How It All Goes Down
- The circus folk are slowly starting to bring the animals back in: one lion made it all the way into town. August is dead and Al is M.I.A.
- The circus has turned into the kind of derelict place Al used to scavenge. In a reversal of roles, other circuses come in to pick it over.
- Jacob isn't sure what he and Marlena should do. He gathers his courage and telephones the man in charge of Cornell's vet school. He spills his guts and gets permission to finish up his degree. That was conveniently easy.
- Jacob goes back to the circus in the nick of time to save Rosie from the circus vultures. He claims that Rosie isn't any good at being a circus animal.
- Rosie shows just how smart she is by not following commands. It works: the other circus people decide they don't want her. Phew again.
- Then Marlena has to defend her animals. She manages to protect her eleven beautiful horses, but Jacob realizes that their family has suddenly become incredibly big and they have nowhere to go.
- He gets in touch with the man from Cornell again: the elephant is going to be a problem. (Really?)
- He finds Marlena and they commiserate. But Marlena has an idea: they will apply to join the best circus there is, the Ringling Brothers (who, by the way, you can still go see!).
- They have an awkward conversation and decide to get married. How… romantic?
- Marlena looks into joining Ringling, and Jacob learns that Al was murdered, grotesquely.
- And to top off their already animal-friendly family, Marlena and Jacob adopt a chimp, Bobo.