12 Monkeys - 'Emergence'

Ramse was less than happy to get stuck with a random suit instead of a sweet
tailored number like Cole's.

With temporal anomalies sweeping through history, Jones sends Ramse back to 1944 to assist Cole and Railly in preventing the paradox which caused the damage. Unfortunately, while he arrives in good time he is immediately hit by a car and is unable to reach the asylum in time to warn Cole or alert events. Although he does encounter the female Messenger, he is unable to convince her that the Witness sent him, or to overpower her. Events play out as before, Crawford Jr. is killed and the paradox rips through time.

In 2044, an increasingly fraught Jones seeks guidance from Jennifer Goines. Using a hallucinogenic tea brewed from reddened leaves, Goines shows Jones the moment the first monkey became self-aware. Jones defies the idea that evolution is made of moments instead of continuity, but Goines likens human understanding of time to a line of ants; hundreds of ants, each aware only of itself and those immediately in front and behind. Only an ant who steps out of the line, a Primary, can see the line. Apparently they are also necessary to stop time losing track of itself, and the Messengers are targeting Primaries in order to break time.

Most of the blood has washed away...

While Railly hates on Ramse some more, Cole goes looking for the Messenger, who also survived the blast, teaming up unexpectedly with the Fed who took a dislike to him and briefly arrested him and Railly before Ramse rescued them. Agent Gale turns out to be a huge HG Wells fan, and gets hold of the whole time travel idea very quickly. They question the Messenger, who is surprised to have survived, saying that 'Father made us too well.' She tells them that the Army will end 'time's cruel destruction' and then breaks loose, but doesn't kill Cole because the Witness has forbidden it.

The time travelers return home, letting Gale see them splinter out. They discuss how screwed they are, while Gale leaves the photo in the hotel room as a clue leading back to its own creation. In 1971 the dying Messenger bids farewell to her son, and in 2016 the Pallid Man - heavily implied to be the son, explaining some of his nigh-superhuman characteristics - scarred but not killed by Cole's own paradox, watches Jennifer Goines check into a mental health clinic.

'Emergence' is a companion to 'One Hundred Years' in a sort of expanded version of the two halves of Season 1's 'Atari'. It gives a different view on the events of the previous episode, and changes their final outcome without actually affecting the events themselves. Ramse's attempt to call Cole, prevented by the nurse, proves that he was present all along, so no retcons for you, 12 Monkeys. Perhaps most interestingly, the plot is increasingly moving away from the plague, with a strong suggestion that the only reason for the plague was to force Jones to send Cole and Ramsey back in time. The Witness's plan is apparently pretty cray-cray, and I admire that in a TV villain.