Previously on 12 Monkeys . . .
James Cole went on a mission to 1957 to prevent the primary Primary from being ritualistically Paradoxed to Death by having the breastbone of his (or her) future skeletal remains shoved into his (or her) living breast.
Deciding that she doesn’t “want to be afraid anymore,” Dr. Cassandra “Cassie” Railly followed Cole to 1957 to aid him in his mission to prevent the red temporal madness that will occur in 2044 if the primary Primary is Paradoxed to Death.
Elsewhile, José Ramse, the Jennifer Goines of 2016, and the Daughters gang that used to be led by the Jennifer Goines of 2044 (until she died after willing the gang to her 2016 self) set out for Colorado to find the mysterious city of Titan and bring an end to the mad temporal redness by killing The Witness.
I’ve been giving this series a fair amount of negative critiques this season. However, the series is not actually bad; it’s just not as good as it could (and should) be. It frustrates me when inane plot points are used because it lessens the quality of the show. Unfortunately, “Blood Washed Away” (ep. 2.12) is not an exception. In an effort to provide viewers with “unsuspected twists,” the writers rely on illogical plot and/or character elements.
In this episode, Cole and Cassie’s mission to prevent the Primary of 1957 from being ritualistically murdered in a manner known as a “Paradox” seems to be a failure until the “unsuspected twist” is thrown into the story as yet another example of the nonsense that this season has been burdened with by writers who either don’t respect the intelligence of their audience or just don’t care to actually think through the logic of their own story.
Cole and Cassie arrive in January of 1957 to prevent the Paradoxing of the Primary on November 7th—which Cole claims gives them “eleven months” to complete their mission. (Apparently Cole wasn’t an attentive math student when he was younger, as the most they would have is 10 months and one week. However, they don’t seem to have arrived on New Year’s Day, so they actually only have 10 months or less to find the primary Primary.)
They use their “eleven months” by getting jobs at a factory in upstate New York that a newspaper article from November 8, 1957 indicated (indicates) was destroyed (will be destroyed) in an explosion on November 7 (and which was corroborated by the Pallid Man who specifically told Cole the date and location of when and where his messengers would Paradox that Primary).
While there, they live together (in separate beds) in the room at the Emerson Hotel that Cole bought in 1944. I’m probably mistaken, but it seems that the location of the Emerson Hotel is sometimes in upstate New York (as it was in episode 2.02 and in this episode) and it is sometimes in New York City (as it seemed to be in episode 2.06). However, if I’m correct, someone needs to look into how the Emerson keeps shifting its location in space as our heroes move through time.
Anyway, through their jobs (Cole as a worker on the factory floor and Cassie in the administrative office), they screen all of the factory’s employees to try to detect which one is the Primary of 1957. In other words, they are looking for which one exhibits the symptoms of schizophrenia and likes to repeatedly draw pictures of the same monkey face that Jennifer Goines and other Primaries like to repeatedly draw.
After eleven months of futility, Cole and Cassie have clearly gotten on each other’s nerves like an old married couple who focus on their partner’s annoying traits. However, one of Cole’s fellow workers who likes to drink at the bar at the Emerson Hotel (what are the chances?) tells Cole that it’s obvious he loves Cassie (after all, they’re living together in a hotel room) and that he needs to spend time with the woman he loves before it’s too late.
Cole’s colleague, Charlie, knows of what he speaks because his wife is dying of cancer—which is why he’s drinking in the bar at the hotel where Cole lives with Cassie. Charlie then takes his own advice and goes home to be with his dying wife before it’s too late.
Meanwhile, Cole and Cassie get their big break in locating the Primary when Cole realizes the factory roof is going to be repaired by outside workers who are going to be onsite on November 7, 1957. Ergo, one of the roof-repair workers must be the Primary—and Cole immediately knows which one it is, as Reginald Dupuis likes to talk to himself and Cassie found a hand-drawn picture of a monkey face on the back of Reggie’s employment form.
Thus, Cole takes Reginald into an alley behind the factory and prepares to shoot him in the head while saying, “You’re Primary, you know what happens to you” (because Primaries know they will be Paradoxed by the Messengers who like to make knives out of the breastbones taken from the future skeletal remains of the Primaries they Paradox. (Of course, Paradoxing a Primary causes a temporal explosion that seems to disintegrate the Primary’s body—so the real paradox is “How will the Messengers get the skeletal breastbone from the Primary’s non-existent future remains?”)
You see the above picture of Cole pointing his gun at poor Reginald Dupuis, who is begging for his life?[1] Well, in my review of the previous episode I wrote:
I predict the final two episodes will have several shots of Cassie being posed for the camera to accentuate Amanda Schull’s beauty. These images of Schull striking a pose will be interspersed with images of various characters posing for the camera as they point their guns at each other.
I don’t know about the next episode yet, but my prediction was correct about this episode. We did not get Amanda Schull being posed quite as often as we have in other episodes (she was posed a few times in “Blood Washed Away,” just not as much as usual), but we did get several images of characters pointing guns at each other.
Not only did we get the above image of Cole pointing his gun at Reginald, we also got that same scene from a different angle (see the image at the top of this review). Additionally, there was an image of Cassie pointing a gun at an African American woman—though that image was too brief and too dark, and the gun was too out of focus, for me to use in this review. Fortunately, that African American woman pointed her own gun back at Cassie.
One of my problems with this season has been how predictable so much of it has been. I have been frustrated by the predictable “surprise twists” the story has taken, and I have also grown frustrated over the predictable images of Amanda Schull being posed (though I do enjoy looking at her—which, of course, is the point of her being posed for a mostly male audience, as evidenced by the SyFy network’s demographics, which indicates that 56% of the audience is male and 44% is female[2]).
However, one of the most predictable things about this season is that the characters will often stand completely still and just point their guns at each other. It’s a dramatic camera shot, but it has gone beyond being a visual motif; it is now a cliché, and I can do without it. However, I predict in the season finale we will get more images of Cassie being posed and guns being pointed by characters who are also posed for the camera.
Anyway, let’s talk about that African-American woman who wanders into the factory wearing a bathrobe and a scarf on her head (probably to cover up her lack of hair that is the result of the chemotherapy she is undergoing for her terminal cancer). It turns out that she is the actual Primary of 1957; Reginald Dupuis was just hired by Charlie so that Cole and Cassie wouldn’t find out that his wife is the Primary whose “Death by Paradox” they are attempting to prevent.
“How does Charlie know his cancer-stricken wife is a Primary,” you ask?
Because he’s one of the two Messengers of the 12 Monkeys who was sent to 1957 to ritualistically murder her with the breastbone of her future skeletal remains! (The breastbone blade fashioned from her future skeleton is in the cigar box she is holding in her left hand as she uses her right hand to point a posed pistol at Cassie.)
In a common cliché, Charlie fell in love with the woman he was assigned to assassinate—and it is implied that he murdered the other Messenger who was sent with him to Paradox the Primary (because they are always sent out in groups of two, like Mormon missionaries). This scenario brings up the nonsense on which this episode was constructed.
- How did Charlie manage to fall in love with and subsequently marry the Primary he was assigned to assassinate with her own breastbone?
- If Cole and Cassie were in 1957 for ten months (or eleven months by the way Cole measures time), who long was Charlie in the 1950s?
- Did he arrive in 1956? 1955?
- How long were Charlie and his cancer-stricken wife married before he killed her by shoving her future-skeletal breastbone into her heart on the factory floor?
- How likely is it that she would come to the factory dressed in a bathrobe and pointing a pistol to force her husband to shove her future-skeletal breastbone into her heart?
- Do we call her action an “assisted-suicide incidence” that she brought about to end her suffering from the cancer that was destroying her?
I could keep going on with more questions, but the point is that this plot point is too farfetched to be believed—and it is yet another example of the sloppy writing that has plagued the series this season.
Oh, before I sign off, I want to also say I was partially correct in my previous review where I wrote:
I suspect I know exactly what is going to happen in the Battle for Titan, Colorado. Based on the conversation that 2016 Jennifer had with 2044 Jennifer, I am guessing that most of the Daughters will be killed, which will then cause 2016 Jennifer to give herself different advice when she eventually becomes the 2044 Jennifer.
I was only partially correct because the Daughters who died (and whose deaths cause Jennifer to doubt her decisions) occurred before the group arrived at Titan. The deaths happened on the Road to Titan rather than in Titan itself. Additionally, it was not “most of the Daughters” who were killed; it was only a few of them—but those few were enough to cause Jennifer to doubt herself and for the Daughters to doubt the abilities of the Jennifer of 2016 to lead them as a replacement for the Jennifer of 2044.
However, I now have a new prediction!
I predict the Jennifer of 2016 will now lead the Daughters to Titan in the season finale.
After all, all the other main characters in 2044 are now dead, so Jennifer and the Daughters are the only ones who can bring about some sort of season-ending resolution to the 2044 plot of The Witness hiding out in Titan.
I also think I figured out who The Witness is behind his (or her) mask, as scenes of Ramse pointing his automatic rifle at The Witness were intercut with scenes of Cassie and Cole kissing (and undressing) each other passionately in 1959. What’s more, they were preparing to have sex in the house from Cassie’s Red Forest Tea-Induced Visions.
Yes, the season is coming to a suspenseful (if somewhat predictable) conclusion!
[1] The best way to prevent a Primary from being ritualistically killed with a knife fashioned from his (or her) future skeletal breastbone is to murder the Primary before the Messengers of the 12 Monkeys can Paradox the Primary to Death.
[2] Furthermore, approximately 42% of those men are 35–54 years old—just the right age to find the 37-year-old Amanda Schull incredibly attractive and sexy.