TV - 12 Monkeys Season 1, Episode 3

12 Monkeys

Steve Taylor-Bryant packs his bags and heads off to Haiti to check on his Cassandra Complex...

Cole is teaching Railly to use a gun, much to her disgust, whilst she kids him about take-out food. A call comes in and Railly is off to the police station to talk about Goines being abducted from the hospital. Whilst with the detective she gets a picture of Goines’ missing colleague and knows the man from some work they did together for the Centre for Disease Control in Haiti. Railly goes back to the CDC and talks to an ex-doctor about needing a specialist in a certain area and that Henri Toussaint would be perfect for advice, as well as being Goines’ missing teammate, but is informed that he was shot shortly after Railly left Haiti to come home.

Cole devises a plan to go back in time and speak to Henri before his gang execution and starts probing Railly for information that could help him. Railly is verging on distraught as she remembers just how dangerous the region was and doesn’t want Cole to go and certainly doesn’t want him to contact her in the past, which seems a little strange given what they have both gone through. Cole travels back to 2043 to tell Jones what he needs to do and she then proceeds to argue with, what looks like a board of directors for time travel, about the best way forward with each member of the team wanting a different outcome. Scavengers are nearing the base and Ramse says he will go and look out for danger, and Jones tells Cole they will send him to 2014 Haiti but that due to solar flares around that time it may not be as safe as he had hoped.

Back in 2014 Railly is telling fiancé Marker that there is an outbreak in Haiti and whilst he doesn’t want her to go she feels she has to. Aaron Marker on the other hand is really starting to worry about Railly and the nonsense about the world ending. Railly arrives in Haiti and travels straight to the makeshift hospitals and into trouble as panic hits and guns start getting pointed so people get seen. At night Railly and Henri share a drink and talk about the fear they feel before hopping into bed with other, which explains Railly’s reluctance for Cole to see her in Haiti!

Back in 2043 the guard and Ramse are on patrol but the guard really doesn’t like Ramse and the fact he and Cole are so well looked after by Jones. He believes they should be back out on the surface with the other scavengers. The guard is attacked by a woman but before he can shoot her Ramse knocks him out. The woman and Ramse know each other and he asks where the others are and why they are here. The woman, Max, swears she is on her own and she is seeking Ramse’s help to flee Deacon the way Ramse and Cole managed to but Ramse is reluctant to help and sends her away.

Cole is having his problems as the interference is flicking him between time zones but he still manages to blag his way into the hospital and convince Henri that he needs his help, which is until Railly spots him and he has to flee so as not to mess with the timeline of events. Henri leaves the tented medical centre to seek supplies from someone in town, with Cole in hot pursuit. Cole thinks he’s lost Henri until he jumps out and grabs Cole. A minor scuffle occurs and Cole eventually takes Henri’s gun and tries to explain himself. Henri agrees that if Cole at least gets him back to the hospital with the medication he will talk to him about The Night Room.

Whilst collecting the medication Henri starts to explain to Cole what they were doing when he worked with Goines, before Cole can get any definitive information though a Haitian gang storm in led by Pallid Man. Cole manages to escape with a little help from the fluctuation in time he is receiving, and chases Pallid Man who is pursuit of Henri. In the hospital Railly starts to panic and realises that she is witnessing the start of the plague that Cole had said about when he kidnapped her. No one believes her and everyone thinks she needs a break, especially when she advocates shooting patients that try to leave. Cole rescues Henri from Pallid Man but is devastated when he is told The Night Room is mobile and never in one place. Henri tells him that tracing the specialist equipment is the only way to find out its location. Railly is sent home for creating a panic after the lab results come back and it’s a disease that can be contained. Whilst practising her shooting Cole lies and says he doesn’t know how Henri died, and back in 2043 Max is telling Deacon that she’s found Cole.

The scenery shots of Haiti are stunning. Not in a ‘look how beautiful the place is’ way but in capturing the devastation and poverty so perfectly the backdrop is almost a character of its own which is the main difference between tonight’s episode and the first two. Whilst there is still splintering it isn’t about time travel, and whilst there is action it isn’t about the fighting. This week is purely character driven. The strengths and weaknesses of Railly, the mixed opinions of those in 2043, the duplicity shown by Cole, all builds to a tense ending with a whole new story ready to burst on to the scene.

12 Monkeys is growing in quality and stature each week with this episode the season highlight so far.

Image - SyFy.

Powered by Blogger.