12 Monkeys – Season 3 – Act II [Spoilers]

May 23, 2017

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The second night of the 12 Monkeys binge fest begins with the realization that Ramse has died so that the Witness can live, and that even if Olivia is now working against the Witness, that she had deemed this an acceptable outcome. It will appear that along with the other acolytes who have stopped believing in the red forest, she may also see another way.

We learn that one of the young Witness’s teachers is also a believer in this other way. In stark contrast to the absolutely terrifying Magdelena, who forces young Athan, the Witness, to kill innocent people, this kind faced minder tries to hide the knowledge from the others that Cole and Cassie will come for young Athan.

Olivia has long harboured suspicions about the true meaning of the Word of the Witness. She had deciphered a double meaning, disguised as prophecy. And Ramse’s death had provided her with the proof she sought. She offers to help Cole and Cassie find their son.

One of the most hopeful segments came out when Cassie travelled back in time to meet with her own mother. We learn that Katherine Railly is a brilliant forensics psychologist. She looks over the copy of the Word of the Witness which Cassie brought with her.

Hidden in his words, Katherine Railly sees a broken man that is aware that he is at once exceptional and damaged, and entirely uncertain if he is the way he is, only because he was groomed to be that way. She sees a delicate longing for the family he has but a vague notion of. Most importantly, hidden among his despair, she sees that he still has hope.

What was really special was the connection we saw between the Witness and Jennifer. Jennifer had a conversation with the Time Stream, and it responded to her like a sentient mind by opening up a channel for her to communicate with the Witness. Athan is Primary.

Athan’s mind connects with Jennifer’s on two occasions – first, during the first gathering of the faithful, and again during the raid on the safehouse, when time froze when they came face to face. We hear Athan plead to Jennifer to break the cycle. He also tells her that she will be the best Primary of them all. Will Jennifer become the Goddess of Time, the one to stop the destruction of time? Is this what Future Cole meant, when he said that Jennifer is the key?

Cole and Cassie decide to keep their secret from Jones, who is hellbent on killing the child of ‘unknown origins’ to save the world. Their hushed exchanges do not escape Deacon, who has worked out that they are keeping important secrets. Hearing the truth of his concerns, Jones ultimately discovers their secret by jumping back in time to witness Ramse’s last moments, and forges a new alliance with Deacon to take down the Witness at all cost.

Cassie just wants her family back. She even shot Deacon to save her son. Cole admits to her that the happiest moment in his life is when he learned that he was going to be a father. He later has a clear shot at taking out his son once and for all, but he lowers his gun instead, because somewhere inside, he still has hope that they may find another way.

We see both Cassie and Cole break away from Project Splinter, determined to fix their family problem on their own. Cassie takes the time travel vest from Jones’ office, and Cole gets his from the Guardian that he took down at the First Gathering of the Faithful.

Before forging ahead towards the final stretch of the story, I think it is important to keep our eyes on a number of subplots introduced through these episodes:

A time travel snafu occured when the Team tried to obtain a copy of the Word of the Witness in 1989 without Olivia finding out. That didn’t work out so well, and we have yet to see the consequences of Olivia’s awareness of what they have done.
We meet Agent Gale again in 1953. This time Cassie warns him about how he will die, to give him a chance to escape that fate. Athan asks young Shaw Jr. to hand Agent Gale a picture of his own death – did he need Gale to accept his fate so that his parents won’t die in East Berlin?
We learn that the Army recruited vulnerable people grieving the deaths of their loved ones, where only the most malleable ones were selected. In spite of their time travel technology, this casts further doubt into the existence of the red forest. Magdelena must have had one hell of a backstory to be so deathly devoted to the mythology of the red forest.
Why did Jennifer go to the trouble of bringing her baby Tortoise into Project Splinter? What use will she have for the ability to cause a paradox?
What is Jones’ secret Project Charon? Will Jennifer need to take this down with her paradox?
What is Deacon’s purpose? He’s the only one that the Witness did not write about. Either he didn’t see Deacon coming, or he is saving Deacon up to be his secret weapon.
What is the meaning of the spiral writing that both Athan and Jennifer have been seeing in their visions? Neither of them can decipher its meaning. Could it be a message from Time itself? A celestial programming code to create a Goddess of Time?