12 Monkeys - 'Blood Washed Away' and 'Memory of Tomorrow'

"Are you crazy? Is that your problem?"

A double bill, as I wrap up season 2 of time travel headscrew 12 Monkeys.

In 'Blood Washed Away', Cole and Railly work to prevent the final paradox in 1957. They know where and they know very roughly when, but as their window closes all they have managed to do is rule out every possible suspect and wear each other's nerves to the bone. A nervous man on a temp crew brought in to fix the roof of the factory in question looks solid for the perp, but faced with prophylactic execution he confesses that he was paid to draw monkeys and act crazy.

"I'm beginning to reconsider my calling as a revolutionary leader."

Meanwhile, in 2045, Ramse and Jennifer's team slogs across country to Titan, falling foul of scavenger ambushes and internal strife as the Daughters lose faith in the 'reborn' Jennifer and Jennifer loses faith in herself and the mission as she watches her followers die again. The breaking point comes when Jennifer reveals that her 'wisdom' is a bag of fortune cookie inserts, and Zeit/Hannah returns from scouting the Titan site with the news that there is no facility there, not of any kind. Ramse, Deacon, Whitley and Zeit press on regardless, recognising that anything else would be to passively accept the coming doom.

"There's a house, cedar and pine."

At the last minute, Cole and Railly discover that the real primary is the wife of one of Cole's workmates. That workmate is the Messenger who was sent to kill her and instead fell in love, but with her primary nature tearing at her mind, he kills her in order to be with her forever in the Red Forest. The resulting blast takes out the factory and leaves Railly in a coma for six months. Cole leaves, and when she wakes Railly works another six months as a nurse/double secret future doctor. Then, in 1959, detective finds Cole living under his favourite alias, Morris Morrison in, as it turns out, a house made of cedar and pine. Here he cuts his hand on a saw and she helps tend it, noting as she cleans it that 'most of the blood has washed away.'

"Witness me!"

In the future, Ramse's team reach the Titan facility, which is there; large as life and twice as sinister. They enter the facility and hear sinister music, at which point dead-eyed, crazy Deacon is basically the one sane man in the party.

'Why would you walk towards the weird music? Ramse, nothing about this place says "good idea."'

Ramse is insistent, and they press on, finding a hooded figure in some sort of ritual circle. Suddenly, they are surrounded by other robed figures, all carrying punch daggers, and as Cole and Railly finally get it on in 1959, the scene is intercut with Ramse and his team being slaughtered by the Army, which is some hardcore fan disservice, I can tell you.

And that brings us to 'Memory of Tomorrow', which opens with a voice over which mostly, but not entirely, mirrors that from 'Year of the Monkey', since that's how 12 Monkeys rolls.

'I want to tell you a story... About how the world ends. And the man who came back through time to stop it... And failed. For, you see, there is another traveler, one who's both the architect and witness to our destruction. And the man cannot see the other's design...

It's her! From the movie!

'The end of the beginning... And the beginning of the end.'

James and Cassie are living in 1959 and she is finally using his first name. They are telling themselves that it's all okay, Ramse killed the Witness and time is safe, but then time freezes around Cole and a woman he doesn't know tells him it's not over. If the audience weren't worried enough knowing what happened at the end of last episode, the visitation is given more meaning because the woman - and our mystery narrator - is Madeleine Stowe, who played  Katharine Railly in the Terry Gilliam interpretation. Here it turns out she is a woman named Lillian, a primary who killed her family to save them from the end of time.

This is the sort of happiness that characters in 12 Monkeys really ought to
avoid for survival's sake.

Cole doesn't want to believe, especially when he learns that Cassie is pregnant, but he is persuaded to take a trip to the Pine Barrens, where he sees the emergence of the anomaly and the first tree of many turn red. Lillian tasks him to change the outcome of their confrontation with Charlie in 1957. Of course, he has no machine, but she insists that 'James Cole does not need a machine.' She also tells him that, if it works, he should not go after Ramse, not go to Titan, and I think we all know how that's going to work out.

And so, reluctantly, knowing what it will mean for him and for Cassie, and for their child, Cole drinks the red tea and projects his mind back, visiting a few key moments before settling on 1957 and killing Charlie before he can paradox his wife. At this point I became convinced that the Witness would turn out to be Cassie, after she learned Cole had effectively voided their child's life.

She also has a big dog now, and probably a suit of power armour out the back.

With the paradox prevented, the Red Forest retreats, and after a year alone in the facility taking a few levels in badass, Jones brings them back to 2045. With Lillian's clear warning that going to Titan is a shit idea, they use the machine to splinter to where the convoy is to warn Ramse to pull out. Naturally they are too late, and with Cole's brother and Jones' daughter in there, no warning on Earth is going to keep them out.

Jennifer fails to rally the Daughters at first; after a strong start with material borrowed from The Lord of the Rings and Braveheart, a big shout out to Independence Day proves a quote too far. At the last minute, however, she pulls it out of the bag with her willingness to give her own life, and her final lesson: 'Be excellent to each other.'

Whoa.

So fortified, the big damn heroes turn up in time to save Team Ramse, but captured members of the Army will only tell them that the Witness is Safe. It's about here that Cassie remembers, impossibly, the time she and Cole spent, but didn't spend, together in 1959. Before they can find the Witness, klaxons blare, and Jones realises why Hannah couldn't find Titan. The entire facility is capable of travelling through time, and it's about to do it again. 

Separated by Army reinforcements, the team end up scattered. Jones, Cole, Whitley and Hannah escape with most of the Daughters, Deacon is killed buying Jennifer time to escape, Jennifer is caught in a temporal leak and thrown to the trenches of World War I, Ramse is rescued by a seeming member of the Army and Cassie is captured.

I love the mirroring of this image with Ramse getting gut-stabbed over the top
of the sex scene last episode.

As the season comes to a close, Ramse meets Olivia, who promises she is not with the Army any more, and she will take him to his son. Cole and Jones splinter back to the facility, but Cassie's tether is gone. Jones is however able to track Titan and sends Cole after it, to 2162, where the Pallid Man welcomes Cassie and tells her that the Witness is safe, the child of two time travellers born outside of time. Her child. So a) shows what I know and b) OMFG!

I told you, this is a story about how the world ends. One that begins at the end and ends... at the beginning.

As in the first season, 12 Monkeys delivers a finale which changes the game, not merely going forward, but looking back. All the references to Cole and Cassie's part in the plan, their importance, take on a new light.  We also saw the Army become a major, physical threat for the first time, with their vast time ship and conclave of hooded figures, although the great success of season 2 lies in revealing so much about the Army and its plans without removing their sense of overall menace.

And did I mention that Jennifer is in 1917, trying to convince the French that she isn't a German spy. That's earlier than any other splinter to date, and also means that Emily Hampshire is almost certainly going to have lots of totally bonkers and wonderful stuff to do throughout Season 3, and I can not express how happy her presence as a regular this season has made me.