Surreal and spooky beginning, flash images, darkness and
Cole talking to someone about keys and he seems to be saying goodbye.
2015
CIA headquarters and a speaker discusses a viral strain
being extracted from the body that was in the Night room, (which is probably
Cole’s. And was destroyed by fire, or will be destroyed by fire). The body was
found in the Himalayas, the virus extracted and then the CIA scientists messed
with it. This virus is what they want to unleash in Chechnya in Operation Troy.
And that the virus is “safe” because it kills so quickly so that it can be used
in isolated areas the infected won’t be able to reach new targets to infect
Why are the CIA doing this foolish thing? Well, Wexler,
the computer hacker/wikileaks person keeps revealing America’s big bad secrets
and at least one of those secrets involving this area of Chechnya is big enough
to bring down the CIA and see them all imprisoned. They, unsurprisingly, want Wexler
dead
Over to Cassie with the news reporting on Wexler. She’s
still having Red Forest hallucinations. She’s so lost in it she doesn’t even
realise she’s pouring hot water from the kettle over her hand until Cole stops
her. They didn’t get much from last week, but they did find a picture of a
possible monkey which they connect to an Edward Garret – a professor of Middle
Eastern antiquity (yes this connection seems awfully tenuous)
And how do they meet him? By going to a fancy party in a
museum that, somehow, Cassie has managed to score. Cole is rather delightfully
out of his element but is happy to eat all the things. He’s also awed by the
art – since the museums were quickly raided or destroyed during the outbreak.
Cole also wants to slow down and relax a little, enjoy the moment while Cassie
wants him to focus on the mission and is bewildered by his distraction, especially
when he pulls her to dance (he can’t dance but she shows him). It’s actually
really sweetly awkward but, much to Cole’s sad eyes, Cassie gets back on the
mission
She talks to Prof. Garret and he reveals the symbol is
Druze, in particular an offshoot of the Druze faith that moved to Chechnya. It
references a pact to be the guardians of time. He can’t tell her more because
the Druze are super-duper secretive. She asks about the army of the 12 monkeys
and his face falls – and he says “you’re a beautiful woman, you should have
stuck with that.” Ok, let us hope something stabs him
Cassie passes on to Cole who is still have strange
milk-glass-smashing visions. So Cole kidnaps him. He also ends up with a bloody
nose – which he passes off as Garrett grazing him to Cassie, but is probably
down to lethal time travel. All he reveals though is that the 12 monkeys have
been asking about his time in Chechnya. Aaron joins them for this little get
together with a lot of closeness with Cassie (which she doesn’t seem that
comfortable with) and noticing Cole in his tux (which Aaron certainly isn’t
happy about).
Aaron reveals that Wexler the hacker may be hiding in
Chechnya, that he’s a former CIA analyst who is leaking all the dark secrets
and the gang realises the CIA is planning on using the virus to murder him.
Everything starts shaking a Cole begins to splinter (to a week ahead) so he
gives some hurried instruction to them to gather info before he disappears.
Cassie’s quite blasé about it, Aaron not so much because Cole took his tux with
him. Aaron is still worried about the laws they’re breaking investigating
covert affairs, Cassie points out that prison kind of pales next to the
destruction of the world
Aaron does some nifty pickpocketing and computer hacking
for more info on Wexler. And Cassie gets a call from Cole – he’s in Chechnya
and he has the virus, but he is being shot at. It seems Operation Troy is
already happening.
Two Hours Earlier
I suppose I can let the time shifting go on a time travel
programme. Cole arrives in Chechnya and struggles around being unable to speak
Russian. Despite that he follows the suspicious guy with the virus briefcase in
a taxi. Cole ends up following the guy
on foot through a wood until a sniper from the 12 Monkeys kills the briefcase
guy (how the virus left CIA hands and entered 12 Monkey Hands, we assume). At
which point Cole snatches the briefcase and calls Cassie.
He explains the whole time loop – in a week Cassie and
Aaron will have finished their research and told Cole to go to Chechnya here
and now. After which he sets up a cunning booby trap to kill the sniper after
him
Cassie calls Aaron who is nearly getting caught and
definitely being suspected by his boss. She fills him in and adds since
Operation Troy is happening now they need to try and get some of the powers
that be involved. They also talk to Cole again who explains the whole time travel
thing, Cassie being super dense so he can explain it in clear terms because the
writers think their audience may not have caught on. Cassie does tell him how
to destroy the virus – with fire – but balaclava clad men with guns find and
kidnap him before he can burn anything
They take him to see Wexler – who was actually expecting
a pay off (so much for crusading for the truth) and thinks the briefcase is
full of money. He has his men open it despite Cole’s protests, and they’re all
sprayed with nasty virus-stuff. The virus is out.
Everyone gets sick and they decide to beat on Cole for
some answers which doesn’t achieve much. Cole tries to convince them to burn
everything down
Aaron and Cassie talk their way through the CIA to
Michael Pratt, a guy with authority which gets them both put in a quiet room
and an angry senator called to see his aide, Aaron. But Aaron isn’t a fool – he
points out that the contents of those files are pretty damning as well. Cassie
tries to convince Michael how vital it is for them to stop the virus he tries
to be inscrutable but she points out that he hasn’t heard from the courier or
he wouldn’t be speaking to her (uh… he wouldn’t speak to someone who knows
highly classified information she shouldn’t? I think he would. Yes yes he
would).
She also gets a chance to confront some guy I should remember but I don’t about the virus he’s been playing with. He’s Dr. Peters and she has fund calling him out and making him admit that it is the most lethal virus ever created. They agree to call Cole
Who is busy listening to Wexler ramble on and no longer
has his mobile phone. All the soldiers are dying and one of them decides to
contact the Russian authorities to give up Wexler in exchange for medical help.
Wexler has reached new levels of nihilism, actually considering deliberately
destroying the world since it’s so cruel and evil and bad. When Cole hears
about the Russia medical personnel coming he tries to shame them into dying –
that they will kill the whole world if they try to get medical help. The
disposable Russian extras don’t agree but Cole manages to get through to Wexler
and he has a little gun fight with dying Russians to protect Cole from being
shot.
Cole gets shot anyway, albeit non-lethally so half points there Wexler. Everyone ends up dead or dying except Cole.
Cole manages to call Cassie - just as the big military
men around her hear about the Russians dispatching helicopters to the scene. He
and Wexler are too injured to burn the place to the ground so he tells Cassie
to get the CIA to destroy the site before the Russians get there (wouldn’t that
rely on the US having powerful military forces closer to this region of Russia
than the Russians do?). Cassie agrees it will work (looking all poignant
because Cole will be bombed too) and Michael oks it, despite it mean bombing
Russian territory.
Cole and Wexler have an I’m-dying conversation – and it
turns out Wexler has heard of the 12 Monkeys. Wexler heard about them when he
was in the CIA and something they were involved in in Tokyo in 1987 (a date
Leland Goins mentioned way back in the beginning of the season). Sadly because
this could be a revelation, necessary crypticness takes over “time, death
rebirth, monkeys like hours on a clock” before he dies. Useful.
Now his phone miraculously works again so we can have a
poignant scene where Cole stays on the phone so the signal can guide the missile.
Cole takes the chance to tell her when she sees him in a week (past version of
him) and she mustn’t do anything to change it, to save him. The future will be
safe that’s what matters. They make a tearful goodbye
And the missile hits.
This is all sad and meaningful but I’m kind of focused on
the fact Michael and everyone else is listening in on the time travel call and
realising they’ve just ordered a bombing run on Russia because these 2 people
believe in time travel.
Afterwards, of course, Cassie is still in trouble and
being interrogated by CIA bigwigs while still in shock over Cole’s death. But Michael
and the Senator have decided to let Aaron and Cassie go because of the big
shady secrets that they have because Aaron has very wisely arranged for some
back up and left an envelope to be collected by the press should he disappear.
Back at Cassie’s Aaron hurriedly tries to remove all
evidence of Cole and insists that they stay on script when Cole arrives, though
Cassie is still torn over warning him
In a week when Cole arrives, they’ve all cleaned up and Cassie
has got the best junk food for Cole (I never thought I’d say this but they are
beautifully tragic together) and Aaron tells him about Operation Troy already
happening – a week ago. Aaron gives all the information to Cole about how to
stop it while Cassie looks tortured in a corner. Cole prepares while Cassie’s
face reaches new depths of despair and horror. It’s a continuation of their
goodbye scene as Cassie asks Cole a question – what better place does Cole
imagine himself being in if the world is fixed – which he already answered
before the missile hit.
Cassie says goodbye and Cole splinters
I like that this episode answered a lot of questions for
me that were rumbling from last episode about the use of a virus as a weapon –
like why would the CIA care enough about Chechnya to unleash a virus there? I
can see Russia doing it – not because of moral equivalencies, but because
Russia actually is trying to suppress the Chechens, why would the CIA? And how
can the CIA would not realise the problem of unleashing a virus that no-one
alive today has any immunity to? No matter how “isolated” the area is, anyone
could see the risk inherent. How long can the virus exist outside the body? Or
in a corpse? Or water? Can it be carried by animals? Can you stop it mutating?
Can you guarantee no-one infected won’t be resistant?
But by introducing both the covert nature of what they’re
doing (preventing conventional bombing) and the sheer selfish desperation of
the men behind it (they’re not trying any higher purposes here, they’re trying
to save their own skin – and if a virus risks killing a few hundred thousand a
continent away, then so be it)
The investigation, however, is lacking. They find a pot
which leads to a specific professor who is holding a swanky party that’s
invitation only – that Cassie can get in? Who sends CDC doctors invites to
talks by famed archaelogists?
I’m leery about the use of the Druze – because the Druze
ARE a minority religious group. And the Pact of the Time Custodian is an actual
thing – but I doubt it has anything to do with time travel
I find Cole’s wanting to slow down and enjoy time with
Cassie interesting though. It shows both his growing relationship with her but
also his realisation, from last week, that travelling through time is killing
him. Sure, he always knew that, in theory, when they succeeded he would be
erased, but that’s different from knowing that he is actively dying. He’s now
taking the time to enjoy Cassie’s company and the luxuries of the 21st
century
Of course that becomes all the more meaningful when Cole
actually dies. It was a pretty epic, emotional death scene and the actors
really sold it, 12 Monkeys I never
knew you had it in you
I’d ask where it comes from here, but different past Coles can still show up and run around so this doesn’t, necessarily, remove him as protagonist
And that’s assuming he didn’t splinter juuuuust as the missile hit (I actually hope he didn’t because that would be a cheap way to treat this excellent scene)
