12 Monkeys 3.1-4: "The Smart Ones Do"

12 Monkeys returned tonight with the first four episodes of its third season, and they were superb indeed - in fact the best episodes in the series so far.

As usual, Jennifer has the best lines.  In response to the impresario in 1920s Paris who advises Jennifer that "no one understands time travel," an explanation for the small audience for her time-travel performance on stage, Jennifer replies that "the smart ones do".

And although this is self-serving - for me, you, Jennifer, everyone who understands and enjoys time travel (not to mention writes it) - her statement is true indeed, and applies abundantly to 12 Monkeys.   Jennifer is the very embodiment of that old truth that in crazy times, the crazy person might be the most sane - which Robert De Niro's character in The Deer Hunter also exemplified - and Jennifer's one step ahead in just about all the crucial junctures in 12 Monkeys.

Which is why she senses that Olivia is up to something no good  - or deadly, for the people Jennifer cares about - when Olivia spits out a plan to kill the Witness, after being locked up in a room with rats as per Ramse's instruction.

Jennifer, of course, can't literally see into the future - her correct sense of foreboding of what Olivia and Ramse are planning is just that, foreboding, and based on her unerring instinct and often razor-sharp logic.  So Jennifer can't literally see what Ramse is putting into motion.

And I gotta say, about Ramse, that although his motives were understandable, I didn't like what he had become, anyway.   I know he's tortured about having to kill his son - but he shouldn't have killed him. And he kills an innocent doctor in his attempt to kill Cassie, and would have killed her, too.  Cole had no choice but to kill him.  It was a sad scene, but Ramse for the most part deserved it.

And it was good to see Cole and Cassie together at the end.  I'm with Jones and the way she was smiling when she saw that.   Four fine episodes, and I'll be back with a review of what's up on the screen later tomorrow.

See also 12 Monkeys 2.1: Whatever Will Be, Will Be ... 12 Monkeys 2.2: The Serum ... 12 Monkeys 2.3: Primaries and Paradoxes ... 12 Monkeys 2.4: Saving Time ... 12 Monkeys 2.5: Jennifer's Story ... 12 Monkeys 2.6: "'Tis Death Is Dead" ... 12 Monkeys 2.7: Ultimate Universes ... 12 Monkeys 2.8: Time Itself Wants Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 2.9: Hands On ... 12 Monkeys 2.10: The Drugging ... 12 Monkeys 2.11: Teleportation ... 12 Monkeys 2.12: The Best and the Worst of Time(s) ... 12 Monkeys 2.13: Psychedelic -> Whole City Time Travel

And see also this Italian review, w/reference to Hawking and my story, "The Chronology Protection Case"

And see also 12 Monkeys series on SyFy: Paradox Prominent and Excellent ...12 Monkeys 1.2: Your Future, His Past ... 12 Monkeys 1.3:  Paradoxes, Lies, and Near Intersections ... 12 Monkeys 1.4: "Uneasy Math" ... 12 Monkeys 1.5: The Heart of the Matter ... 12 Monkeys 1.6: Can I Get a Witness? ... 12 Monkeys 1.7: Snowden, the Virus, and the Irresistible ... 12 Monkeys 1.8: Intelligent Vaccine vs. Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 1.9: Shelley, Keats, and Time Travel ... 12 Monkey 1.10: The Last Jump ... 12 Monkeys 1.11: What-Ifs ... 12 Monkeys 1.2: The Plunge ... 12 Monkeys Season 1 Finale: "Time Travel to Create Time Travel"

FREE on Amazon Prime

Available on Prime

12 Monkeys 2.9: Hands On

A good, solid, self-reflexive episode 2.9 of 12 Monkeys this past Monday night, which delves into a lot of what makes our characters tick.

Jennifer is most likely the central character in this episode, if not in the entire series. In a profound sense, she's actually the least crazy person in the story, despite her presentation, because she alone has lived through most of the years of the narrative in real time.   In fact, even if she were thoroughly sane in the first place, living through a time in which time itself is changing would make her somewhat crazy.  Or, as someone says about Michael in The Deer Hunter, in an insane world a crazy person may be the least maladjusted.

Jennifer's advice to Cole in 2044 - old Jennifer to Cole, who is always at more or less the same age (but see below)  - is to pay attention to the hands not the cup.   And hands do play a major role in this episode, as we see when the Tall Man's hands are later under attack by Cole's hammer seeking information.   By the way, it's interesting that the Tall Man is also known as the Pallid Man - he could also be called the Pall Man, since he certainly casts a pall on everything he touches (but not the Paul man, no thanks).

12 Monkeys has been doing a great job rolling out as many classic time-travel gambits as it can, and there's a nice one in 2.9, as Cole takes his leave of young Jennifer in 2016, and reappears a moment later and at least little older at the door - a little older in age and apparently much older in experience. That moment vividly shows the other side of older Jennifer knowing much more than all of our other characters in the future because she's lived through time. When Cole reappears at young Jennifer's door, he's the one who knows more, much more, than the young Jennifer, for whom just a second has elapsed.   No wonder she's crazy - time has gotten her coming and going.

Hey, I haven't really said much if anything about the actual plot of this episode.   Maybe I'll come back later in time and fill that in - or not.

See you here next week with my review of the next episode, in any case.

See also 12 Monkeys 2.1: Whatever Will Be, Will Be ... 12 Monkeys 2.2: The Serum ... 12 Monkeys 2.3: Primaries and Paradoxes ... 12 Monkeys 2.4: Saving Time ... 12 Monkeys 2.5: Jennifer's Story ... 12 Monkeys 2.6: "'Tis Death Is Dead" ... 12 Monkeys 2.7: Ultimate Universes ... 12 Monkeys 2.8: Time Itself Wants Time Travel

And see also this Italian review, w/reference to Hawking and my story, "The Chronology Protection Case"

And see also 12 Monkeys series on SyFy: Paradox Prominent and Excellent ...12 Monkeys 1.2: Your Future, His Past ... 12 Monkeys 1.3:  Paradoxes, Lies, and Near Intersections ... 12 Monkeys 1.4: "Uneasy Math" ... 12 Monkeys 1.5: The Heart of the Matter ... 12 Monkeys 1.6: Can I Get a Witness? ... 12 Monkeys 1.7: Snowden, the Virus, and the Irresistible ... 12 Monkeys 1.8: Intelligent Vaccine vs. Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 1.9: Shelley, Keats, and Time Travel ... 12 Monkey 1.10: The Last Jump ... 12 Monkeys 1.11: What-Ifs ... 12 Monkeys 1.2: The Plunge ... 12 Monkeys Season 1 Finale: "Time Travel to Create Time Travel"

#SFWApro

podcast review of Predestination and 12 Monkeys

 

Fear the Walking Dead Season 1 Finale: Water Water

Fear the Walking Dead concluded its all-too-brief first season last night, and although The Walking Dead will be starting its next season next week, I'll be missing Fear TWD and wishing it was continuing on television screen - beyond its webcasts - too.

The most significant development in this last episode for a year was the luxury ship off-shore, and its holding of some hope of distance from the walkers.   Ultimately, the question is whether the walkers can't be swimmers.  It certainly seems they can't - I mean, what kind of stroke could they do?  They lack the coordination to do any of the swimming strokes that at least I do at the pool.

But there's a further implicit question here: can the walking dead drown?  If not, then couldn't they just stagger into the water and out to any boat, in water over their head?  I suppose they could - but they would likely be swept away by any decent current.   I'm pretty sure we've already seen them swept away in river currents on The Walking Dead, and ocean currents would be much stronger.

Still, our human survivors finding impregnable safety on the water seems too easy a solution - though, hey, solution is something that comes from water, right?  Anyway, it'll be fun to see what's in store next year.

My other favorite part of this season finale was Nick telling his mother that he was more ready for the apocalypse than anyone else in the family, because was already somewhat out of his mind, and was coping with the insanity of being an outsider even when the world was relatively sane.   This was reminiscent of Robert De Niro's' character Michael in the excellent 1978 movie The Deer Hunter - Michael fares the best in the  insanity of fighting and getting captured  in Vietnam because he was already somewhat crazy at home.  It's impressive to see Fear The Walking Dead picking up on this profound and counter-intuitive aspect of human nature.

The Walking Dead does this too, but as I said as soon as I saw the first episode of Fear TWD, there's something about the greater proximity of this story to our reality that makes it more riveting to me.

See also Fear the Walking Dead 1.1: Great Beginnings ... Fear TWD 1.2: Tobias Leads the Way

#SFWApro

Under the Dome 1.4: Good Night for Junior, Until ...

Episode 1.4 of Under the Dome last night offered a good opportunity for Junior, who finally begins to earn his father's admiration, in addition to the new sheriff's, with his cool, powerful handling of a potential mob scene of people who had to be kept inside the clinic until the resolution of the meningitis outbreak.

Junior in those circumstances was like the lead character in The Deer Hunter (1978 movie starring Robert De Niro), maladjusted in normal times, but those same intense traits made him a hero in crazy times, such as the war in Vietnam.  Junior is a psycho in "normal" times under the dome - though of course nothing can be completely or even mostly normal under the dome - but rises to the even crazier occasion of people pent up in the clinic, and masterfully talks them down.

All of this is going on with pretty Angie still chained in Junior's basement, and water gushing into it no less.   This is the underside of Junior - literally - a foundation of his insanity that he is unwilling to remove or change.

Fortunately for Angie, and in a good move for the story, Junior's father Big Jim finally hears Angie screaming at the end of the episode, and finds her in the basement.   Bad news for Junior, especially ironic because it happens right after Big Jim comes to see some value in his son, and even says he should consider a career in law enforcement.

What will Big Jim do?  Given what little we know about him, I'd say the thought might occur to him to kill Angie to protect his son.  On the other hand, he has even more motive to dispose of Rev. Coggins, and thus far has refrained.   Maybe he'll split the difference, and just not release her from the basement.

Meanwhile, Julia's antipathy to Barbie is growing to the point that she's barely grateful that he saved her life - almost as if she senses that he killed her husband.  But I'm still thinking that we'll see them in bed together - if not in this season, before the series is over.

See also Under the Dome: Superior Summer Science Fiction ... Under the Dome 1.2: Adrenaline and Seepage ... Under the Dome 1.4: Way Under

#SFWApro