It’s tricky for a show that has a specific mission statement to run for multiple seasons. You can squeeze out so many episodes let alone seasons worth of show before an audiences patience wears out if you don’t reveal who the murderer was, or why are they on the damn island, or who is the double crossing agent that executed a terrorist attack. And once you do get to the reveal then what? Do you go into the same direction with few changes a la 24, because you can never get enough of Jack Bauer punching and shooting terrorist. Or do you flip the script and hope the direction change works. 12 Monkeys in their second season decided to flip the script.
In the first season they stuck close to the movie plot the show is based off of. Season 1 mission statement – stop the release of the virus that wipes out most of mankind by going back to different places in time and try to locate the virus or the people behind the release of it. The end of the first season didn’t conclude with the completion of that mission so one was left to wonder if they were going to extend the search of the virus for a whole other season. As much as I enjoy watching these characters do their thing, you can only take so much of Cole and Dr. Jones failing at their mission before you say, ok just quit already, everyone dies, get over it. One resolution we got was that Ramse is not the mysterious Witness who is in control of the 12 monkeys. They were setting him up as such since he was giving the Monkeys all kinds of information to stop Cole on the different missions he went on because he had “witnessed” all this stuff go down. But it turns out that Ramse is known as “the traveler” not the dastardly Witness.
The team does face interesting situations at the beginning of Season 2. Cole and Ramse are on the run from the Monkeys while doing their own guerilla style attacks on them in 2016 like pesky flies in the ointment. Cassie and Jones are under siege in 2043. Turns out Cole picked the right time to send Cassie into the future just as the lab is being attacked by Deacon and a group of the Monkey army called Messengers who then take over the time machine and send 6 of their Messengers to different time periods. With the team stuck between a rock and a hard place in two different places in time they are need of a win, and they get a big one from Dr. Kalman who turns out is still helping the monkeys even though Cole had given him a second chance to right his wrongs. He’s completed the virus and delivered it to the monkeys but he knows who and when it’s going to be released, which means Cole can complete his mission. Turns out its Jennifer Goines, after being manipulated by Olivia the Witnesses’ right hand lady, to do the monkeys dirty work so that Jennifer can have a purpose and play an important role in history. Also she’s releasing it on Chinese New Year because it’s the year of the monkey; see the 12 Monkeys aren’t without a sense of humor or irony.
Cole tracks down Jennifer and tries to stop her from releasing the virus. When agents for the Monkeys almost get the drop on him Cassie shows up badder than ever and guns down the agents. Cole surprised by the badder and more readily to kill Cassie asks her what happened and she said that she’s been in Cole’s time for 8 months. And any stretch of time in Coles world changes you man. Cole manages to talk down Jennifer from releasing the virus and also manages to talk down Cassie from killing Jennifer and Ramse. The role reversal of Cole being the pacifist and Cassie being the shoot first asks questions later added a great dynamic to the show and showed just how much they influence each other.
Cole can now complete his mission. He gets Jennifer to take him where all the samples of the virus are being stored and then destroy it, every last drop. World is saved, shows over folks, have a good night. Since Cole doesn’t disappear as soon as the virus is destroyed that must mean that Cole’s future is still in existence. Because if Cole had truly stopped the virus from wiping out mankind then the time machine would have never been used which would mean Cole would have never been recruited for the mission, which in turn means post apocalypse Cole doesn’t exist. But since he’s still there after the virus is destroyed we get to the part in the show where we ask, now what? Season 1 mission statement is complete, does that mean that Season 2 will reset the clock and go back to square one. At least this time our team has more experience with managing time travel.
And here we come to the script flip. When Cole finally makes it back to 2044 we find out that the virus is still released but at a later time and since Cassie had more time to prepare the world for a massive epidemic more people were saved than before and we get new scientists on the time travel team along with some dearly departed members from last season that are alive because of the altered timeline. Script flip #1 the altered timeline has brought back dead characters and introduced new ones, one of which is married to Jones who she has no recollection of because timeline alterations don’t affect her. She remembers the old timeline but none of the new one, so we get some funny interactions between Jones and her new love interest. Script flip #2 and this is what the season focuses on, the Messengers that managed to go back in time before Cassie managed to get Deacon to help her stop them have started to cause paradoxes that are ripping the fabric of time in 2044. Here’s where the show introduces a new element to time travel and a good plot line for the second season, the general idea is that time works like a literal clock, its composed of different moving parts that are kept in synch by connecting to humans that work like anchors or gears if we stick with the clock analogy. If someone were to paradox those human time gears then that throws time out of balance. Disrupt enough human time gears and you create a massive paradox where there is no beginning and no end. A perpetual state of limbo where nothing is dead but nothing is alive. The Witness isn’t content with wiping out humanity, he wants to wipe out time itself. So Mission Statement for season 2 – stop the Messengers from creating paradoxes by killing the human time gears which are called Primaries.
This plot line made the second season feel fresh but also feel familiar in a good way. Like your favorite jacket that never goes out of style and always fits right. There weren’t really any weak link episodes in the season. Each one had its own twist or revealed a new detail on a character or showed some kind of character development. There was a Groundhog Day from hell type episode that had a happy ending for Jones. You got the backstory for the Pallid Man and Olivia, who were born from the Messengers even though they came from the future and they technically were born after their children but hey its time travel so it works. They show the rift that is starting to form within the 12 Monkeys. Olivia starts to lose faith in the Witness because things have not been going according to plan. Ramse is still a little bit shady, in a few instances he still seems willing to sell his friends out if it means he gets what he wants, which again revolves around his son. Due to the altered timeline his son is still with him but during an episode where Cassie gets possessed by the Witness and she sabotages the time machine a burst of time machine energy shoots out and zaps Ramse’s son to some unknown time. And there’s also that episode where Cassie gets possessed by the Witness and she sees a small house plus some weird looking factory of doom with matching symbols called Titan. These things among other developments, like Jennifer starting to form her woman army that develops into the Daughters in the post apocalypse future, are a lead up to the team coming closer to a confrontation with the Witness.
A major step to get closer to the Witness ends up being that Cole and Cassie finally hook up, which the amazing chemistry between Aaron Stanford and Amanda Schull is utilized well to create the necessary tension between their characters without dragging it out to soap opera extremes. You had the right amount of will they, wont they without it eclipsing the main focus of the show. Although the moment that they finally reveal their true feelings for each other and the obvious demonstration to each other of said feelings was edited in an odd fashion. With the team not being able to stop the necessary amount of Primary paradoxes to stop the destruction of time they’re left with two options, stop the last Primary paradox that would bring everything back to normal or head to Titan and launch an attack on the Witness that would bring the war with the 12 Monkeys to an end. The team decides to do both, this is after Ramse and Cassie mount a coup and take over the lab by the way. Cole and Cassie are going to go back to 1957 and stop the last Primary paradox while Ramse and the Daughters go to Titan to take on the Witness. Cole and Cassie fail in their mission which results in Cassie ending up in a coma. Cole leaves her so that they can both live their own lives. Cassie ends up finding Cole at the house from her visions and when the Witness possessed. Uh-oh, that can’t be a good sign. To emphasize this point you start to hear Olivia speak the words that she told Cassie when she gave her the tea that took her to the red forest. That definitely can not be good when what the crazy chick said starts coming true. Once inside the house they get into an argument about why Cole left and finally they admit to each other how much they love each other. It’s been two seasons coming and we’re finally here. But just as their going to get down to business we flash forward to Ramse’s attack on Titan. As things get hot and heavy with Cole and Cassie we cut to the future as things are getting hot for Ramse too but in a totally different way. As Cole and Cassie are getting some Ramse and his team are surrounded by the followers of the Witness about to get theirs too. They’re all wearing black plague masks that look like birds with long beaks and wearing hooded robes. Cole and Cassie are finally together while Ramse and his team get slaughtered. So that means that them two hooking up was a bad thing, right.
And with the finale of season 2 the show faces the question of how to continue a show that has a specific mission statement. Cole and Cassie are living their life together and you can really feel their happiness, but since this is 12 Monkeys and not a Nicholas Sparks production you know their bliss will only last until the next commercial break. Pretty much as soon as Cole gets the wonderful news that Cassie is pregnant he gets a visit from a Primary in a cool time freeze sequence. He tracks down the Primary to an insane asylum and he’s informed that the future is destroyed because Ramse was ambushed at Titan but that destruction will also reach him in the past unless he goes back and stops the Primary death he failed to prevent a few years ago. But you may be wondering how is Cole going to travel back in time if the machine in the future is destroyed. Well since he’s untethered to time, which is why paradoxes and alterations to the timeline don’t affect him or any time traveller, he needs to drink the tea the Monkeys use to transport his consciousness to the points in time where he’s been before. And sure enough out in the woods where he lives theres a tree that has started to turn red, the effects of time collapsing on itself where there is no beginning or end. He takes a couple leaves from the tree so he can make his time trip tea. But doing this will undo the life he had with Cassie, but the words of Jones, thats its better to experience a moment of happiness than a lifetime without, help him make the decision to take the tea and go back to 1957.
His attempt to get back there aren’t so easy, he starts out inside the time machine lab and he walks through the corridors hearing himself from different parts in time. The witness is also in his consciousness, stalking him from a distance. Cole ends up going into different parts in time, when he first meets Cassie, when he’s talking to Ramse about her, until he finally zeroes in on 1957. Once he’s back he stops the Messenger from paradoxing the Primary and time goes back to normal. Cole and Cassie return to 2044 where they find Jones who has defended the lab from scavengers alone. The three decide to catch up with Ramse to warn them of the slaughter that awaits them on Titan. They get their in time to save Ramse’s team and take out the followers of the Messenger. The few survivors are “interrogated” by Ramse which really only consists of asking where the Witness is and when they only reply that he’s safe Ramse kills them. Jones figures out that Titan is a facility that has the same tech to power a time machine, so if they find the machine they will more than likely find the Witness. As they search the facility an alarm rings out and the whole facility starts to power up. Turns out the entire facility is the time machine. As the team is making their exit from Titan they get split up. Ramse ends up going with a follower of the Witness after he promised he would taken him to the Witness. A group of followers ends up snatching Cassie and taking her into Titan. Deacon sacrifices himself so that Jennifer and the Daughters can escape, but while Jennifer is trying to make her way out she gets into a shootout with some followers and ends up breaking a container that houses time travel energy and she gets zapped back to France during WWI. When the facility disappears Cole makes Jones track it back at the lab and they find out that Titan has gone into the future to 2163.
Ramse ends up in the woods with the follower from Titan and Olivia shows up to tell him that she’s going to take him to his son. His son has been taken care of by a group of followers that are no longer loyal to the Witness. Cassie ends up in a room filled with followers of the Witness all dressed in hooded robes with bird masks. The Pallid Man shows up and Cassie believes that he’s the Witness. Turns out that the Witness is, cue the reveal music, her unborn child from the timeline Cole altered. But if Cole altered that timeline how is it that the Witness is still born? Cassie started to remember parts of that altered timeline when Cole comments that he can’t believe that Jones is packing heat, he says that not all caterpillars turn to and Cassie says butterflies, when she told Cole that she was pregnant Cole had gifted her a butterfly hair pin and she remembers that moment. They also say that the Witness was born of two travelers that were outside of time, so then the baby is also untethered to time and can be born in altered timelines? We see now that Cole has the same ability as the Witness in traveling through time without a machine, plus Cassie remembering the altered timeline might mean that her child would have that ability too of accessing altered timelines. And if Cassie is the mom can’t she just give him a timeout for trying to destroy time? Plus the fact that the Witness possessed her and drove her to the small house where she and Cole hooked up is all kinds of Freudian. The Witness needs to get his act together though because daddy is coming home soon. Cole makes Jones setup the machine so that he can travel to the future. So the question comes up again of now what? Well it looks like season 3 will be more of a family affair. Cole and Cassie are going to have to come to terms with their child being the harbinger of death.
The second season of 12 monkeys showed a series that runs like a well oiled machine and demonstrated great character growth while deepening the mythology of the 12 Monkeys universe and adding new elements to the time travel narrative. It answered several questions while posing new and exciting ones that I’m waiting to dive into in the third season.