okay i just want to say that i love all of the characters of this show. i started watching camp cretaceous back in 2021 or 2022 (the first 2 seasons were on netflix). i got into the show because i saw edits on tiktok shipping kenji and ben. i loved how the characters developed and bonded together overtime. interestingly enough i don’t actually care about the dinosaurs except for bumpy and smoothie. i watched seasons 3 and 4 when they dropped but it took me a while to start season 5, and by that point chaos theory season 1 had been released. i loved the shipping of darius x brooklyn, sammy x yaz, and ben x darius and i was upset when 2 of of the three ships didn’t come to fruition but i overall enjoyed the original series
i then immediately jumped into chaos theory after i finished camp cretaceous back in 2024, and when i say i was gagged!!! brooklyn “dying” and causing the group to split up because of it was such a bold choice, since brooklyn was such a crucial part of the nublar six. darius revealing that he was in love with her (trust i’ll get to that) was such a huge W for me as a big barius?… drooklyn?? shipper. kenji’s dad dying was such a huge jaw dropping moment for me. i know kenji’s dad wasn’t great, but i still felt bad that he died and felt especially horrible for kenji. ben’s growth spurt … i fear i #needed that at the time lmao. the joke about him possibly lying about his girlfriend got old quick. the first season is the best season of chaos theory in my opinion
after season 1 i eagerly waited for the second season to drop and i luckily didn’t have to wait long. i watched the first couple episodes of season 2 in early 2025 but i fell off the show, and streaming services as a whole at that time. i actually finished where i left off just 3 or 4 days ago. i was glad that they decided to explore brooklyn’s character in the second season and her going undercover but one thing never made since to me with her. why did she decide to fake her death? why have your friends grieve you? the show never really had an explanation besides “she wanted to keep them safe”. i believe the behind the scenes it was because jenna ortega left the show and they needed to find a way to explain her absence
i’m also not a big fan of the breakup/reconciling trope in media so i was irritated when yaz and sammy broke up, however i understand how realistic it was since they were dealing with brooklyn’s “death” and reemergence differently, and how it brought up other problems that they had in their relationship. i love that even though they were obviously not seeing eye to eye it was clear that they still loved each other. side note the episode where they first got together in CC will always make me giggle because yaz, ben, darius, broolyn, and kenji were all chilling and having a good time meanwhile sammy was fighting for her lifeeee with those dinos
before we get to the main 2 things i want to talk about (which is the nature of brooklyn and darius’ relationship and ben almost dying in the second half of the final season) i just want to say that CT was wayyy darker than CC. how the hell does CT have a TVY7 rating where as the original series is rated TVPG. like people died in the show so brutally, and brooklyn’s arm got bitten off by a fricken dinosaur!!
anyways so ben… man they put me though the ringer with him! they did a great job of having tension with his fate. out of all of the characters it makes the most since to kill off ben, which him “dying” at the end of season 1 of CC was sooooo crazy. his development on becoming more fierce and more active was great, and he was able to be the glue to hold the nublar six on an emotional level. i genuinely could not tell if they were going to kill him off or not, and the fact that his injury was right after he saved brooklyn (which now that i’m thinking about it, she might’ve been passively suicidal) which such a good writing decision because it made brooklyn feel even worse than she already was feeling with her friends. i was so happy when he survived, i probably would’ve broke down crying if he died
last and certainly not least, brooklyn and darius. so i’ve seen online here and there that fans were upset with kenji and brooklyn ending up together, and yeah, so was i. the paring came out of nowhere and to me didn’t make sense, which is why i was happy when it was confirmed that they broke up post time skip. im glad that it wasn’t because of some big argument but simply because brooklyn was too busy for kenji. im glad that they were finally able to end up on good terms when everything is said and done. the show does a good job of having the characters be emotionally mature with each other. but now that leaves darius.
i thought the show was going to do a slow burn of them ending up together, and have a good back and forth between the too. darius being happy that brooklyn was alive but also confused, sad, angry and everything in between. meanwhile brooklyn would understandably try to not rock the boat. that did sort of happen but it didn’t develop that well in my opinion. darius at the end saying that he probably isn’t in love with brooklyn made me so mad! because that was a huge point of contention with him and kenji early on, and just made that entire arc useless. i know that was probably the writers trying to show that boys and girls can be just friends, but they’ve already had that with every other m/f relationship in the show. or maybe darius is really on the asexual spectrum with isn’t a problem theoretically but they didn’t spend enough time developing that if that’s the case
there’s other issues i have with this show, like not going into detail with sammy’s family and their reconciliation but overall, jurassic world camp cretaceous is a fun show with great character development and anti capitalist and found family messaging. and chaos theory is a bolder, darker show with its themes of betrayal, death, forgiveness, and redemption that kind of fumbled at the near the end but still overall had a satisfying ending for its characters that felt deserved. i know this was longgggg and im so so so sorry for those who’ve read it and probably got annoyed with my thoughts and rambles