Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Cast and Crew Break Silence on Surprising Final Season Romance

Last weekend saw the return of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, with the fan-favorite animated series premiering its fifth and final season on Netflix. A spinoff of the beloved Jurassic Park franchise, the series put its group of ragtag campers through the proverbial wringer, taking them on an emotional journey that viewers had to see to believe. Spoilers for Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous below! Only look if you want to know! That was especially the case across the last season, as Yaz Fadoula (Kausar Mohammed) realized that she has feelings for Sammy Gutierrez (Raini Rodriguez), and decided to make them clear to her in an emotional moment. To her surprise, Sammy revealed that she felt the same way, and the pair got together as a couple, and remained together even to a flash-forward sequence in the series’ final episode.

“They were picking up on some Sammy and Yaz vibes all the way back from season one,” Rodriguez told ComicBook.com. “They’re so attentive. And they would send these things to Yaz, to Kausar and I, and instead of liking them, because we didn’t even know at that point what would happen, what was the endgame. As we were recording it, we would kind of pick up on vibes as well. We would do a couple of different takes where there was extra vibes thrown in, and then other takes where there wasn’t, because we didn’t know where they wanted to go with it, and we just gave them all the options and they could choose. So Kausar and I would see some fan art and things like that, [and] instead of liking it — because then the fans would run with it and be like, “It’s confirmed. They just confirmed it,” and we didn’t even know what to confirm — we would just send it to each other, back and forth, all day long. Kausar and I would just send each other screenshots of things that we found on the Internet that we thought was amazing that they were picking up on it.”

“When I read that, I was giddy with excitement,” Rodriguez said of the storyline.  I mean, it just felt like such a natural move to make. These two girls, in this world together, opposites attract. They really brought out the best in each other, of really caring for each other in more ways than one. And then it really brought me back to season three with Scorpios Rex and that kind of stuff. If you go back with what you know now, and then go back and watch that episode, when Yaz has to go get the antidote for Sammy, it just brings on a whole new level of emotion. When you go back and watch it, and you’re like, “Whoa, okay, wait a minute. There’s definitely some vibes happening here.” Kausar and I were just elated, and we recorded that episode together, and it was really special to have that. Of course, it was via Zoom, but to be able to record that together, I mean, we were both crying. It was just so beautiful. It was such a great moment. I really hope the fans really love it, because I feel like a lot of it was their voice speaking up on what they wanted to see, and our creative team behind there just 100% being behind it. And then, of course, bringing it up to Kausar and I, and we were a 100% all for it. It felt so great and amazing. I shipped them a lot. I’ve always shipped Yaz and Sammy. I just couldn’t say it out loud. We would talk about it in recordings, but I couldn’t say it out loud. So now that I can, it feels really nice.”

For the series’ creative team, including executive producer Scott Kreamer, the idea of canonizing Sammy and Yaz’s relationship was in the works for a while, but ultimately came together in the right circumstances.

“It’s interesting — We didn’t set out to tell that story when we started the show,” Kreamer explained. “You can have an idea of who the characters are before, when you’re developing a show, but it’s really when you get into script and boards and everything where you really discover who they are. It just started making more and more sense to all of us. It’s like these characters are leading us, that they should be together. So we’ve been thinking about the story for a long time. Those first three seasons, there’s a lot of time of running for your life, and there wasn’t a ton of time for introspection. There was a time when I was also like, “Oh man, did we just run out of runway? Are we not going to be able to tell this story?” And one of our writers, Bethany Armstrong Johnson, just said “No, it totally makes sense to tell that story, and here’s why.” And she and Rick Williams did such a beautiful job on that. The script where Yaz is sort of realizing her feelings and talking to Ben with it, we work with a really smart advisor from GLAAD. It made sense within the story and then anytime it gives you a chance to tell a story with more inclusion, and more diversity, and putting more of that out there into the world, that just made it all the more worthwhile.”

All five seasons of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous are now streaming exclusively on Netflix.