12 Monkeys - One Hundred Years

                   
                 


Yeah, I'm okay.

I had finished watching 12 Monkeys last night and I started thinking about time, clouds, love lost and lives ended.

And this popped into my head.

Honest, I never watched "Days of Our Lives."  But when I get on the internet tomorrow I bet I'll see one of those pictures with Cole in the deep background.  This time in a soap opera with Cassie, with her head bent backwards, hand to her forehead, ready to swoon.

Kiss her already Cole!  Win your girl back!

Sheesh.

All right where were we? 

That's right, love lost.

What?  No.  Sorry.  God, this whole split between Cole and Cassie is keeping me up at night.

God.

The thing with time travel is, you can keep turning that hourglass over but one of these days someone is going to drop it and the whole thing will go crashing to the floor.  Then who will pick up the pieces?

The Witness?

Ol' Haz-Mat face has a plan all right we just don't know what it is yet.

12 Monkeys continues to evolve and it's mythology expand.  If I understand the new narrative now, it's not just the plague, it's wrinkles in time.

To quote a learned man,

"We've had tremendous spikes across the temporal spectrum.  Multiplying in the time stream.  It's almost as if the structure of space-time is collapsing onto itself!"

 And Mr. Eckland would you please turn that music down!  


What's the Plan?

"Oh, you sore about us?"

Watch it Teddy.  Don't push my buttons.  I know what your soft spot is.

So what's the plan?  Go back 100 years and fix things.  Got it.

Two of the "Messengers" have traveled to 1944 and tasked with the elimination of a Thomas Crawford.  It seems their information is as accurate as Team Splinter's because when they get there they eliminate the wrong one.

 

I wonder what their source is.  Team Splinter relies heavily on old press clippings and recordings.  You'd think the Army of the 12 Monkeys would rely on the Witness.   But since he's proven unreliable it's no wonder they get things wrong.

So let's hit pause and FF a little.


Flash Theory!

 

"I help it think, just like your friend Jennifer."

Here's the real target, Thomas Crawford Jr., and whom are you referring to Tommy when you say "it"?  The Witness?  

Last week I theorized the Witness was so unreliable because I thought there may have been multiple "Witnesses" or at least a succession of them.  During this succession one or more of the Witnesses may be unreliable because they are actually sympathize with humanity's cause or at least Team Splinter's.  

I even suggested one such sympathizer may be Jennifer.

So here is a new thought.  Let's say the Primary's "think" for The Witness.  There is probably 12 Primary's so that makes twelve voices speaking to the Witness across time and perhaps all at once.  (Probably the same voices Jennifer hears all the time.)  No wonder The Witness' information has become unreliable!  Especially if one or more of the Primary's is not exactly sympathetic to the 12 Monkey cause.   All those voices at once trying to get their message across.  Is this the reason for the discordance in prophecy?

Young Crawford is to play more of a role here but let's catch up where we left off.


Finding Crawford

Fortunately for Team Splinter our two super sleuths from the future have put together the identity of the Messenger's target and race off to the sanatorium where he is being kept.  But not before they have an interlude of their own.

This is a rather important part of the overall narrative.  I think we've all seen the changes to Cassie's character.  It started with her willingness to shoot Ramse at the end of season one.  As we've moved to the future we've seen her move closer to Deacon.  She feels as though Cole is weakening towards the ultimate goal of the mission and she can't understand Cole's affection for Ramse or sympathy for Jennifer.

As for Cole, he's actually drifted further way from his Scav days.  Here at the hotel he tries to reason with Cassie telling her you just can't kill everyone.

"What about Aaron? It worked for him."

The above picture is the look on her face after she made this last admission.

To me this was very telling.  Everyone has lost someone on this show or nearly so.  Some were fortunate enough to spare someone's life as Cole did with Ramse. Cassie was offered no such choice.  So perhaps there is some resentment as well as regret for what happened to Aaron.  Her divide with Cole comes not from just the plague in general or her relationship with Deacon.  Rather, she is carrying the weight of her guilt about Aaron.  One can only guess what would happen if Cassie should come across Aaron while he is still alive.  It's happened to more than one person in this show.

Mulder and Scully show up at the sanatorium.

What they find is quite revealing.

  

The images are especially significant for Cassie.

No doubt Cassie will be making a visit to the Red Forest is some way or shape and in the near future.  Until then, the images keep repeating themselves whether painted on walls or scrawled into the subconscious.

 
 

Cassie manages to gain Crawford but lose Cole.  This is the point where Crawford explains to Cassie what makes him so special.  (As covered in my Flash Theory above.) He also connects Jennifer to it all which must have come as quite a jolt to Cassie.

In a stunning revelation, Crawford tells Cassie the bone dagger that Vivian Rutledge is carrying is actually carved from his own breast bone.  The only possible use is to kill him with it causing a temporal paradox.

And it does.

Rutledge pierces the young Crawford and the fireworks begin to go off.  Not only in 1944 but 100 years into the future of 2044. 

Like the sands of time the effect goes from one end of the glass encased spectrum to the other.

What I found odd was the blossoms of the paradox that appeared around Deacon and Ramse in the future strangely resemble the monkey artwork in Crawford's room and the blood splatter on Crawford as he lay dead.  (If he is dead.)

Here are my examples.  First the blossoms in the future.

Then the splatter monkeys on the wall.

Then the blossoming blood splatter across Crawford himself.

All eerily similar.

It may be just an artistic choice by the people behind 12 Monkeys or there may be some real connection.

Rutledge kept repeating in her ritual as she was about to stab both Crawford men, "Flowers have the most beautiful cycle."   Not to mention,  "seed rebirth, seed rebirth."  All the pictures above evoke images of flowers in some way or another.  And since, "We shall all meet again in the Red Forest."  It made me think of ol' snorkel face.


Incomplete Theory Time

Here's one of the teaser images that came out prior to the start of season two.  It shows The Witness as he approaches the window to some house which I take to be the same house we keep seeing in the Red Forest flash backs.  Or or the flash forwards?

Behind snorkel face seems to be a city of sorts.  Or better yet, a massive refinery that is pumping noxious fumes into the atmosphere turning the air a nefarious red.

I don't know what in God's green earth is going on here but it is almost like The Witness is trying to remake the planet through time.  And the remnants of humanity left behind by the plague are the only ones left that can survive this over abundance of greenhouse gases.  

I can't say if plant life turns from green to red when photosynthesis is choked off  but that is what seems to be happening.  I would also posit The Witness is too impatient for carbon gases to be-spoil the atmosphere naturally so he is doing it through "paradox blossoms."

"Seed, rebirth, seed, rebirth."

Well, my theory is a work in progress.  Tell me what you think!