Welcome back, 12 Monkeys fans! There’s so much to discuss and so little time. With that, let’s dive into Friday’s episode. “Yesterday” picks up exactly where “The Keys” left off. Cole hasn’t returned from Chechnya and Jones and Ramse are worried.

Jones reveals to Ramse that she survived a political uprising led by a man named Col. Foster, someone she worked closely with during the beginnings of the virus and it’s devastating mutation. Jones admits that there was only one true way to “cure” the plague: to undo it completely. She also reveals that there were two power cores out there with her taking one and the disgruntled Foster taking the other. She also revealed a bit of mythology telling Ramse that the virus has mutated twice since the outbreak and that even the immune probably wouldn’t survive another change. Ramse ventures out into the night and we cut back to 2015. Cole wakes up in the house in Chechnya. It’s been blown to bits and he’s in bad shape but shockingly, he’s still alive. Hooray! Not so hooray: he has to remove the bullet that is lodged in his leg. It’s gross. He hears voices and calls for help. They hear him and ask his name. It sounds like a girl and her father. She tells Cole that her father wants to know if anyone knows he’s there. Uh-oh…

Aaron and Cassie meet with Senator Royce. Cassie has expressed some discomfort at letting Cole go, knowing he was on a death wish. They need to know if anyone survived the drone strike on the house which of course Royce is not happy with as they agreed to not speak of it again. However, he tells Cassie and Aaron that he can confirm he removed all of the other bodies but Cole was never found. She asks to go to Chechnya to confirm that the area is clear operating under the CDC.

Back in 2043, Whitley and Ramse are about to go up against Foster and Whitley informs Ramse that Foster’s head of security is also his father. Whoops! As they enter the government facility, which is in really good shape and I’m honestly surprised that this is the first time we’ve ever been exposed to this type of location in 2043, Whitley is uncomfortable. Foster is unaware that the Splinter program actually worked and is sarcastically confused about why the timeline hasn’t been corrected yet. They ask for the second core and he declines. He shows them that they’re using their power source to attempt to engineer a vaccine to anticipate mutations and “cure the plague.”

Ramse recognizes someone who looks like a doctor that he calls Amanda and she calls him Jose. They clearly had a relationship at one point. She was a scav and now she’s a lab tech in this shiny, nice facility. She had to leave to protect her little boy, Samuel. What? Amanda introduces Ramse, or Jose, to Sam, her son who is five years old. I think this is Ramse’s kid, y’all! Naturally, he’s upset.

Back at the compound Jones is running a Hail Mary mission to try and Splinter Cole back. She’s going to put all of the energy that the compound has left and the fragile state of the core on the line to bring him back. There is an explosion and it doesn’t work. Instead Cole feels the impact still in the wreckage of the house. The core is dead and the compound only has about 48 hours left.

Meanwhile, Cassie is about to leave for Chechnya. Aaron supports her in her choice to go. She asks him to come with her but he refuses. He thinks she needs to go on her own. They smooch. Okay, this thing is officially back on then!

Ramse and Sam chat. It’s pretty cute. Ramse is a good guy. I hope things work out for him. He’s pulled away by Whitley who tells him things are about to get interesting. Jones is there and she looks serious. She knows she’s not welcome there. They sit down together for dinner. Foster tells Jones he knows she wants his stabilizer for their core but she corrects him: she’s there for the entire thing.

He offers her the core in exchange for her services at his facility to work for a cure. She insists that there is no cure. He tells her she’s wrong, there is a natural order of things. Jones isn’t going to take that lying down and reminds him of the “natural order” that led him to murder those who opposed him, as she said, “in the name of hope.” Her clincher are photos of Foster and his wife which he knows were burned in a fire when Atlanta fell. She tells him that her man that she sent back in time retrieved them for her. Unfortunately, he won’t be moved and burns the photos.

All of this back and forth brings up a very important question to the mythology of the series: would the virus have been created one way or another? Was this the plan for mankind and is it unpreventable? Or, is this one major mistake as Jones believes, that can be righted in the past. Elsewhere, Ramse and Amanda talk. They kiss and he tells her that he will be back. Ramse is tempted—maybe they can find a cure? Jones and her fellow scientists shoot this notion down immediately. As far as she’s concerned, all they need to worry about is getting Cole back but Ramse points out that they can’t do that unless she takes Foster’s deal. Whitley follows Jones and privately tries to sway her to take the deal. Instead, Jones decides that they’re going to steal the core “by any means necessary.” Yikes. This doesn’t look good for Foster…

In 2015, Cole is still trapped. He hasn’t splintered and is talking to the little girl whose father has gone for help. She’s sick, presumably with the virus. Cole asks her to call Cassie but she tells him that help will be there soon. Cassie is in Chechnya searching for Cole. The little girl returns to tell him he’s safe just as Cassie pulls up to the military guards standing by the scene of the drone strike. They lower a harness for him and men in hazmat suits pull him out. Meanwhile, Cassie overlooks the scene of the blast and sees nothing. What the what?!

Cole realizes that when Jones tried to Splinter him back to 2047 he jumped two years accidentally. The plague has spread. Cole, bloodied and bruised, manages to walk to the edge of the hills. He overlooks the valley to find bodies lined up to be destroyed. None of it worked; he’s stuck there and Cassie has no idea.

Can you believe it, 12 Monkeys fans? This is such an ambitious show and I can’t believe we only have a few episodes left! Where is this all going? How long can this series go on for? Will Team Splinter ever catch a break?

12 Monkeys, starring Aaron Stanford, Amanda Schull, Emily Hampshire and Tom Noonan, airs Friday nights at 9PM on SyFy.