What I’m Watching: 12 Monkeys (Season Finale)

12 Monkeys: Season 1, Episode 13 “Arms of Mine” (B+)

The mark of a good season finale is delivering considerable intensity and payoff while also putting a number of new questions on the table. This finale definitely did that, even featuring a few things that likely won’t come up again but could well resurface at an inopportune moment. It was a big leap to see Cole and even Cassandra torturing Aaron, and his death in a fiery explosion was a harsh and unforgiving way for him to go out (but is he really dead?). Cassandra has definitely become a hardened person, and she’s past any sort of patience. Slapping Jennifer when she said that she couldn’t stand her talking because she didn’t have time to waste on her craziness was cruel, and unfortunately it seems that Jennifer was sending them right into a trap. What I love is how the creepy woman was describing how things happened because they were always going to happen and all is preordained, and then Cole made the choice to go back and save Ramsey instead, changing the course of the future. It was equally satisfying to hear Jones say that Cole was never coming back, and then all of a sudden Jennifer showed up, sent by Cole to the future to save her life. I have some serious questions with how the structure of time can be defended here, but I’m hooked, and I found this episode to be enormously exciting. Who are these blue babies, and are they the twelve monkeys? We’ll have to wait until next season to find out. While this show lagged a bit in its confused middle, the start and finish of the first season were well worth it.

Season grade: B+
Season MVP: Aaron Stanford as Cole