12 MONKEYS Recap: One Ending of Many

Season 2, Episode 11: “Resurrection”
Directed by Kevin Tancharoen
Written by Richard Robbins

[Photos by Ben Mark Holzberg/Syfy]

Wow. That was one heckuva ride. And to think, we haven’t even gotten to the finale yet. This episode was exciting and emotional and suspenseful and would have made a good finale. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next.

We open with Jennifer (Emily Hampshire) burning mementos. Pictures and papers. Hannah (Brooke Williams) pleads with her to take them away to a safer place because the time storms are close. She refuses, and tells Hannah that there are many endings, and this is one of them.

Cole (Aaron Stanford) is anxious to go back to 1957 and stop the unknown primary from being paradoxed, but he can’t leave until they have finalized the coordinates, a process that is slowed down due to Adler (Andrew Gillies) being imprisoned. Dr. Lasky (Murray Furrow) is doing the calculations. He looks like Nedry in Jurassic Park doing last minute “work” before the tropical storm hits, and we all know how that turned out. Cole tells Katarina (Barbara Sukowa) that he wouldn’t have done any of this if he didn’t have faith in her.

Meanwhile, a mysterious figure lets Ramse (Kirk Acevedo) and Adler out of their cells and they go to Cassie’s (Amanda Schull). Adler has figured out from the coordinates on the monkey’s map that Titan is in Colorado, too far to go overland. He wants to send them all by time travel, without the time part. Of course, killing the Witness in this time won’t undo anything that he’s done already, so Ramse says that he must have his own time travel machine and they can use it to fix everything. A shaky supposition at best, but I don’t think Ramse really cares if the world is saved.

Someone gets injured by a transformer explosion, so they bring Cassie out to operate. This gives Cole and Cassie a chance to talk. He asks her to go to 1957 with him (see, that’s how long “there is no we” lasted). She asks him to go to Titan with her, without telling him the plan. When they hear gunfire, he figures out what they are up to and how they would get to Titan and handcuffs her to the hospital bed. Cole and Ramse have a confrontation: no one gets shot and no one persuades the other. It is clear that Ramse is suicidal.

Knowing that they are coming for the time machine, Cole decides to get reinforcements and goes to Deacon (Todd Stashwick). Deacon appears to have not stopped drinking since he was on the veranda watching the storm, so he is very drunk and very naked, having decided to face the end in his birthday suit. He also has a lot of scars. I have to say that Todd Stashwick is always entertaining and gets some great lines, but Aaron Stanford is also funny, especially in his reaction to the nude and singing Deacon. Amazingly, otter eyes work on Deacon. Cole reminds him of his little brother, who knew? But he joins the cause.

Ramse’s group are let into the time machine room by Whitley (Demore Barnes). And to think, I was so happy to see him again. He wants to take more direct, military action so he likes the idea of hunting down the Witness. They take over the room, some arguing happens and then Cole walks into the room and threatens Adler. Cassie tackles him, which causes Cole to actually shoot Adler. Cassie then proceeds to beat the crap out of him. Cole is hampered by the fact that he isn’t fighting back at all. He tells Cassie that she will still be afraid even if she kills him and the Witness. And she is, she’s afraid of her own weakness. She runs off. Cole goes off to Jennifer’s camp.

Jennifer already knows what Cole wants. She asks him if he would be willing to let someone he loved die to save the world and he agrees. Of course Jennifer is the one who is in danger of dying. Her expiration date is coming up.

Cole and the daughters take over the facility, with Deacon’s help. I have to say, I think he’s still plastered. It doesn’t seem to make him the least bit less effective, though. That is, until he accidentally shoots Jennifer, which might not have happened if he had been sober. Jennifer caressed his face on the way in, and he gets clawed in the same place after the shooting. The daughters are frantic and promise to kill everyone if Mother dies.

Cole has Jones send him back to the exact coordinates of his last jump and he brings back young Jennifer. She’s the only person who enjoys the time jump and whoops like she’s come off an amusement park ride! Young Jennifer talks to old dying Jennifer. Old Jennifer tells her to be braver than she was, and Jennifer decides to take the daughters to Titan, along with Ramse and Cassie, but over land. Cole is to use the time machine to stop the paradox. The caravan heads out. Cole is sent back in time, with only Jones, Hannah and Lasky staying behind. Cassie looks an appeal at Ramse. He stops the jeep and lets her out. She runs back to the facility and Jones sends her to 1957. Lasky disintegrates first. Hannah and Katarina are separated by a wall of red. Katarina urges her to leave her. Katarina Jones goes down with the ship, standing beside her machine as the red storm kills her. Hannah escapes on horseback. The facility is destroyed.

In 1957, Cole is at the Emerson when Cassie walks up to him. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” she says. About bloody time.

Oh, be still my heart. This was a wonderful, awful, suspenseful episode. I loved how Katarina Jones ended. The mad scientist’s laboratory always falls down at the end of the movie, sometimes for no apparent reason, and she went out like the best of them. The music was majestic. She died having achieved her objective, to save her daughter. It was a great ending. And I’m not going to mourn her until I know she’s not coming back. After all, this is one ending. There will be others..

Jennifer got a great death scene, too, giving advice to her younger, less confident self.

I hated my people turning on each other, but every turn was tempered with affection. Cassie was afraid for Cole: Ramse was appalled that she would think he had hurt him. Whitley threatened Ramse if he hurt Jones, even though he had just betrayed her, the rat. Lasky gently moved the injured Adler to take over his place the controls.

I loved that before Cole went back to 1957, Cole and Jones hugged and she thanked him for having faith in her. At least two people didn’t desert her, Cole and Hannah. He is a boy that needs a mom.

I loved that Deacon sided with Cole just to piss on Cassie and Ramse. Best line in the episode: “Contrary to popular belief, and my psychopathic tendencies, a heart beats in this chest.” I’m glad he got a little revenge.

But most of all, I am glad that Cassie finally cracked. She’s still been making bad decisions. She misjudged Deacon, taking it for granted that he was as callous as he appeared, misjudged Ramse, worried that he would kill Cole, and misjudged Cole, accusing him of wanting to go to 1957 to run away. Which was not only untrue, but out of left field, like so many things she’s said to him lately. When Ramse was shocked that she thought he would do that, and she said to herself that she just didn’t know anymore, I think maybe she’s getting a clue that she is clueless. That, and Deacon telling her that yes, it was personal. I hope going forward that Cassie is less brutal and more sane and sensible. She makes a better doctor than a Deacon.

12 Monkeys usually airs on Syfy on Mondays, 9pm/8c. See all our recaps of the show here.