What I’m Watching: 12 Monkeys

12 Monkeys: Season 1, Episode 11 “Shonin” (C+)

I think I’ll have a much better sense of the quality of this show once we see where everything that has happened so far leads to, or, more specifically, if the writers always had a plan in place or if it seems like everything is assembled haphazardly. This entire episode felt much more like an alternate pilot, mainly because it reedited some of the scenes we knew had happened with Ramsey there along with Cole. Ending up in prison after meeting Leland and stabbing Cole in 1987 presented us with a fast-forwarded version of Ramsey’s ensuing years as a hardened inmate kept going by mysterious letters delivered to him throughout his sentence. Being picked up by the Pallid Man and Striking Woman after his term was up and invited to “witness with them” reset events considerably, as it is now clear that they knew exactly what was supposed to happen and left it precisely that way to ensure that both Cole and Ramsey got sent back from the future as they were supposed to be. Cole splintering to 2015 as he was bleeding out in 1987 and making the connection to Cassandra that Ramsey is the witness is a big deal, and it’s just a question of whether that matters with his limited number of visits and the fact that the clock is ticking. I’d love to see things reset for season two with some echoes of what we know and have seen over the course of this past season, but I just don’t know. I like seeing Jennifer more and understanding that her father kept her locked up despite having proof of her innocence, and it was in the Striking Woman that she found a much-needed mother figure.