What a journey it’s been. I’m glad i watched through to the end. Found myself having started a few shows like Mr Robot, Fringe but life happens. Recently got the chance to get back to all i started but didn’t complete and i feel i got to experience this now when i needed it. When it was impactful.

Watching the first season and being able to remember exactly where i was in life, the friends still alive, it really got me emotional and the theme of this show was just perfect. If you could go back in time to save someone but in doing so then another relationship would never have existed.

I think i’ll have a post later on to dissect the show. Also a bonus this is the first show i completed and posted on it’s sub. All other shows i discovered their subs long after completing the show.

Really enjoyed the whole experience of watching this. Curious about your experiences, where you were in life when you watched this.

I've been thinking about the finale, and I can't reconcile something.

The show ends with the original James Cole surviving and ending up with Cassie.

At the same time, the finale says "children are fated to their parents," and shows examples like Ramse reuniting with Sam and Hannah growing up with her biological parents.

If that line also applies to James, then Hannah should eventually meet Cole's father and give birth to James again in the repaired timeline.

That raises a question:

What happens if the surviving adult James Cole eventually meets the newly born James Cole?

Earlier in the series, the Army of the 12 Monkeys intentionally created paradoxes by bringing different temporal versions of the same person together (using a person's future bones with their younger self). The whole point was that contact between the same temporal entity damaged time.

Wouldn't two James Coles eventually create the same kind of paradox?

If so, wouldn't that start damaging time all over again, essentially undoing the repaired timeline?

Or is the surviving James somehow no longer considered the same temporal entity after the reset?

I'm curious if there's an in-universe explanation or if the writers ever addressed this, or if there's a fan consensus that I'm missing.

Second watch and it occurs to me.

Spearhead cured an earlier version of the virus, could Cole not take this back to pre-pandemic and see it mass produced or was it explicitly stated he couldn't take stuff back...obviously he has clothes, watch etc...

Hello travelers. Today we discuss episode 4 of season 1.

What I loved:

For me, this is the episode that completely cements the rules the first few episodes were building up. It specifically demonstrates how causality works in this universe, and it is brilliant to watch unfold

I laughed so hard when neither Cole or Ramse could kill the doggo. “We are gonna die” hahaha

Ramsey, The Blonde Devourer

My first watch I’m not gonna lie, I got confused by how the whole West 7 assault played out, and even got a little angry thinking Ramse had died, but after Cole splintered and saw the rest of the episode, I was convinced the show could have a good story to tell. I wasn’t expecting a lot, to be honest, I mean it’s not like SYFY is known for writing. I wasn’t expecting season 2 to 4, damn

Cassie is incredibly resourceful. Single-handedly tracking down the Night Room is honestly impressive

Nitpicks:

I still feel like the actress playing Max is not quite selling it. Jones can feel a bit stiff at certain moments too, and the same goes for Whitley. Also, what the hell do you mean a machine gun like that can’t completely pierce a damn truck? And if it actually can’t, just shoot the damn tires hahaha

And that covers it for me. Today is a very strong episode. At the time it aired, it was dragging the weaknesses of the first three episodes along with it, so it really needed to change the dynamic and pull the show out of that slump. I think it manages to do exactly that and finds a much better direction for the story

9/10 for me

How he actually born even after Cole erased that timeline where he and railey lives in that house? Is that a plothole Or too much for a cinematic liberty.

Here's a very good video about 12 monkeys, without spoilers, for ppl who maybe are hesitant to start the show, or just want another person on YouTube to talk about their favorite tv show ( that's my case lol 🤣)

Some questions are dumb, and some I need verified answer to confirm my understanding:

1. What happened to Athan, Cole's son? They keep saying he died, but as far as I remember, Jennifer was given the task of saving a dying man in that cave after he was shot by Katarina. After that Athan not shown.

2. In the Season 4 ending, we saw the older versions of Deacon come back from the future to help. For causality to be preserved, they had to return to their own time. Since they remembered everything afterward, does that mean Deacon knew the entire story from the very beginning?

3. For a long time, everything was happening in a closed time loop according to the Witness's plan, including the Primaries' actions like destroying night room, saving Hannah etc, everytime they fail is what meant to be. At what point did things actually begin to change? Because until the point S4 end where Railey releases the virus, everything the characters did, believing it would change the future, actually seems to have already been part of the original cycle.

4. After everything is reset at the end, don't we see an older Jennifer with Deacon in the bar when Deacan smash bottle on someone's head? How is that possible?

5. How does Jennifer know that Cole will be on the beach at the end? Does Katerina told her whole plan?

6. Is this show entirely science fiction, with no magic involved? If so, then what exactly are the Red Forest, the substance people drink to communicate with the Witness, and the voices or visions that the Primaries hear?

7. "The Djinn was born when Elliot and I opened Pandora's Box." By this, Katarina mean that Olivia was effectively created when she invented the time travel machine? After hearing this, we can say that they simply needed to stop Katarina from creating the time machine. However, Cole already tried that in an earlier season, and every time he did, the timeline reset. The explanation given was that time itself wouldn't allow Katarina to fail, because it wanted the time machine to be created. Isn't it weird that time insists on creating the very machine that is later used by the Witness, whose goal is to destroy time itself?

I'm confused about what actually counts as a genuine timeline change in 12 Monkeys. You say that the timeline changes throughout the series, but I'm not sure what events are truly changes rather than things that were always supposed to happen inside the loop. It is just: an event being absorbed into the loop, and timeline update vs an event never having changed anything in the first place, every change splinter team thing did, was meant to be.

For example, someone might say that Cole burning the virus instead of releasing it was a timeline change. But was it really? If every time travel made by Cole is part of what creates the cycle in the first place, then everything he does, even when he believes he's changing the future, is actually necessary for the Witness's plan to succeed.

Take the virus as an example. The team believes they are preventing the plague, but eventually they realize they have send the virus two years into the future. And this realisation led to do things, that are necessary for Witness's plan. So doesn't that imply that shifting the virus two years ahead was always part of the loop? It wasn't an unexpected change, it was something that had to happen.

Likewise, when the team ultimately releases the virus themselves, they think it is a difficult decision made out of necessity. But couldn't this simply be another part of the Witness's plan? In Season 1, they're searching for the people who released the virus, only to later discover that they themselves are responsible. That makes it seem like their attempt to stop the Witness was actually one of the events required for the Witness's plan to work all along.

This is why I'm confused about free will in the series. Does the Splinter Team actually have meaningful free will? It seems like every decision they make has already been witnessed by Olivia and is already part of the closed loop. If that's true, then even their attempts to resist are simply fulfilling history rather than changing it.

Let's apply Schrödinger's cat theory to Titan: she either pressed the button or she didn't. If that is a interpretation, then there's also a possibility that she never pressed it (the Red Forest theory), and everything unfolded according to the Witness's plan. We (viewers), saw the version we wanted to see - a happy ending. That was the Witness's goal all along: every person exists in their own perfect moment forever.

If Red Forest theory is correct then if Olivia is witness & we've seen her manipulate events to make her plan succeed, then don't you think that, as the Witness, she saw every possible outcome? She must have known that the Splinter team was powerful enough to defeat her, so she may have deliberately created a timeline where she had to die & everyone believe she lost. At the same time, across multiple points in the timeline, she planted the idea in Railly's mind that the Witness's plan was actually good for her.

I'm not supporting Red Forest theory, my confusion arise because till end multiple thing done by splinter team (releasing virus) was meant to be for witness plan to be successful, so why not till end it was witness plan, or what actually break the cycle (that witness not witnessed - literally jokes on this in series!)

What I Loved

It has been a while since my last rewatch, and I totally forgot how early this episode hints at Cassie getting comfortable with Cole. That moment when he touches her while teaching her how to shoot… Cole has rizz hahaha

That line, "It is not every day you see the building you are going to die in," is just brilliant. It hits so hard

Jones arguing with her team about the jumps is excellent world-building. Explaining why they cannot just go back to the exact same time because of paradoxes sets up the rules early and makes sense

Cassie's mental state here is a wonderful touch. She is losing her mind because of what Cole told her a year prior. Seeing all those sick people, the chaos, the feel of urgency, her journey is tragic because everyone around her thinks she is completely crazy

The scene outside the tents adds so much weight to their relationship. Cole looked at her at her lowest point, with the guilt of knowing he caused it

On my first watch… Cole, you motherfucker. But after rewatching a lot of time, I’ve come to the conclusion that the writers' try to made it seem that Cole realized Henri never made it off the island because he was killed. Since Cole knew how and when Henri died, and knew the Army of the 12 Monkeys never found the Night Room during that time, he connected the dots and realized he was the one who had to kill Henri

Deacon, my man. Although brief, I liked his introduction at the end. Also, knowing the end, I always wonder if this Deacon of season 1 knew his cycle already

Nitpicks

Here is my main issue with this episode. It feels like the show is trying to be two different things at the same time. Many here know that before this was a TV show, the creators wrote a completely different story called Splinter. Later on, they had to squeeze the 12 Monkeys movie plot into their original idea. In this episode, I think those two different ideas are fighting each other. The conversations feel a bit messy because of this mix. The show seems a little lost, which is why I think a lot of people I show this to get confused here. It makes sense why this is the lowest rated episode of the entire series

Ok so this worked for me since i rewatched the series multiple times with a time period of gap between each rewatch.

on the first watch we were James cole- We had no idea how things worked and we were flowing in time just like cole . We don't know who to trust, the rules of time keep changing.

On second watch we were jeniifer or like any other primary. We watched a scene in s1 and suddenly had visions of s4 or 3 from our 1st watch. We had some idea of how things worked, and we had vague memories of our first watch guiding throughout the rewatch

On subsequent rewatches we slowly became the witness herself. We stand outside the timeline, looking at the entire puzzle from above. The entire story exists for us all at once, perfectly contained in a multiple, beautiful loops.

Also guys i have 4kish version of word of witness of almost 200mb. How do i share with all of you?

Edit-Ok so I have decided to use gofile as a means of uploading the file. Before you download you should know how exactly i have this file and what you will be downloading. This word of witness is a png file which i downloaded from the website of 12 monkeys itself.

There i had changed the resolution by forcefully rendering it to 4kish from debugging tools sometime back .Here is the link to that post- https://www.reddit.com/r/12Monkeys/comments/1ockcd4/project_splinter/

Here is the link to the files- https://gofile.io/d/BOv5mD

Also beware that the file is big so sometimes on low end devices it might crash or stutter. On my newer device I didn’t needed any software but on older pc I had to download XnView MP to properly view it.

There are 2 files one named as word of witness old and word of witness new. Prefer the new one .use old only if new one doesn’t work for you

With apologies as I know there’s a fan base for this here and I’m sure there are reasons for it, based on what it becomes over four seasons, or other factors. No disrespect intended.

I’ve seen Reddit discourse praising the show and was excited to check it out.

I’m absolutely shocked. The craft of the thing is so absolutely, alarmingly terrible. It’s lit and shot like a CW show, the music feels like schlock library cues, always on-the-nose and heavy handed and obvious, the lead actress is bad on a scale rarely seen in commercial television. The writing is constantly expositional and cheeseball.

I saw this was a SyFy original but assumed it was an outlier, like Battlestar, with prestige TV quality despite that brand. It is very much not that.

I understand opinions can vary. A more factual observation is: on a simple construction level (cinematography, acting, writing, editing), the show lacks artistry in a way that’s hard to get past, at least out of the gate.

Out of curiosity: do these qualities change radically over the course of the show? If not, what makes it loved despite these contours?

Critics, clearly, had the same reaction.

Hello;

I finished the entire show and there is something I do not understand at the very end of the show:

How can Olivia be the corpse ?

If she is the corpse that means the scene in which Cassie kills Olivia happens, so a timeline where they go until this point but do not succeed at erasing Cole after exist ?

Or, the only logical explanation I can think is that every cycles goes until this point but Cassie choose the red forest even with Coles speaking, the rest is illusion and that explain the red leaf at the very end, but this end was means to be ambiguous not with a clear evidence.

I mean, the corpse is there since the beginning, how can the corpse be there AND the show happens.

Because in the end, there is no virus no body too so maybe I'm missing something.

Sorry if it's not really clear.

Judging by viewer ratings & comments that seems to be the case. I've just finished the second episode and it's been a bit... naff so far. Plotting's pacy but not intriguing, performances are drab, and it's dull to look at. Does it settle down a bit? With some good/better characters introduced? (Tom Noonan is a good start!)

Hi again guys. Today’s discussion goes to episode 2 of season 1.

What I loved:

Katrina explanation about Cole meeting Cassie, explaining that her involvement CAN mess up with time, because if anything happens outside of what already happened, Cassie could be unable to send the message that starts everything. The first time I saw the episode I thought that was a good exposition. I discovered later that this episode was written by Natalie Chaidez, so now it makes sense.

Jennifer’s introduction is cool. Her craziness is amazing, Emily Hampshire sells it so freaking good. ”Give me yellow” was such a good call back in season 4

The Pale Man… fuck THAT’S how you introduce a mysterious antagonist

Aaron Stanford and Kirk Acevedo have an amazing chemistry as brothers. I loved their wit and every interaction feels like two people who have known each other for years

Nitpicks:

A bit of a slow continuation to the pilot. The North Korea bit I thought wasn’t really necessary, but I guess it establish two things: the difficulty of Jones to calibrate the machine and the ability they have to slingshot from the past, which would be used later in the season and the rest of the series

8/10 for me

Do u guys agree with these ratings ? Although it is great, in my opinion it should be higher ? Especially those 7 rated eps, they definitely can be up to 8, but I want to see your guy's opinion.

Also I've watched this show around 5 times from start to finish, and watched individual eps on occasions, so maybe I like the early eps more and understand them better after many rewatches

This came up on my news FYP.

WOW, WOW!

WHAT AN ENDING TO 12 MONKEYS!

Without spoiling anything, it's the type of rewarding and satisfying ending to a cruel and harsh journey everyone wants.

Now I understand why it's regarded as one of the best endings in TV history!

Almost thought they were going to end it tragically by erasing James Cole.

But the fact that they found a way for everyone's happy ending in a logical way is brilliant.

10/10!

Also I just joined the subreddit. I successfully avoided any and every spoiler on the series. It has been a memorable journey. My t3 media!

Tears, smiles, laughs, shock I've had all kinds of emotions watching the show and I'm glad that the ending allowed me to hold on to the memories of the show fondly instead of thinking about the show in a sad and tragic way. I feel so rewarded after watching the whole show. The ending is perfect!

Honestly I started this show because I heard the romance is important to the main story. I love stories with romance subplots where the romance is important but man, Cole x Cassie exceeded all my expectations!

12 Monkeys is by far my favorite show; I spend most of my time on Reddit telling people about it. I wish the show had more merch available - I have the Titan emblem necklace, the box set with a copy of the Word of the Witness, Jennifer’s French play poster, a custom Yeti mug, a bath mat, and a pillow. I’m pretty sure only the box set is official merch. Does anyone have any suggestions? Everything else is either a t-shirt or a pin (plastic, not enamel - I’d LOVE an enamel pin).

Mods, I apologize if this is not allowed - I’m just always looking for 12 Monkeys merch!

Hi everybody. A few days ago, u/RxR8D_ [posted](https://www.reddit.com/r/12Monkeys/s/zMEGczIR8I) about other subs doing a rewatch of older tv shows and discussing them in their related subs. In that post, I proposed to start watching on the 6th of July because that’s the day the series ended, 6th July 2018, and alternate between 4 and 5 days to watch and discuss the episodes. The reason, to land on the 16th of January, the day the series started in 2015, to watch the last 3 episodes: One Minute More and The Beginning Part 1 and 2 (if my math isn’t failing me). So I’m posting the first episode to discuss, I’d like to hear what you guys thought about the series when you started watching

What I Love:

Since the first episode I love the atmosphere the showrunners gave to the series, to me it feels urgent and the episode quickly establishes that Cole has little patience to deal with anything, the mission is simple: kill Leland

The bartender appeared just for a few seconds and was hilarious: “I don’t care how cute he is” hahaha

The fact that from Cassie’s perspective, Cole just showed up with the same wound from 2 years early? Damn

The explanation Cole gives to Cassandra about what happened to the world, and the reason he came to her. After the rewatch, listening to the corrupted message from Cassie, knowing what it really says is amazing. Helluva way to set up causality

Knowing how the show ends, hearing Cole say “I’ll be erased” hits different every time

“Which magazines?” Hahahaha gold

Overall, a good pilot, the stakes are clear from the start, the mission is clear, the concept works and the actors are good selling it. 8/10

Nitpicks:

When Cole abducted Cassie, he tied her to the chair with a phone cable. When the police closed on them, no cable. Cassie gets up like nothing

When Cassie is waiting in the hotel after a week, she checks out from room 516. It would have been epic if she checked out from 607

Cole was bleeding and nobody noticed

I don’t remember if Cole brought back food, like cheeseburgers, every time he splinter back to 2043

…We were in love.

I love how the house of cedar and pine was portrayed as this eerie haunted (by the witness) house in the middle of the red forest for season one and most of two and then it ended up actually being a symbol of love where Cassie and James finally let each other in and they created a home.

Does the witness use their home to communicate with the various characters as a misdirection because that is where Athan was conceived? To hold up the illusion that Athan is the witness?

And already the best part of my rewatch!

-The Jennifer Egg/Chicken Choose-your-own-adventure Scene 🥺
-Katarina thanking James for believing in her 😭
-The James/Katarina hug 🥲
-Ramse knowing exactly what Cassie was going to do without her saying anything
-Katarina knowing what Cassie was choosing without hee saying anything
-Katarina telling Hannah to save herself
-Cassie finding James at the Emerson in 1957 because she doesn’t want to be afraid anymore ❤️

Doesn’t it make more sense from a narrative standpoint that Athan is the witness? Won’t the story hit harder if Athan still becomes the witness despite season 3?

Also the explanation given for Olivia having always been the witness is just not very compelling to me; I’m not sold on the idea that Olivia is meant to be the witness and she becomes the witness only because of the creation of Athan. If she is meant to be the witness, why would Athan even be involved in her story? And all those setups about how special Athan is because he was born out of time and isn’t supposed to have existed are just for nothing after it’s revealed that Athan has never been the witness.

And Olivia isn’t even primary and somehow just gains abilities(I forgot how, I am rewatching and haven’t finished the series) so that she can be the witness. She makes for a good villain but being the big boss just doesn’t seem like her.