Countdown to the Finale of 12 Monkeys begins here #12Monkeys #GoodTV
“Resurrection” was an amazing episode of 12 Monkeys and the emotion was REAL folks. This episode creates a lot of drama and you could cut the tension with a knife. The story was setup to feature all our characters at opposite ends of the spectrum, with Cole and Ramse pointing guns at each other, Deacon boozing it up because he’s dejected and Cassie riding the fear train. It seemed like nobody was on the same page.
When you have vastly different character motivations, it does make for great drama like in this episode, but it’s certainly been a strange ride. The characters first want to kill each other one week, then they apologize the next week and everything’s kosher. What? How about when Ramse wanted to smack Cassie and kill her, then he’s all like “You touch her, you die!”. Geezus dude, decide on a direction.
Anyway, that sort of flip-flopping comes back in “Resurrection”, but it feels more like an evolution. Everybody’s reached a breaking point, even Deacon. In this episode, Deacon becomes moody and depressed, so he strips off his clothes and starts drinking by himself. Yeah, he’s completely normal.
This episode raised the stakes, dealt down some consequences and threw in some character development to boot. It was all in there, even some emotion to tug at you and keep you pinned to your seat. The time limit imposed by the red storms was a GREAT idea, because a time-limited concept like that always pushes the story forward. It worked for Back to the Future and it works here too.
Overall, this was a great episode. The highlights were the character moments and the dialogue, mostly thanks to Emily Hampshire, who pops in to add some color to the episode. Aaron Stanford leads the story as an anti-hero, which is a character archetype redeveloped this season and it’s been very successful. Amanda Schull as Cassie is torn and scared and can’t make a decision, which eventually comes to a head, so it’s nice character development. To top it off, Barbara Sukowa as Jones has some good moments too, with her daughter and when she headbutts Ramse. Ouch. Speaking of Ramse, he’s more aggressive in this episode and Kirk Acevedo steps up his game to make it all very believable. This cast is great. They look comfortable working together. It’s amazing.
Lastly, I want to comment about the future. Jones is killed and Cassie and Cole are stuck in 1957, so the only hope of setting things right that once went wrong is by resetting time. Meanwhile, Ramse and the daughters are out hunting for The Witness. I really don’t think killing the Witness will accomplish much, but I could be wrong, so it’ll be interesting to see if Jennifer and Ramse can accomplish anything. Maybe both groups will be successful. At this point, it’s hard to predict the outcome, and that’s the best thing about this story.
