from the volcano in JW2. Bruh...
The Scorpius Rex probably had the most terrifying design I had ever seen for a hybrid dinosaur. It felt way more threatening than both the Indominus and Indoraptor, probably because of it’s very odd hodgepodge of a design. I also love the twist of it being extremely unstable and causing other dinosaurs to lash out after being poisoned. Having this thing chase around the kids was definitely terrifying to say the least. Also wasn’t expecting Sammy to get spiked by the poison too (and turn an odd shade of green, sorta narmy lmao). I knew she wasn’t going to die, but I wasn’t expecting a nice squick shot of the quills in her abdomen that was a fun treat.
Also finally! Kenji, my boy, finally has some character backstory and development! I will probably do a more deeper analysis on Kenji’s drawing of his family, but is already kinda confirmed what kind of person his father is. He didn’t care enough about his son to want to put pictures of him on the wall, only himself. It makes sense why Kenji was so self absorbed as well. I found it pretty heartbreaking that Kenji risked his life to try rescue his father’s “precious” art statue. I’m not sure if he tried to rescue it because he was scared of his father scolding him or if he just wanted to bring it back for his father for a pat on the back. Either way, it’s just brings up sad implications all around.
Honestly Kenji had some absolutely great development this season, in my opinion, way more so than the others had and way more interesting too. I think the episode that really marked a change in Kenji was Episode 5 (Eye of the Storm), when Kenji took it upon himself to be in charge of packing. For most of the episode, he was acting like typical Kenji, but he began to take his job way more seriously when it came to the safety of his friends. When Darius took after Ben, he properly took charge of the group (nice contrast to Season 1 where he was more nonchalant about it and tried to pass off responsibility). It was around this point that we didn’t see Kenji acting all high and haughty anymore, he was fully devoted to saving his friends.
I definitely wasn’t expecting Kenji to run off with the laptop to make the trade and save Brooklynn. The boy tried to fight a man with a loaded gun to save his friend, how foolish and brave of him to try do so. It was amazing to see Kenji, who spent most of the series cowering behind others, fully devoting himself to protecting Brooklynn in the finale (leading her to safety and shielding her with his own body). I do think that Kenji has some issues regarding losing friends; I think that the Camp Fam really is the first friends he’s ever gotten, which is why losing them hurt him so much (Sammy’s faux death and Brooklynn getting kidnapped).
The way at the end when Kenji refused to forgive and accept the idea that they were going to risk Brooklynn’s safety over the laptop...it was a very mature way to handle that situation. Pragmatically, Kenji was absolutely right, they shouldn’t be risking their lives over a stinkin’ laptop. It’s not they’re responsibility, they’re just kids. But his friends were good people and Kenji played along, but decided to take matters into his own hands. His friends are important to him and he’s going to do anything to keep them safe.
From haughty jock who only seemed to care about himself to a team member willing to risk everything to keep everyone safe, Kenji really has grown so much as a character.
All in all, I’m surprised the kids actually made it off the island this time. My friends and I were placing bets on whether or not they would make it off the island this season. Everyone had voted that they wouldn’t, but they did...hopefully? They got a stowaway so I’m wondering how they’re going to deal with that. Go back to the island? Keep going? Clearly it all isn’t over because Kenji’s character arc isn’t quite solved yet. I wonder how many more season CC will have. I do enjoy the series, but there’s only so much they can keep right?
This initial thoughts ended up more of a Kenji reaction post, so I’ll dedicate the end here to some other thoughts I had overall:
Yasmina and Sammy’s friend-(or maybe more)-ship was really cute and wholesome. I found Yasmina’s chumminess afterwards Hello-Zuko-Here levels of second hand embarrassment xD (Are they a maybe-couple? When Brooklynn mentioned crushes that Sammy might’ve had she mentioned Yaz lmao).
Thank god, Bumpy didn’t die. She has her own family now...for at least 1.5 more years until the volcano explodes...
Ben, you stupid child, of course you want to get off the island. I would have knocked you out and dragged you on the boat myself.
It was nice of the pilot and mercenary to board the kids upon finding out they were children. Even though they died / ended up splitting up the kids, the meant well.
I can’t believe Dr. Wu was in this season. He isn’t as much as a bad guy as I thought. He still left the kids, but at least he didn’t...kill them? Set the bar too low maybe?
And that’s all for now. This being a chock-full Kenji season, I’ll probably be doing some analysis or posts on him, but thought I’d make a reaction post with all my initial thoughts for now!













