12 Monkeys - 'Primary'

Look again: The comedy crazy girl is now a tragic heroine.

"I was sent back in time to kill a man. It was supposed to fix everything; it didn't. So I killed more people; nothing changed. And then I save someone, someone who should have died, and that is what changed things. It's the only thing that's ever made any difference."

We open with a quick montage of Cassie's eight months in the future, living with the West VII and learning to be like them, before cutting back to the roof where Ramse joins the pistol party. Cassie explains that there are eleven more vials of the virus waiting in a plane to complete Jennifer's voyage of death, but still Cole refuses to let Cassie kill Jennifer, instead persuading her to hand over the vial.

Hey kids, it's Michael Hogan from BSG!

Together they go to the airport and destroy the virus, and as it burns time shifts around them. In 2044 the Project Splinter facility suddenly has a sizable staff of scientists and Jones' research material is back, and altered. Yet Cole and Ramse remain. Things have changed, but Jennifer assures them it is not in the way that they think. Cassie angrily returns to the future, and takes Ramse with her to be grilled on the Army's plans. While Jones explains the changes to her staff - better quarantine, more survivors - one of them, Dr Eckland, suggests that if she doesn't remember him things might be awkward when they go to bed together. Being a gent, he moves his stuff out.

In 2016, Jennifer's special awareness of time/voices in her head lead her and Cole to a hotel which she insists he has been to before. She tries to persuade him to kill her and then tries to cut herself with a broken mirror, explaining that she had a purpose, but it is gone now. He stops her, and they get moved to a new room, 607 - a prime number, to Jennifer's delight, and one she has been calling out for a while; also, apparently by chance, the first three digits of Jones' 2016 phone number - a suite which a James Cole bought in perpetuity in 1944. Jennifer confesses her feelings for Cole and tells him that, although he feels he ought to be with Cassie, that is the way that the world ends. He does however convince her that she can find her own purpose.

Deacon tries to get information from Ramse, until Ramse throws him off his game by revealing knowledge of his past. This is a key moment, reminding us that Ramse may look the same, but he's lived a lifetime since he last met Deacon. Cassie then proves how far gone she really is by threatening Ramse's son for the information he doesn't have, but is interrupted when the daughters show up and tell Jones that she must bring Cole back. This is a message passed on to repay his act of mercy towards Jennifer. Despite Cassie's doubts that Cole is committed to 'the mission' anymore, he and Jones reach an accord and he shows her a picture of him and Cassie in 1944, speculating that this is where the Messengers were sent. He also rejects Cassie's insistence that he must be prepared to 'do what is necessary.'

To go beyond a single series, a show has to be able to adapt, and 12 Monkeys is certainly making a go of it, not just with the expanded cast of scientists and the 1944 setting to be introduced next week (yay!) but with the reversal of Cassie and Cole's moral roles. Having spent a season softening Cole and hardening Cassie, jumping her straight to point-a-gun-at-a-kid level of commitment is both a reassertion and a reversal of the status quo, maintaining the central dynamic of 'kill vs cure' while changing the relationship which couches it. Part of me is starting to suspect that an ultimately disillusioned Cassie could be the Witness.

Also of note this week is the continuing apotheosis of Jennifer. Whether her ability to perceive temporal manipulation is causal of, consequent on or even parallel to her madness, it adds a deeper dimension to a character who previously appeared very much as a tool, or the dark shadow of a manic pixie dream girl, while the fact of her mental illness importantly serves to curb her power and make her a less than reliable prophet. Even her attraction to Cole has gone from a manic infatuation to a deep and almost tragic affection.

As it deviates further and further from its source material, 12 Monkeys becomes an ever more intriguing work, holding and revealing its secrets at just the right pace to keep interesting. I hope that it can maintain that pace, at least for this season.