I was outside shooting a little ground squirrel on top of a cactus. My Sony Ex1 was on a tripod zoomed all the way out to get a great close up shot of the ground squirrel.

When i play back the clip on my Samsung 52 1080p 120hrtz LCD TV, I noticed a very strange blinking and unwanted contrast problem.

Like the bright areas would look shaky and weird distorted looks to it when the cam moved.

What causes this and is there a fix???

I assume you mean you were zoomed all the way in not all the way out. If you had the cam on a tripod you should shut off steady shot if panning, tilting or zooming, or your cam may make unwanted adjustments as you try to pan thinking it is unwanted vibration. If the shot is locked down then Steady shot set to on while on the tripod is ok. Without seeing the footage it would be hard to guess if that is what you may be seeing or not....

I would bet it was from how you are playing it back.
Is it coming directly from the camera?
Ie. is cable from component to tv component?

Yes i am going through component...

So I just figured out the unwanted distortion is due to component connection.

But when zoomed all the way in on the subject, even on a very heavy pro tripod the video on playback looks shaky when barely touching the camera, for example when focusing manually.

What tripod exactly is your very heavy tripod?

Even wind can affect a shot at 85mm. And focusing definitely will shake cam on most tripods unless you are extremely gentle.

I often put a zip-tie around focusing ring and then change focus w/o transmitting shake to lens by gently pushing on the plastic about an inch out from the ring, that really smoothes out your touch.

I also use a rubber band on my tripod arm to get really smooth pans when zoomed in.

Tele is touchy.