The opening night of the 12 Monkeys three-night binge fest’s Act I begins again in 2163, the dead world in which Titan hides to keep the Mother prisoner.
One of the central questions of the series was why the Army of the 12 Monkeys wanted to destroy the world in our time. There are many theories, some more complicated than others, but perhaps Jones said it best – that some things are just the over-thinking of a time traveller.
So let’s get back to basics. I believe that Act I showed us just how singularly focused the army can be in its mission to bring the Witness back to Titan. Their cult believes that upon his return, that’s when they will be taken to the red forest. It seems to be reason enough to start the plague to create the barren world in which Titan can rest until the Witness’s return.
Act I introduced us the next big evolution in time travel. The Guardians, charged with abducting and raising Cassie’s child into the Witness the man, have cool new time travel vests. It allows them, should things go wrong, to leap back to an earlier moment to warn themselves, so they can reset the timeline and alter course. They will stop at nothing to hide the Witness from Cassie and Cole.
We first fully understood the purpose of these time travel vests when pregnant Cassie attempts to commit suicide in Titan. Magdalena sees her tumbling through the air, and resets the timeline to one day earlier and stops the series of events that led to the jump in the first place. As long as they see you coming, you can’t stop them.
Interestingly, quite early on, we also see a vest wearing future Cole save his Titan charging self from imminent death. Future Cole explained that the vests protect against paradoxes, and tells himself to stop looking for Cassie and to go find Jennifer instead. He says that Jennifer is the key to understanding everything – including the Witness and the Jinn.
Future Cole hands Cole a news article from the 1920s, which shows the way to Jennifer. When he is alone again, we see Future Cole joined by Cassie with the white streak in her hair, still asking him to consider another way, which he says is not possible.
What’s curious is that within the Army of the 12 Monkeys, there appears to be factions working for a different purpose – the ‘other way’ in which the Witness could turn out. Mallick, a mysterious leader of the cult, saved Deacon in secret, in order to prepare him to spirit Cassie away so that she can save her son from the far right of the Army. No one would see Deacon coming.
We also learn a little bit about the acolytes through Cassie’s handmaid, Arianna. She mentioned that she was taken away from her parents a long time ago. Her belief in the Witness is very much because that is all she’s ever really known. Having a dead world for Titan to rest in also makes sure that there is no escape.
Coming back to Jennifer, it was frustrating to watch her being dismissed and ignored. But I’m listening. In her play about the vanquishing of the Witness, she plays the Goddess of Time who will ultimately triumph over the Witness. Will this be Jennifer or Cassie? Both are strong candidates, because Jennifer is the ultimate Primary, whilst Cassie’s fate with time itself transcends cycles with her numerous deaths undone.
It’s also a mystery as to how White Streak Cassie and Future Cole would have a news article about a 1920s murder that would ultimately never have happened at all, due to it occurring in an erased timeline. Did they make up ‘fake news’ for Cole, or will one of them gain the ability to go back into erased timelines?
The whole idea of the Goddess of Time is fascinating too. Olivia, in her conversation with Jones, asks why play God when you can be God, and mentions a Golem – that she was one made from DNA, and the time machine made from metal. Is the Goddess of Time the Golem made from Time itself? Jennifer did speak of the Time Stream as a sentient being – a Jinn? – that didn’t like what was happening, when Katarina ‘Dr Grim’ Jones was torturing Olivia with the time machine.
There were a number of heartbreaking performances in Act I. The hardest one to ignore was the painful reunion between Ramse and his son. On his deathbed, Sam gives Ramse the mission to go back in time to kill the Witness, before begging his father to put him to sleep. To which Ramse obliges. You can love to hate Ramse, but in that moment, you really feel for him.
Olivia, however, used Ramse as a tool to discover where Cole’s loyalties lied, sending Ramse on an underover mission to kill Cassie in 2007. In that doomed journey, Ramse tells Cole that he means to kill the Witness’s mother. Cole made his choice of family clear by firing the bullets with which Ramse’s life will end.
Team splinter, especially Jennifer, were right to distrust Olivia. If she really wanted to kill the Witness, she had two decades to come and help them. Perhaps she too believes that there is another way.
The other outstanding performance of Act I was of Deacon’s plight in Titan. Trapped alone in the dark recesses of the time fortress, he gets through more than nine months of captivity by keeping himself company with hallucinations of his abusive father. Some people break under the stick – for Deacon, it is his fuel.
It’s foreshadowing for something bigger yet to come for Deacon, when the thanks he gets for rescuing Cassie is for her to not even see him anymore the moment she is reunited with Cole. He will take that hurt and use it.
This is an outstanding return to TV’s most complex time travel story. I can’t wait to learn more about the Witness and to find out whether there really is another way for his story to turn out. There certainly seem to be believers within the story itself.
Jessica Hardaway
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Solid recap! Todd Stashwick really KILLS the Walkabout/Pa Deacon scenario! Ramse’s final moments with his boy…I felt it, but I kind of hated it. I have to re-watch it to really parse out what Sam was asking for (beyond the immediate request). He was in Olivia’s care for 20-some years, but we’re primed to believe that he’s very intelligent and thoughtful.
A note on 12 MONKEYS use of “Jinn”—It was introduced by alternate Jones as a term to describe a causality loop. The interesting thing to me is that we hear Tall Man use it as part of his Titan evening services (or morning, who can tell there, right?). A word that as far as I can reason, would have been coined by 12 MONKEYS Time travel’s creators, so, Katarina or…Elliot! Of course, it could be explained away by the Word of the Witness, but I’m gonna take it as a sign of Elliot’s influence, cuz I *really* want to see him again!
RE: the article about J.H. Bond. I believe we hear Cole explain—after Jennifer covers her c.v. and discography for him and Kat—that the only trace they actually found of her was an article saying that she was wanted for killing a theater owner. Which at the time seemed like the show having a bit of fun describing her troubles w/Francois, while also giving the perception of events thus far—Hockley the Guardian had killed Francois before attempting to kill Jennifer/Bond. The question *I* had in the moment was whether the “first” time thru, the Guardian was successful in killing Jennifer and then disappearing her body.
Maybe a screenshot of the clipping—in French?—will surface on the interwebs to clear that up.
Thank you Cabin Boy for being such a great 12 Monkeys super geek. Let’s see where the show will run with the idea of the Jinn – it’s something that future Cole told earlier mad dog Cole, that he will need Jennifer to explain to him about. I think this is something far beyond the Jones, who are mere mortal physicists. There’s a greater force at play in this show, which is time itself. And if it’s become self aware, then the genie is out of the bottle 😉