Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 185

12 Monkeys: Ends and Begins with Sunsets

Well, I'm a sucker for happy endings, and I never would have forgiven 12 Monkeys if ended with Cole and Cassie apart, or dead - which indeed is the worst kind of apart - and I'm very glad I don't have to.   That is, forgive, 12 Monkeys.  Because ... [spoilers ahead]

Well, obviously there are spoilers ahead, and I know the first paragraph is of course a spoiler, but what else can I do?   The series ended with one hell of a satisfyingly happy ending, and after all it and we the audience have been through, that was manifestly the right thing to do.

Of course Jones would find a way a way of not only saving her grandson, but saving him for a happy life with the woman he loves.  And what I especially liked about the ending was the way that Cassie played an active role in this, by acting on her instincts and premonitions in the original and final timeline, and going to that house in Binghamton.  (Did we already know it was in Binghamton?  I'm not sure - but I also like that that's where it was.  I've been there at least 12 times.)

It was also appropriate that Jones engineered this, while Cassie and Cole and everyone around her reluctantly consented to go their own different, separate ways.   In fact, the only thing I didn't much care for in the ending is something I didn't like as soon as she became the villain of the series.  The Witness was too much of a cartoonish, fairytale, whatever the right word is here, villain.  And the people around her were even more so.

Still, that red leaf at the end shows the red forest -- i.e., the end of time and existence -- is ever nigh.  As Cole rightly says more than once in this two-hour finale, it's the reality of endings that makes what comes before them so meaningful.

He offered the metaphor of a sunset.  Here's a picture I took of one earlier tonight over Cape Cod Bay, which I enjoyed before seeing the finale of this outstanding series, and proved an apt prelude. And here's one of the best-known songs from my 1972 LP, Twice Upon a Rhyme - Looking for Sunsets (In the Early Morning).  Thanks everyone for a great four seasons of time-travel television.



See also 12 Monkeys 4.1-3: Which Way You Goin'? ... 12 Monkeys 4.4-6: Warnings, Redemptions, and Deft Workings of Time ... 12 Monkeys 4.7-9: One-Bettering the Movie
And see also 12 Monkeys 3.1-4: "The Smart Ones Do" ... 12 Monkeys 3.5-7: "A Thing for Asimov" ... 12 Monkeys 3.8-10: "Up at the Ritz"

And see also 12 Monkeys 2.1: Whatever Will Be, Will Be ... 12 Monkeys 2.2: The Serum ... 12 Monkeys 2.3: Primaries and Paradoxes ... 12 Monkeys 2.4: Saving Time ... 12 Monkeys 2.5: Jennifer's Story ... 12 Monkeys 2.6: "'Tis Death Is Dead" ... 12 Monkeys 2.7: Ultimate Universes ... 12 Monkeys 2.8: Time Itself Wants Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 2.9: Hands On ... 12 Monkeys 2.10: The Drugging ... 12 Monkeys 2.11: Teleportation ... 12 Monkeys 2.12: The Best and the Worst of Time(s) ... 12 Monkeys 2.13: Psychedelic -> Whole City Time Travel

And see also this Italian review, w/reference to Hawking and my story, "The Chronology Protection Case"

And see also 12 Monkeys series on SyFy: Paradox Prominent and Excellent ...12 Monkeys 1.2: Your Future, His Past ... 12 Monkeys 1.3:  Paradoxes, Lies, and Near Intersections ... 12 Monkeys 1.4: "Uneasy Math" ... 12 Monkeys 1.5: The Heart of the Matter ... 12 Monkeys 1.6: Can I Get a Witness? ... 12 Monkeys 1.7: Snowden, the Virus, and the Irresistible ... 12 Monkeys 1.8: Intelligent Vaccine vs. Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 1.9: Shelley, Keats, and Time Travel ... 12 Monkey 1.10: The Last Jump ... 12 Monkeys 1.11: What-Ifs ... 12 Monkeys 1.2: The Plunge ... 12 Monkeys Season 1 Finale: "Time Travel to Create Time Travel"

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Twelve Monkeys: Ends and Begins with Sunsets

Well, I'm a sucker for happy endings, and I never would have forgiven 12 Monkeys if ended with Cole and Cassie apart, or dead - which indeed is the worst kind of apart - and I'm very glad I don't have to.   That is, forgive, 12 Monkeys.  Because ... [spoilers ahead]

Well, obviously there are spoilers ahead, and I know the first paragraph is of course a spoiler, but what else can I do?   The series ended with one hell of a satisfyingly happy ending, and after all it and we the audience have been through, that was manifestly the right thing to do.

Of course Jones would find a way a way of not only saving her grandson, but saving him for a happy life with the woman he loves.  And what I especially liked about the ending was the way that Cassie played an active role in this, by acting on her instincts and premonitions in the original and final timeline, and going to that house in Binghamton.  (Did we already know it was in Binghamton?  I'm not sure - but I also like that that's where it was.)

It was also appropriate that Jones engineered this, while Cassie and Cole and everyone around her reluctantly consented to go their own different, separate ways.   In fact, the only thing I didn't much care for in the ending is something I didn't like as soon as she became the villain of the series.  The Witness was too much of a cartoonish, fairytale, whatever the right word is here, villain.  And the people around her were even more so.

Still, that red leaf at the end shows the red forest -- i.e., the end of time and existence -- if ever nigh.  As Cole rightly says more than once in this two-hour finale, it's the reality of endings that makes what comes before them so meaningful.

He offered the metaphor of a sunset.  Here's a picture I took of one earlier tonight over Cape Cod Bay, which I enjoyed before seeing the finale of this outstanding series, and proved an apt prelude. And here's one of the best-known songs from my 1972 LP, Twice Upon a Rhyme - Looking for Sunsets (In the Early Morning).  Thanks everyone for a great four seasons of time-travel television.



See also 12 Monkeys 4.1-3: Which Way You Goin'? ... 12 Monkeys 4.4-6: Warnings, Redemptions, and Deft Workings of Time ... 12 Monkeys 4.7-9: One-Bettering the Movie
And see also 12 Monkeys 3.1-4: "The Smart Ones Do" ... 12 Monkeys 3.5-7: "A Thing for Asimov" ... 12 Monkeys 3.8-10: "Up at the Ritz"

And see also 12 Monkeys 2.1: Whatever Will Be, Will Be ... 12 Monkeys 2.2: The Serum ... 12 Monkeys 2.3: Primaries and Paradoxes ... 12 Monkeys 2.4: Saving Time ... 12 Monkeys 2.5: Jennifer's Story ... 12 Monkeys 2.6: "'Tis Death Is Dead" ... 12 Monkeys 2.7: Ultimate Universes ... 12 Monkeys 2.8: Time Itself Wants Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 2.9: Hands On ... 12 Monkeys 2.10: The Drugging ... 12 Monkeys 2.11: Teleportation ... 12 Monkeys 2.12: The Best and the Worst of Time(s) ... 12 Monkeys 2.13: Psychedelic -> Whole City Time Travel

And see also this Italian review, w/reference to Hawking and my story, "The Chronology Protection Case"

And see also 12 Monkeys series on SyFy: Paradox Prominent and Excellent ...12 Monkeys 1.2: Your Future, His Past ... 12 Monkeys 1.3:  Paradoxes, Lies, and Near Intersections ... 12 Monkeys 1.4: "Uneasy Math" ... 12 Monkeys 1.5: The Heart of the Matter ... 12 Monkeys 1.6: Can I Get a Witness? ... 12 Monkeys 1.7: Snowden, the Virus, and the Irresistible ... 12 Monkeys 1.8: Intelligent Vaccine vs. Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 1.9: Shelley, Keats, and Time Travel ... 12 Monkey 1.10: The Last Jump ... 12 Monkeys 1.11: What-Ifs ... 12 Monkeys 1.2: The Plunge ... 12 Monkeys Season 1 Finale: "Time Travel to Create Time Travel"

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Paul McCartney's Two New Songs

I heard a new song by Paul McCartney earlier today on Sirius XM's The Beatles Channel - "Come On to Me" - and liked it enough that I just listened to it again on iHeart Radio, along with another new McCartney song, "I Don't Know," which I like even more.  You can hear both along with the videos and lyrics over here.

So here I am on that path again.  When I heard Sgt. Pepper the first few times in June 1967, I thought The Beatles had gone off the deep end.  Nothing on that album was as good as just about anything on Rubber Soul or Revolver.  By the fifth or six listening, I realized that it was my ears that had gone off the deep end, and I came to love Sgt. Pepper as a work of genius.  I wrote a piece for my Electronic Chronicles series in the mid-1980s entitled "Sgt. Pepper and the Presumption of Genius," in which I explained how my initial experience with Sgt. Pepper had taught me to distrust my initial responses -- at least, to a band with as much talent as the Beatles.

And, indeed, over the years, I've come to love various McCartney songs - especially "My Brave Face" and "Hope for Deliverance," after not too many listens.   So what's going to happen with "Come on to Me" and "I Don't Know"?

First, the videos are no great shakes - but, then again, which ones are these days?  (Other than the Playing for Change live videos around the world - Denis Reno turned me on to them a few years ago - which I could listen to all day, and in fact I just listened this one, and had to pull myself away to get back to writing this blog post.  Also check out their renditions for "Cotton Fields" and "Take Me Home, Country Roads".)  But on first listen, McCartney's two new songs are good - very good.  And I predict, as I hear them in the months to come (they're from McCartney's new album Egypt Station, to be released in September, which is a promising title, too), I'll be enjoying them more and more.   In the meantime, I recommend listening to The Beatles Channel and reading Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles.

Look, nothing can catch up with McCartney's work with The Beatles through Wings, which I've been loving for so many decades.  But "My Brave Face" comes close, and I'm amazed to think that these new songs could come close, too.  It seems there's no end to this man's talent.


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Humans 3.5: Progress

On the eve of the Fourth of July in America last night, it was good to see the synths in Humans 4.5 making progress towards independence, even though the show has been moved from 10pm to the less desirable 11pm hour by AMC, thank you.

But the council did vote to make hurting synths a crime - too late to help poor Karen - but a step forward nonetheless.  And Mia is getting an audience with the council, which is good to see, too.

But lots of evil is still arrayed against them, the worst of which may be from other sentient synths, bent on killing humans as well as synths who, though sentient, are viewed as collaborators.  Most disturbing is the orange-eye the Hawkins' house.  His conversation on the phone means either that (a) orange-eyes are not as docile as promised, or (b) he's wearing contacts lenses to make his eyes look orange, when in fact he's a green-eye.

And if that isn't enough danger to the Hawkins, Mattie's been uncovered as the person who let loose the awakening code.  She's one of my favorite characters, and I can only hope she doesn't end up like Karen.

But to end on an upbeat note, Sam seems to be coming along fine, now able to feel loss, like Mia and Niska.  This, again, raises of the question of do synth children grow up - a question sharpened by the revelation of an elderly synth, happily living with an elderly human woman.  I'm looking forward to learning more about synths at various ages, and seeing where this leads as we reach the concluding episodes of this fine season.

See also Humans 3.1: Class Warfare ... Humans 3.2: Mortality ... Humans 3.3: Human Leo on Fictional TV and the American Southern Border ... Humans 3.4: Sam
And see also Humans 2.1: Westworld meets Nashville ... Humans 2.2: The Consciousness Code ... Humans 2.3: Motives and Uploads ... Humans 2.4: Android Orgasms ... Humans 2.5-6: Children ... Humans 2.7-8: Universal

And see also Humans: In Ascending Order ... Humans 1.7: "I Think You're Dead, George"



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The Affair 4.3: Dire Straits (Not the Band) in California

A grim episode 4.3 of The Affair tonight, namely Helen's half hour, and how she's trying to deal with Vic's awful diagnosis.   On that, I've got to say that I think Helen did nothing wrong tonight, including telling Vic's parents after he expressly told her not to.  Her actions were 100% understandable.

Also of interest is what came into Helen's mind when her shrink asked her whom she couldn't live without.  After saying her kids, someone else was in her mind, and at that point, Helen ends the session.  Was that someone after all Noah?

Noah's segment was more nuanced, if a little trite.   So is what happened at the end between Noah and the principal - you know they're going to have a full-fledged hot affair, so what's the point of resisting that or pretending it won't happen.  (But she had a good line when she said she doesn't want to see her son in Noah's next novel.)

And that leaves us with what in effect is a third segment - the prelude or intro.  Alison has gone missing.  She's involved with Ben.  But, most significantly, Noah and Cole are in the car together, starting to look for her.  We saw this in the first episode two weeks ago.  It will be fun to see how they both end up in that car, looking for the woman the two still very much love.

This season is increasingly unlike the first three.  No crime of any kind, so far.  Noah apparently a much better person than he's ever been on the series. Same for Alison.  And Helen's in the most difficult situation she's ever been in.

And I'll be back here next week with more.

See also The Affair 4.1: Quakes and Propaganda ... The Affair 4.2: Meanwhile, Back on the Island
And see also The Affair 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 3.2: Sneak Preview Review: Right Minds ... The Affair 3.3: Who Attached Noah? ... The Affair 3.4: The Same Endings in Montauk ... The Affair 3.5: Blocked Love ... The Affair 3.6: The Wound ... The Affair 3.7: The White Shirt ... The Affair 3.8: The "Miserable Hero" ... The Affair 3.9: A Sliver of Clarity ... The Affair 3.10: Taking Paris

And see also The Affair 2.1: Advances ... The Affair 2.2: Loving a Writer ... The Affair 2.3: The Half-Wolf ... The Affair 2.4: Helen at Distraction ... The Affair 2.5: Golden Cole ... The Affair 2.6: The End (of Noah's Novel) ... The Affair 2.7: Stunner ... The Affair 2.8: The Reading, the Review, the Prize ...And see also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.4: Come Together ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ... The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train? ... The Affair Season 1 Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

the Sierra Waters time-travel trilogy
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12 Monkeys 4.7-9: One-Bettering The Movie

I've been saying for years - well, since 1995, when Terry Gilliam's movie, starring Bruce Willis and Madeleine Stowe first came out - that 12 Monkeys (based on the 1962 short, La Jetée), is the best time-travel movie ever made.  This gave the television series, which came out in 2015 and I've been reviewing here ever since, a lot to live up to.  Up until tonight's penultimate three episodes (4.7-9), the best it did was sidestep the movie, and tell us other time-travel stories.  Especially in this final season, some of these stories were as good, in their own ways, as the movie.

Tonight the tv series did something very different.  It took the mind-blowing, gut-wrenching, paradox-respecting ending of the movie [spoilers ahead] -- in which time-traveler James Cole, haunted all of his life by something he saw happening at the airport, discovers that what he saw as a little boy was his own death, of his older self, trying to stop the plague, as a horrified "Kathryn" Railly who loves him holds him in her arms and can do nothing more than exchange glances with the little boy - and daringly throws this ending in our faces and turns it on its head.  By which I mean: in the three hours on tonight (actually, the third hour, 4.9, which was one superb hour of television), Cole and "Cassandra" Railly (the same character as in the movie, with a new first name) realize that in order to stop the Witness and her plan to end all of time and existence, they must not stop the plague but make sure it's set loose in the airport (changed in the TV series to JFK from whatever the name of the airport in Philadelphia in the movie).  The Witness knows this and tries her best to stop this by killing Cole - which she fails to do because Cole's mother takes the assassin's blow and dies in his stead.  So, Cole dying in Railly's horrified arms in the movie is replaced by Cole's mother dying in Cole's arms and Railly looking on horrified in the TV series.  Now that's what I call a pretty good twist - with sensitive acting by Amanda Schull as Railly, Aaron Stanford as Cole, and good work by Brooke Williams in the pivotal Hannah role.  (Ok, maybe not better than the movie's, but certainly in the same league.)

The other part of this twist is that Hannah not Emma is Cole's mother.  I did see this coming.  I'm not sure why, but when Hannah and Emma were making their escape (again, from the Witness's assassins), it popped into my head that, hey, if Emma is killed it could well be that Hannah is Cole's mother.  This of course makes for a much more meaningful and satisfying lineage, with Jones being Cole's grandmother.

So here's where we are for the two-hour finale next week.  Deacon and Hannah are gone (with heroic deaths by both).  The plague was released and kills seven billion.  And Jones doesn't have much longer to live.  I'm routing for the plague not to be released (I'm with Cassie and her reticence to release it - she's a doctor, but any normal human being should feel that way), and for Jones to somehow recover.   That, of course, in addition to the Witness being stopped.

And I'll be back here next week to let you know what I think of how this all turns out.

See also 12 Monkeys 4.1-3: Which Way You Goin'? ... 12 Monkeys 4.4-6: Warnings, Redemptions, and Deft Workings of Time
And see also 12 Monkeys 3.1-4: "The Smart Ones Do" ... 12 Monkeys 3.5-7: "A Thing for Asimov" ... 12 Monkeys 3.8-10: "Up at the Ritz"

And see also 12 Monkeys 2.1: Whatever Will Be, Will Be ... 12 Monkeys 2.2: The Serum ... 12 Monkeys 2.3: Primaries and Paradoxes ... 12 Monkeys 2.4: Saving Time ... 12 Monkeys 2.5: Jennifer's Story ... 12 Monkeys 2.6: "'Tis Death Is Dead" ... 12 Monkeys 2.7: Ultimate Universes ... 12 Monkeys 2.8: Time Itself Wants Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 2.9: Hands On ... 12 Monkeys 2.10: The Drugging ... 12 Monkeys 2.11: Teleportation ... 12 Monkeys 2.12: The Best and the Worst of Time(s) ... 12 Monkeys 2.13: Psychedelic -> Whole City Time Travel

And see also this Italian review, w/reference to Hawking and my story, "The Chronology Protection Case"

And see also 12 Monkeys series on SyFy: Paradox Prominent and Excellent ...12 Monkeys 1.2: Your Future, His Past ... 12 Monkeys 1.3:  Paradoxes, Lies, and Near Intersections ... 12 Monkeys 1.4: "Uneasy Math" ... 12 Monkeys 1.5: The Heart of the Matter ... 12 Monkeys 1.6: Can I Get a Witness? ... 12 Monkeys 1.7: Snowden, the Virus, and the Irresistible ... 12 Monkeys 1.8: Intelligent Vaccine vs. Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 1.9: Shelley, Keats, and Time Travel ... 12 Monkey 1.10: The Last Jump ... 12 Monkeys 1.11: What-Ifs ... 12 Monkeys 1.2: The Plunge ... 12 Monkeys Season 1 Finale: "Time Travel to Create Time Travel"

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Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

12 Monkeys 4-7.9: One-Bettering The Movie

I've been saying for years - well, since 1995, when Terry Gilliam's movie, starring Bruce Willis and Madeleine Stowe first came out - that 12 Monkeys (based on the 1962 short, La Jetée), is the best time-travel movie ever made.  This gave the television series, which came out in 2015 and I've been reviewing here ever since, a lot to live up to.  Up until tonight's penultimate three episodes (4.7-9), the best it did was sidestep the movie, and tell us other time-travel stories.  Especially in this final season, some of these stories were as good, in their own ways, as the movie.

Tonight the tv series did something very different.  It took the mind-blowing, gut-wrenching, paradox-respecting ending of the movie [spoilers ahead] -- in which time-traveler James Cole, haunted all of his life by something he saw happening at the airport, discovers that what he saw as a little boy was his own death, of his older self, trying to stop the plague, as a horrified "Kathryn" Railly who loves him holds him in her arms and can do nothing more than exchange glances with the little boy - and daringly throws this ending in our faces and turns it on its head.  By which I mean: in the three hours on tonight (actually, the third hour, 4.9, which was one superb hour of television), Cole and "Cassandra" Railly (the same character as in the movie, with a new first name) realize that in order to stop the Witness and her plan to end all of time and existence, they must not stop the plague but make sure it's set loose in the airport (changed in the TV series to JFK from whatever the name of the airport in Philadelphia in the movie).  The Witness knows this and tries her best to stop this by killing Cole - which she fails to do because Cole's mother takes the assassin's blow and dies in his stead.  So, Cole dying in Railly's horrified arms in the movie is replaced by Cole's mother dying in Cole's arms and Railly looking on horrified in the TV series.  Now that's what I call a pretty good twist - with sensitive acting by Amanda Schull as Railly, Aaron Stanford as Cole, and good work by Brooke Williams in the pivotal Hannah role.  (Ok, maybe not better than the movie's, but certainly in the same league.)

The other part of this twist is that Hannah not Emma is Cole's mother.  I did see this coming.  I'm not sure why, but when Hannah and Emma were making their escape (again, from the Witness's assassins), it popped into my head that, hey, if Emma is killed it could well be that Hannah is Cole's mother.  This of course makes for a much more meaningful and satisfying lineage, with Jones being Cole's grandmother.

So here's where we are for the two-hour finale next week.  Deacon and Hannah are gone (with heroic deaths by both).  The plague was released and kills seven billion.  And Jones doesn't have much longer to live.  I'm routing for the plague not to be released (I'm with Cassie and her reticence to release it - she's a doctor, but any normal human being should feel that way), and for Jones to somehow recover.   That, of course, in addition to the Witness being stopped.

And I'll be back here next week to let you know what I think of how this all turns out.

See also 12 Monkeys 4.1-3: Which Way You Goin'? ... 12 Monkeys 4.4-6: Warnings, Redemptions, and Deft Workings of Time
And see also 12 Monkeys 3.1-4: "The Smart Ones Do" ... 12 Monkeys 3.5-7: "A Thing for Asimov" ... 12 Monkeys 3.8-10: "Up at the Ritz"

And see also 12 Monkeys 2.1: Whatever Will Be, Will Be ... 12 Monkeys 2.2: The Serum ... 12 Monkeys 2.3: Primaries and Paradoxes ... 12 Monkeys 2.4: Saving Time ... 12 Monkeys 2.5: Jennifer's Story ... 12 Monkeys 2.6: "'Tis Death Is Dead" ... 12 Monkeys 2.7: Ultimate Universes ... 12 Monkeys 2.8: Time Itself Wants Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 2.9: Hands On ... 12 Monkeys 2.10: The Drugging ... 12 Monkeys 2.11: Teleportation ... 12 Monkeys 2.12: The Best and the Worst of Time(s) ... 12 Monkeys 2.13: Psychedelic -> Whole City Time Travel

And see also this Italian review, w/reference to Hawking and my story, "The Chronology Protection Case"

And see also 12 Monkeys series on SyFy: Paradox Prominent and Excellent ...12 Monkeys 1.2: Your Future, His Past ... 12 Monkeys 1.3:  Paradoxes, Lies, and Near Intersections ... 12 Monkeys 1.4: "Uneasy Math" ... 12 Monkeys 1.5: The Heart of the Matter ... 12 Monkeys 1.6: Can I Get a Witness? ... 12 Monkeys 1.7: Snowden, the Virus, and the Irresistible ... 12 Monkeys 1.8: Intelligent Vaccine vs. Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 1.9: Shelley, Keats, and Time Travel ... 12 Monkey 1.10: The Last Jump ... 12 Monkeys 1.11: What-Ifs ... 12 Monkeys 1.2: The Plunge ... 12 Monkeys Season 1 Finale: "Time Travel to Create Time Travel"

FREE on Amazon Prime

Available on Prime
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

12 Monkeys 4-7.9: One Bettering The Movie

I've been saying for years - well, since 1995, when Terry Gilliam's movie, starring Bruce Willis and Madeleine Stowe first came out - that 12 Monkeys (based on the 1962 short, La Jetée), is the best time-travel movie ever made.  This gave the television series, which came out in 2015 and I've been reviewing here ever since, a lot to live up to.  Up until tonight's penultimate three episodes (4.7-9), the best it did was sidestepping the movie, and telling us other time-travel stories.  Especially in this final season, some of these stories were as good, in their own ways, as the movie.

Tonight the tv series did something very different.  It took the mind-blowing, gut-wrenching, paradox-respecting ending of the movie [spoilers ahead] -- in which time-traveler James Cole, haunted all of his life by something he saw happening at the airport, discovers that what he saw as a little boy was his own death, of his older self, trying to stop the plague, as a horrified "Kathryn" Reilly who loves him holds him in her arms and can do nothing more than exchange glances with the little boy - and daringly throws this ending in our faces and turns it on its head.  By which I mean: in the three hours on tonight (actually, the third hour, 4.9, which was one superb hour of television), Cole and "Cassandra" Reilly (the same character as in the movie, with a new first name) realize that in order to stop the Witness and her plan to end all of time and existence, they must not stop the plague but make sure it's set loose in the airport (changed in the TV series to JFK from whatever the name of the airport in Philadelphia in the movie).  The Witness knows this and tries her best to stop this by killing Cole - which she fails to do because Cole's mother takes the assassin's blow and dies in his stead.  So, Cole dying in Railly's horrified arms in the movie is replaced by Cole's mother dying in Cole's arms and Railly looking horrified on in the TV series.  Now that's what I call a pretty good twist.  (Ok, maybe not better than the movie's, but certainly in the same league.)

The other part of this twist is that Hannah not Emma is Cole's mother.  I did see this coming.  I'm not sure why, but when Hannah and Emma were making their escape (again, from the Witness's assassins), it popped into my head that, hey, if Emma is killed it could well be that Hannah is Cole's mother.  This of course makes for a much more meaningful and satisfying lineage, with Jones being Cole's grandmother.

So here's where we are for the two-hour finale next week.  Deacon and Hannah are gone (with heroic deaths by both).  The plague was released and kills seven billion.  And Jones doesn't have much longer to live.  I'm routing for the plague not to be released (I'm with Cassie and her reticence to release it - she's a doctor, but any normal human being should feel that way), and for Jones to somehow recover.   That, of course, in addition to the Witness being stopped.

And I'll be back here next week to let you know what I think of how this all turns out.

See also 12 Monkeys 4.1-3: Which Way You Goin'? ... 12 Monkeys 4.4-6: Warnings, Redemptions, and Deft Workings of Time
And see also 12 Monkeys 3.1-4: "The Smart Ones Do" ... 12 Monkeys 3.5-7: "A Thing for Asimov" ... 12 Monkeys 3.8-10: "Up at the Ritz"

And see also 12 Monkeys 2.1: Whatever Will Be, Will Be ... 12 Monkeys 2.2: The Serum ... 12 Monkeys 2.3: Primaries and Paradoxes ... 12 Monkeys 2.4: Saving Time ... 12 Monkeys 2.5: Jennifer's Story ... 12 Monkeys 2.6: "'Tis Death Is Dead" ... 12 Monkeys 2.7: Ultimate Universes ... 12 Monkeys 2.8: Time Itself Wants Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 2.9: Hands On ... 12 Monkeys 2.10: The Drugging ... 12 Monkeys 2.11: Teleportation ... 12 Monkeys 2.12: The Best and the Worst of Time(s) ... 12 Monkeys 2.13: Psychedelic -> Whole City Time Travel

And see also this Italian review, w/reference to Hawking and my story, "The Chronology Protection Case"

And see also 12 Monkeys series on SyFy: Paradox Prominent and Excellent ...12 Monkeys 1.2: Your Future, His Past ... 12 Monkeys 1.3:  Paradoxes, Lies, and Near Intersections ... 12 Monkeys 1.4: "Uneasy Math" ... 12 Monkeys 1.5: The Heart of the Matter ... 12 Monkeys 1.6: Can I Get a Witness? ... 12 Monkeys 1.7: Snowden, the Virus, and the Irresistible ... 12 Monkeys 1.8: Intelligent Vaccine vs. Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 1.9: Shelley, Keats, and Time Travel ... 12 Monkey 1.10: The Last Jump ... 12 Monkeys 1.11: What-Ifs ... 12 Monkeys 1.2: The Plunge ... 12 Monkeys Season 1 Finale: "Time Travel to Create Time Travel"

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Humans 3.4: Sam

A big development in Humans 3.4, one which puts Sam very much in the spotlight of this narrative.  It was a logical move, putting him right in the middle of our central characters, but one which I was not happy to see.

That would be the killing of his synth mother, Karen, at the hands of a brutal human mob (who, I can't help saying, remind me of the people at Trump rallies).  On the one hand, she was always a marginal character, never quite in the center of this narrative.  On the other hand, she was a very appealing and powerful character, well played by Ruth Bradley.   I'll miss her.

But her death means that Joe will taking charge of Sam, which inevitably means Laura and family will be brought into his life, all the more significant in that this family now includes Leo and all of his knowledge.  Does Leo know about Sam?  Not clear.  Indeed, I can't recall who else among our originally sentient synths know about Sam - maybe none of them.

As I said in an earlier review, Sam's very existence raises all sorts of interesting questions, first and foremost being will he age, or be an ageless Peter Pan?  The actual construction of all the synths is far from clear.  Clearly they have the stuff of circuits inside.  We know from season one that they don't digest their food - they live on electrical energy.  But it's still not clear if any of them age.  Probably not.   Which would make Sam an especially significant character.

One of the best things about Humans is the way it mixes interpersonal and philosophic issues, along with the action which keeps the story moving.  Karen was a victim of this action.  It's result has now put Sam on center stage.

See also Humans 3.1: Class Warfare ... Humans 3.2: Mortality ... Humans 3.3: Human Leo on Fictional TV and the American Southern Border
And see also Humans 2.1: Westworld meets Nashville ... Humans 2.2: The Consciousness Code ... Humans 2.3: Motives and Uploads ... Humans 2.4: Android Orgasms ... Humans 2.5-6: Children ... Humans 2.7-8: Universal

And see also Humans: In Ascending Order ... Humans 1.7: "I Think You're Dead, George"




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The Affair 4.2: Meanwhile, Back on the Island

Episode 4.2 of The Affair last night, was a pretty good, even excellent, standalone episode, though it had little to do with the central themes which animated the three previous seasons.   If an overall series is a book, and each season a chapter, Cole and Alison's half hours felt like chapters in a new book, a sequel, published some years later.

The two different takes on the same story still worked well, though actually there weren't too many scenes in which Cole and Alison were together, making 4.2 almost two half-hour standalone stories.  But my favorite was Alison saying "fuck" in her rendition, with the expletive absent in Cole's.

Alison's story was the more compelling and unusual.  In her half hour, which came second, we see her at work in a center that offers peer-to-peer counseling for parents who lost a child.  She meets a guy who saves her from a father suffering from a kind of PTSD - literally saves her life, from the guy who is choking her - and this proves to be the beginning of a longterm romance (also literally longterm, since the guy is in a program, too, which won't let him have romantic erotic relationships for another five months and x number of days and hours).   Hey, were it me, I'd have left the program to go out with Alison - but, then, I wouldn't have joined such a program in the first place.  Not drinking is one thing.  Not being allowed to have relationships is ... well, I'd say counterproductive at best.

It's gratifying to see Alison in such good shape - the best she's been in the entire series, I'd say, and much better than Cole, who seemed more pathetic than usual last night.  I'm with his wife - what's he so unhappy about?  I know, he was a harrowing backstory, too.  But, hey, man, get over it - you have a good life now, including on the verge of being a millionaire.  Does he love and unconsciously miss being with Alison that much?  Maybe.

Very well acted as always by Ruth Wilson as Alison and Joshua Jackson as Cole, and I forgot to say the same for Dominic West as Noah and Maura Tierney as Helen last week, because that was true, too.  The Affair was always a unique series, and I think I'm going to like the new turn it's taken this year.

See also The Affair 4.1: Quakes and Propaganda
And see also The Affair 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 3.2: Sneak Preview Review: Right Minds ... The Affair 3.3: Who Attached Noah? ... The Affair 3.4: The Same Endings in Montauk ... The Affair 3.5: Blocked Love ... The Affair 3.6: The Wound ... The Affair 3.7: The White Shirt ... The Affair 3.8: The "Miserable Hero" ... The Affair 3.9: A Sliver of Clarity ... The Affair 3.10: Taking Paris

And see also The Affair 2.1: Advances ... The Affair 2.2: Loving a Writer ... The Affair 2.3: The Half-Wolf ... The Affair 2.4: Helen at Distraction ... The Affair 2.5: Golden Cole ... The Affair 2.6: The End (of Noah's Novel) ... The Affair 2.7: Stunner ... The Affair 2.8: The Reading, the Review, the Prize ...And see also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.4: Come Together ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ... The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train? ... The Affair Season 1 Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

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