Thursday, July 23, 2015

Summer DVR Dump: 12 Monkeys 1.07: “The Keys”

“Listen, I wanna tell you something. It won’t make any sense to you now but it will the next time you see me. It’s the keys. I couldn’t tell you before because I was too embarrassed. It’s the keys in Florida. I saw a picture of a beach there in a magazine once. That’s where I’d go. I’m glad I got to know you, Cassie.”
- Cole

Things are getting pretty intense where the virus deployment is concerned. It turns out Operation Troy involves using the virus to kill Adam Wexler (who I totally missed was an ex-CIA analyst leaking secrets). No one in our little ragtag band of misfits can actually confirm that all of this is going down so Cassie and Cole end up going to a benefit to meet with an antiquities expert. It also seems that both Cole and Cassie are still suffering the aftereffects of their respective ordeals. Cassie is pouring tea and burns her hand with hot water and Cole is still getting random flashes. At the benefit, Cole is reveling in all of the art and the food and the dancing while Cassie is straight up on mission. It was kind of interesting to see Cole just trying to live life knowing he’ll be dead soon. Cassie talks to the expert who tells her that a piece of art Cole found a photo of is linked to a very secretive religion in Chechnya. But when she brings up the Army of the 12 Monkeys, he brushes her off. So Cole gets rough and doesn’t get a whole lot of information out of him. Back at the bookstore, Aaron shows up without much to show for his efforts. Until Cole tells them he’s about to splinter and come back a week later.

Aaron goes back to his office and lifts a flash drive off his boss that shows the link between the virus and Wexler and what they plan to do with it. The CIA thinks that by deploying the virus in a secluded area, it won’t have time to spread and the virus will go inert after death. I highly doubt that’s going to happen. Just as Aaron collects copies of the information on the flash drive, Cassie gets a phone call from Cole who is in Chechnya with the virus. But he’s under fire and needs help. Operation Troy is going down right then and there.

Time gets a little wonky as we jump back two hours and find Cole in southern Chechnya. He’s waiting for a man with a metal briefcase and ends up paying a cab driver a giant wad of bills to follow the guy’s car. The man gets out on the side of the road and starts trekking through the forest so Cole follows suit. Cole clearly has good tracking skills (which include not getting spotted) but he has to reveal his position when a gunman takes out the courier. So what does Cole do? He grabs the virus and hauls ass. On the way, he calls Cassie and explains that he got the information on Chechnya from Aaron and Cassie a week ago (in his time) and then he was sent back to this day to get the virus. But he needs to know how to destroy it because the 12 Monkeys are on to him.

Cassie calls Aaron to fill him in on Cole’s situation (which neither of them understand yet) and Cassie insists they go to the CIA. Aaron calls in another favor from a friend and they head to the CIA but of course they don’t have clearance. And Cole calls Cassie again to totally info dump on her. They will have information about Operation Troy already happening in one week which is why Cole got sent back now. Unfortunately, he gets nabbed by the gunman and dragged off to see Wexler. Wexler thinks he had a briefcase of money coming but Cole insists that the case contains a virus. People really ought to listen to Cole more often because when they open the case, the virus is in fact deployed. Good thing Cole is immune, huh?

The Chechens start getting sick really fast and Cole tries to explain that if anyone leaves the compound, the world is screwed by Wexler doesn’t seem to care. He thinks maybe it is a good idea to cull humanity. Basically he is just a giant douchebag. And things in the states aren’t going well either. Aaron gets chewed out by his boss and Cassie begs the head of Operation Troy to let her call Cole. She calls the guy out on the fact he doesn’t know what’s going on with the op. I swear for a second she was going to accuse him of being a member of the 12 Monkeys but she didn’t. Back in Chechnya, one of the guards agrees to trade Wexler to the Russians for some reason that I didn’t quite get and Cole kind of calls them all a bunch of wusses for thinking about leaving. A part of me is hoping he splinters and gets the hell out of there before anything else happens.

Cassie convinces the CIA to make contact with Cole again and he tells her that the guards are dead (thank you giant firefight where Wexler and Cole both get shot) but that Russians are coming. They need to destroy the base before the Russians arrive so the CIA scrambles some bombers. Cassie and Cole have a really emotional goodbye with everyone else listening in which is kind of awkward, especially with the talk about the future. Cole tells Cassie she needs to be strong and not tell the version of him that’s coming about his death. It could screw with the timeline and he doesn’t have many jumps left in him anyway. And as Cassie watches, we see the bomb drop and hit its target. Before Wexler dies from his bullet wound, he tells Cole that the 12 Monkeys were involved in a fight with the Yakuza in Tokyo in 1987. I guess that’s there and why Cole meets Goines the second time (for Cole). I’m not sure if Cole will actually make it or not but we’ll have to find out I’m sure.

Cassie and Aaron come to an understanding of mutually assured destruction with the government and get released. Cassie is clearly traumatized by what happened to Cole and she questions whether she should try to change things when Cole shows up to get the information but Aaron reminds her that they’ve averted the plague now and they can’t risk messing it up. So they both dutifully play their parts and give Cole the information he needs to go back and stop the virus (and die). And Cassie realizes that the weird thing Cole shared with her right before the bomb hit is the place young Cole would have gone if he could have gone anywhere. Very touching and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

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