What I’m Watching: 12 Monkeys

12 Monkeys: Season 4, Episode 7 “Daughters” (B+)

This episode reframed how we look at this show in a really cool way, showing how Hannah and Emma have experienced events and how they look at the world, in a welcome return to the type of time travel familiar to this show. Both have essentially been living for the sake of their mothers, but they’ve been appreciated in remarkably different ways. I’m so pleased to have been correct in my suspicion that Emma is indeed Cole’s mother, though how she got there doesn’t make entirely as much sense to me. From what I can understand, Olivia tormented Jones by making her think that she was killing Hannah over and over again, and somehow Emma was able to watch this happen as Jones was experiencing it. Seeing how little Olivia valued Jones’ offspring compelled Emma to realize that she’s been living a life for all the wrong reasons, and Olivia confirmed that by calling her an extension of herself, and hardly an ideal one at that. While it seemed that she had jumped to her death from Titan, it appears that she actually went back in time to, for the first time in her life, become her own person. I like the idea that Hannah and Emma, two daughters who haven’t really experienced time in the same way as anyone else, are now together creating the future that they’ve both come to know. Jennifer’s quick return after her ill-fated trip back to the past was a harsh reminder that we’re close to the end now, and the light-hearted nature of some recent episodes shouldn’t be considered an appropriate sample for what’s to come, especially not for poor Deacon.