12 Monkeys - 'The Keys' and 'Yesterday'

Sometimes you have to stop and smell the extinction event.

Cole, Railly and Railly's apparently on-again fiance Aaron are on the trail of Operation Troy, but it's slow going (as investigation into above top secret CIA black ops are wont to be if your team consists of a virologists, a Senatorial aide and some bloke from the future.) They get a brief boost when they interrogate an archaeologist at an exhibition of extinction level relics (subtle irony!), but only really learn that the Army of the 12 Monkeys may be connected to a double-secret Chechen offshoot of the already obscure and esoteric Druze*, and that the archaeologist is terrified of them, and especially the Pallid Man.

Before they can get much further, Railly receives a call from Cole; he is in Chechnya and has the virus, but needs her help to destroy it. Operation Troy is the use of the virus to eliminate a CIA whistle-blower, but with the Army and the Russians closing in on the outbreak, There is little to be done but attempt a hail Mary and persuade the CIA to airstrike the bunker where Cole is being held before locking Aaron and Railly away forever.

In a cruel twist of paradox, Aaron gets them out of that fate, but this leaves Railly to smile and send Cole to his death by giving a past version of him the information that he needs to be in Chechnya in the first place, without telling him that he is going to die.

I can't bring myself to believe that this will end well.

In 'Yesterday', Railly is determined to find out if Cole is still alive, as if he is then there is a risk that the virus has escaped. Meanwhile, Cole is still alive, and in the process of being rescued from the hole, but his rescuers are sick. In the future - where we spend the bulk of the episode - Jones tries to secure a replacement Core from a sister base futilely seeking a cure for the plague, but the base commander is absolute in his commitment to curing the plague or dying in the attempt. This leads Jones to decide that the Core must be taken, but Ramse's loyalties are divided: Cole may still be in the past, but the other base houses an ex-lover and the son he never knew he had.

In a twist, at the end of the episode Railly confirms that Cole is not still alive at the bomb site, while Cole is pulled free to learn that the failed attempt to retrieve him has only jumped him forward to 2017, at the height of the global pandemic.

12 Monkeys has worked hard to be a distinct entity from its movie version (interestingly, it turns out that the opening credits do refer to the movie 12 Monkeys, while the closing credits go back to La Jette,) but comes back from time to time to touch base. In 'The Keys', the title refers to the Florida Keys, which are Cole's 'anywhere but here', having seen a picture of them once, connecting to the idee fixe which enabled him to travel in time in the movie while being an entirely different concept. The plot may still be in a holding pattern - Cole's sacrifice not stopping the plague one jot - but on a character level, there are big developments for Cole - whose impending death from time travel or mutated virus has him trying to enjoy what life he has left, even in the midst of a mission - and Railly - whose effective betrayal of past Cole, even at the behest of his future self, is a far cry from the woman who pleaded for the life of Leland Goynes**.

* An actual religion, and pretty esoteric
** Goines? Given that I mostly just hear the name, it's so hard to tell.