This week 12 Monkeys made some major moves and continued to rocket the freshman season of the Syfy original series forward. This is one of the most eventful episodes yet, so let’s get to our recap!
The episode titled “Divine Move” opens as we learn through a scientist speaking into a recorder that Cole is in 2015. Ramse walks in to retrieve a handful of loaded syringes and tells the scientist he’s grabbing them for Jones. The scientist doesn’t believe him and Ramse punches him out and proceeds to set the lab on fire. He saves the scientist though, so that’s nice. Um… wait. Cole! The machine! The core! The wall with all of their work! This is not good!
Back in 2015 in Cassie’s place, she and Aaron are making dinner and they are totes back together. As they get into sexy mode Cole walks through the front door and Aaron is distraught. “It’s not over?” Aaron asks. Nope. Cassie runs through the checklist: they destroyed the virus in Chechnya, burned The Origin body, killed Leland and destroyed The Nightroom. What could be left? Aaron doesn’t care, at this point he’s just pissed. He buys into Cole’s information but he’s not sold on Cole being the one to save them all. Aaron points out that so far Cole has been a failure and it’s cost Cassie her life multiple times.
Cassie and Cole are driving and she’s losing hope that they will be able to beat the plague. He tells her that he’s worried about Ramse. Later, they break into an abandoned lab where they find a dead scientist covered in flowers just like she found Jeremy earlier in the season. It’s not the scientist they’re looking for, Peters, but his husband. The Pallid Man (Tom Noonan) has beat them there and stolen hard drives while he was at it. What they’re learning is that they’ve destroyed the virus a few times but not the person who made it. Looks like he is their new, big target. Cole’s health is deteriorating. He’s getting nosebleeds and having strange flashbacks. Cassie finds Peters’s private journal with all of his notes on the plague in it. That’s a start!
They sit down for a drink and go over the journal. They know The Origin was found in the the Hemalayas and they know that Goines said he met Cole in 1987, (November 21 to be exact) which hasn’t happened for Cole yet. They also find Japanese writing and a connection to the White Dragon, a Tokyo nightclub, and decide that is where all of this started. Cole is hopeful that this is what they’ve been looking for but Cassie isn’t so excited. He was supposed to be gone forever and I’m assuming that Cassie has made her peace with that.
Cole returns to 2043 and finds the lab torched. Jones is pissed about the state of the lab and Cole is overwhelmed and collapses. On the outside, Ramse is living on the run in a camp. He talks to Elena and tells her what he’s done and explains that the syringes are injected into Cole’s blood before he splinters; without them, he can’t travel. The life they’ve now got for themselves isn’t great. They’re constantly on guard and living in tents. This episode introduces a new group, “The Daughters,” a band of nomads who “blame men for the apocalypse.” Ramse notices that they have the symbol of The Army of the 12 Monkeys on their wagon covers. Whoops!
Jones tells Cole that his body is deteriorating more than she expected but Cole isn’t concerned, he’s ready to jump now but she refuses. Cole tells Jones he thinks he knows where Ramse is and wants to go find him but again, she refuses. She says she’ll send Whitley instead. Cole agrees but only if she promises not to kill Ramse and she gives her word. Then, Jones gives Whitley his mission and tells him the injections are the only ones they have left and they can’t make more. She explicitly tells Whitley that Ramse stays alive. When he asks if he has to choose between Ramse and the injections, Jones walks away but not before telling him that they need the injections. Later that night, Ramse finds The Daughters and confronts them about the symbol on their wagon. He tells them he knows what it is and asks if they are The Army of the 12 Monkeys. Out walks an aged Jennifer Goines. Woah!!!
In 2015, after calling around trying to research test subjects, Cassie and Aaron have to talk about what’s going on. Naturally, Aaron doesn’t think Cassie should trust Cole but she explains to Aaron that if Cole isn’t successful, they don’t have a future together. She can accomplish what she’s working on without Aaron but she doesn’t want to have to. Do you all think Cassie still has feelings for Aaron or is she playing him a bit because it means she’ll get to spend more time with Cole who she’s totes in love with?
Back in 2043, Cole undergoes a molecular treatment and Ramse talks to Jennifer. She rambles and mentions Cole and Ramse starts paying attention. He finally gets Jennifer to admit that the one person who can stop the plague is The Witness and Ramse asks how to find them. She offers to tell him if he tells her where Cole is but Ramse tells her that Cole is gone. She offers him a medallion with a symbol on it and tells him he’ll need it. She also tells him that today is a day that will change his life forever. She also explains that not everything is preordained. How does Jennifer know what she knows? She’s aged, so she’s not time traveling. As she explains, we see Whitley and his guards enter the camp looking for Ramse’s things but the injections aren’t there. Elena starts to get involved and a rando dude at the camp sneaks up behind her to attack Whitley and company. One of Whitley’s men is a terrible shot and appears to accidentally shoot Elena. Whitley, realizing this is reeeeeally bad, shoots his soldier who killed her. Ramse returns to learn what happened and surprisingly doesn’t lose his sh*t. Instead, he tries to comfort Sam and tells him that he’s going to have to go away for a little while but that he’ll be back for him. Ramse grabs the injections and heads for the compound.
Whitley tells Jones what happens but refuses to go after Ramse because he knows he needs to be a father to Sam. This was definitely not the reaction I was thinking Whitley would have but it’s clear that the low morale that we experienced last week in the episode “Yesterday” hasn’t gone anywhere. It seems like everyone but Jones and Cole are ready to throw in the towel on course correction and just live out their lives in 2043 the best they can.
In 2015, Cassie and Aaron wait outside a place where she believes tests on a specific kind of monkey are taking place. As Cassie looks for a particular crate she hears Doctor Peters calling out from inside asking for help. She enters to find a lab in squalor and confronts Peters: where is the virus? He tells her that it’s done and it’s gone. When he finds out his husband is dead, he tells Cassie that no matter what happens to the virus he’s created, he could always just make it again and that she needs to kill him. She almost does it but ultimately can’t. Outside Aaron is confronted by the lady who told Cassie about The Red Forest. She explains that Cassie is very important and asks what he’s willing to do to keep her alive.
In 2043, Ramse arrives at the compound and Whitley lets him in. He presents the injections and Ramse asks to speak with Jones before he goes. Whitley frisks him and apologizes for what happened to Elena but Ramse busts out some crazy ninja moves and shoots Whitley’s guards but tells Whitley that he knows it wasn’t his fault so he just punches him out instead. When Jones realizes that the compound is under attack she announces that they have to splinter Cole to 1987 immediately. She runs to get the machine fired up but Ramse enters and is going to set a bomb. Max tries to talk him down but Ramse won’t hear it because he doesn’t want to let Jones take his son away from him. Max grabs a gun and shoots at Ramse while Jones takes the bomb. Ramse shoots Max but the women escape the room and they trap Ramse with the machine. He decides he’s going to splinter and does. Max is dead and Cole and Jones talk. She tells him that he has one jump left and that’s it. He has to go to 1987 and he has to be ready for Ramse to try and stop him. Cole knows that when he goes, he’s going to have to kill Ramse. At the very end of the episode, we discover that, while very disoriented, Ramse made it to 1987. This is nuts! So much happened this week!
12 Monkeys closes out season one with just three episodes to go Friday nights on Syfy.
