Professional Fangirls Danyi and Sami participated in the first 12 Monkeys aftershow!

And the link to watch on the site in case this one gets wonky!

                 

12 quick reasons to watch #12Monkeys

1. It's scifi based on HOPE, and when was the last time that happened?
2. Moral ambiguity is the name of the game, and it's addictive, not offputting.
3. Every episode crams five episodes of some lesser show's worth of story into it.
4. The fans are international, thoughtful, passionate, and dedicated. The creators are open, accessible, and informative. Also often really funny!
5. It's PACKED with awesome, awesome ideas that no other show has given us.
6. It's deeply serious, but not bleak or dire--there's funny parts, bizarre parts, and good old gee-whiz awesome parts. It's Big Weird Ideas that blow your mind grounded in 100% human emotional reality.
7. Remember when Lost and Fringe were all about figuring out the patterns and guessing the answers? It's like that, but it actually gives answers as often as it poses questions!
8. The love story is literally epic. It transcends time. It also is more than just romantic love--and it involves just about any combination of people you can think of, somehow. 
9. The whole thing is smart--the characters and their development, the writing, the plotting, how they use time travel and time-travel-story-tropes, the way they assume the audience can keep up.
10. Women who do things and men who aren't afraid of of them or made powerless!
11. Hard scifi with a deep emotional core--something a lot of scifi shows miss out on.
12. Conspiracies! Everywhere! Who doesn't love a conspiracy?

A tweeted letter to Syfy about #12Monkeys and their brand

I think @Syfy should just give up on canceling for a while, but especially, they should save #12Monkeys for it's ideal five year run. >>

— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) May 18, 2016

@Syfy Because, look: scifi fans have been floudering. Network TV is unreliable. You could be the beacon of hope that the shows will LIVE.

— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) May 18, 2016

@Syfy You could be the channel where awesome, smart, clever, daring shows go to get the good treatment they deserve.

— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) May 18, 2016

@Syfy You could *obliterate* the expectation that scifi shows--the backbone of your channel--never get a decent end. Start with #12Monkeys.

— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) May 18, 2016

@Syfy Let #12Monkeys prove the formula, then do the same for #Killjoys #DarkMatter #TheMagicians etc, & LIVE the rebranding you've given us.

— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) May 18, 2016

@Syfy Embrace the geeky, tech-savvy, passionate, forward thinking fans you already have and don't eff over your ideal audience--surprise us.

— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) May 18, 2016

@Syfy Be better than the low expectations so many people have for good scifi on basic TV. Prove the doubters wrong. Be good to your shows.

— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) May 18, 2016

@Syfy Take this good start you've built the last yr & a half, and RUN with it. Launching these shows was bold&surprising. Don't chicken out!

— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) May 18, 2016

@Syfy We just want to know that our most loved shows are safe--give us that, and we'll stay for years and other shows. Deal?

— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) May 18, 2016

#12Monkeys Monkey Musings 4 - I have a problem with Aaron Marker

ETA: I almost didn't publish this because it feels like I'm picking a fight when really I'm asking someone to change my mind? Let's talk, Monkeys.

We in the fandom have been talking a lot lately about who the Witness is. Personally, I think it's going to be Sam, Ramse’s son--mostly because it'll then all literally be one person’s fault, because that one person fought so hard to make sure that kid existed--or one of the Joneses because they are the ones who broke nature to invent time travel. Story-wise, and based mostly on my own personal writing habits and understanding of stories, those are my favorite theories.

But actually--if the Witness is actually a villain and not misunderstood or trapped*--on an emotional level, I’m hoping it's Aaron Marker. Because he's a punk and a weenie and I want him to keep being a villain and not get out of owning up to his weenie-ness so easily as dying.

See, here's the thing. I have a problem with Aaron Marker. The fact that Cassie is so pro-Marker in her anger right now has brought into focus what it is for me: he is a problem.

Cassie loved him in the beginning and it looked like they were set up for a fantastic rich-and-influential-people life. But then Cassie, the woman he's engaged to, who he wants to spend the rest of his life with, is kidnapped--and he doesn't support her through her trauma?

Okay, I get that she's talking about time travel and killer viruses and it looks like she's snapped, but he's the one person in the world who should have been there for her, and he wasn't. From what we’ve seen, he mostly wanted her to stop talking about it and never think about it again--to pretend she was still the same as before--and get back to their lives as if nothing had happened. As if that wouldn't have driven her insane for real.

Then, when he does know for sure that she’s been telling the truth all this time, we never see him apologize for being so unfair to her for two whole years. He just, again, tries to pick up where they left off. He doesn't give her space to mourn her dead partner she was on the phone with when he died, that we see, he just wants to sweep it all under the rug. Again. And she’s lost and lonely and grieving and without purpose again, and goes along with it. Before Cole comes back after Chechnya, she doesn’t look as okay with all this as Marker does, no matter what she says.

And then, when that's blown up again, and they find out they still need to combat the end of the world, his third chance to get on board with the mission the woman he loves is dedicated to whether she likes it or not, he sells them out.

Now, I don't doubt that he loved her. If he's alive, I don't doubt that he’ll say he still does. But it was a small, closed-doors, narrow-minded sort of love that led him to literally be okay with killing the whole world if he gets to keep her--despite the fact that she had already told him that's not acceptable and he knew that she'd been working on this problem for two years. That’s what bothers me the most about his tactics: she specifically said that’s not how this is going to go, and he goes that way anyway--and tries to force her when she won’t go willingly. He was willing to not only sell out Cole, but to cut Cassie off from the only purpose she has in life now, and to hold her hostage while something she could have helped avoid happens all around her.

That's not a good man.

And it's my opinion that he would have still been that man even if the plague was never going to happen and Cole had never shown up. He proved to be the sort who isn't far-sighted enough to think of the many, the sort who isn't secure enough to let his potential wife make her own choices or trust her own experience, and the sort who more than once tries to avoid both dealing with big issues and taking responsibility for actions taken because of them. They would have gotten married and been rich and powerful--and then some other crisis would have shown who he really is.

For all his faults, Cole always believed in Cassie’s intrinsic value and capableness--which, in the beginning, is probably one of the things that drew her to him. He accepted her for what she is, and didn't try to make her fit some mold he had predetermined for her. In fact, he told her not to change, to stay who she is.

And now, in her anger, Cassie has decided that Marker was some wonderful thing and that Cole systematically took that from her. It irks me. I have infinite compassion for the trauma she's going through, but I really hope we get some time with her dealing with what's happened to her and realizing that Marker wasn't good for her, that he never had her own wishes at heart and often directly tried to stop her from making decisions as if she wasn't an autonomous adult, and that Cole has never systematically done anything. I think she’s mourning the life she thought she had and lost more than the person Marker actually was, and is avoiding dealing with the fact that he was always a weenie and they would have all died if Cole hadn’t smashed into her life like he did.

Marker made his own bed. And Cassie needed fuel for anger to keep her alive and sane, so she canonized him and blocked all that, and blamed Cole.

But he's still a weenie.

Think of the reality check Cassie will get if they find out the Witness is Marker. If he's justifying everything he's done with his love for her--if he’s upped his game from letting the world die to actively making it die in an attempt to keep her. Cole will also take the blame for having beaten him and not made sure he was dead in that fire, but that beating was directed by Cassie of her own free will. She made him, and he made himself, and they've been against him all along. That's a story I would love to watch.

I love Noah Bean, so I’m inclined to like him, but he’s made a character that severely bothers me on a personal level--and I think that’s some genius casting. Take this inherently likable guy, and make him this hard-to-define low-grade ordinary-standing-in-the-way-of-epic bad. Make him less bad than the actual baddies, and therefore more ambiguous. And pit him against the heroes. Then, maybe one day, revealing him as a greater villain than they thought. That’s brilliant, and it’s worked so well so far. What potential! 

I fully expect the show to throw every wrench** at me on this topic, like all others, but the story feels unfinished and in the middle of the action, and I’m willing to have my opinion changed...because it’s not a great opinion of the man right now. And, of course, with actual change thrown in, maybe they've already altered him and his story, but still have their own memories of before to deal with...

*Olivia is making me think that either a) the Witness is not telling everyone everything and is more devious than we’ve been led to believe, or b) she’s just saying whatever she wants and calling it the will of the Witness, which would make her worse AND bring the opportunity that she’s USING the Witness rather than serving him.

**Monkey wrenches!

#12Monkeys Monkey Musings #3 - On changing time but not changing emotional fallout

They did it! They managed to change time! Cole will never have to stand in 2017 and watch Cassie die in his arms because the virus doesn't happen till 2018 now! But that means he remembers it and it drives him, but she'll never get to that point--if she does, it'll be a different point now, with a different set of circumstances leading up to it.

And that's what a time travel show is about.

See, to have that scene from Cassie's point of view, they'd have to fail so spectacularly that time resets and the plague goes back to 2017, but now, the plague isn't even the point. Whatever the Messengers are doing is, and it looks an awful lot like they're changing time, too--or making it so there is no time to change?

We still have the issue of the space between 2016 and 2044 that got shifted. There's enough more people in the future now that there's music and radio broadcasts, but our four mains don't remember any of that because they were protected from being rewritten by the serum--how long before Dr Eklund and a restored Lasky aren't the only major personal difference that they stumble across? Because Cassie and Cole and Ramse and Jones are working on the assumption that things have only changed a little and their own perceptions of the future are close enough...but what if they aren't? What if they're now missing vital pieces of information? Things that matter to whatever else is out there--or now out there--that hasn't come to the front of their attentions yet, because they don't know to look for it?

Old!Jennifer probably saw time changing because that's what she does. But Team Splinter doesn't notice a difference. Deacon doesn't. He still hates Ramse and has a rivalry with Cole, but what if there are slight differences in his history that make him different--like, if Ramse wasn't trying to get himself killed last episode, what if he didn't know not to push that button because OldTimeline!Deacon wouldn't have had it, and NewTimeline!Deacon does?

And regardless of all that, Cole and Cassie didn't change, and everything that has piled up between them since she didn't save him from Chechnya last season, all that stuff they haven't dealt with at all, is still there and came with them into the new timeline. Everything that softened Cole since then--learning to dance, eating good food he didn't have to fight for, seeing what sort of world he was saving, meeting Cassie and being impressed by her compassion and her competence--had the flip side of making her hard. It stopped him from killing and taught her how to kill, and did both after she was already mad that he'd let her former fiancee get killed horribly. She thinks Aaron died protecting her from Cole, and seems to have forgotten that he'd sold them out to do it. Cole saved her instead of letting her die, but he did it by stranding her in the exact world that happens because everything she stands for fails--as of this moment, they manage to push the plague back, to delay the apocalypse, but she still fails to save the world, and that's the mission she's given herself since Cole first showed up in 2013 and changed her life.

And they haven't dealt with any of that. 

There's piles of guilt and resentment and crossed wires between them, and while Cole was in 2016 hoping and learning lessons and remembering Cassie fondly, Cassie was in the apocalypse learning how to kill people, seeing what failure costs, and getting trained by the man Cole specifically didn't want to be like. 

And it looks like all that is starting to fall out now. It's blocking Cole and Cassie from making up. It's stopping them from even being as good a team as they were, because she's convinced now that she can't trust him, which hurts him, and makes them both wary and questioning when they need to be able to depend on each other.

Cassie tore Cole's picture in half. That was sort of mean, but it makes a point: they're not together, and the picture isn't how things are. She tore it right down the middle between the two of them. But she didn't shred it or toss it--she gave the two pieces back, and they could be mended, and that's symbolic, too. Maybe on some level, she didn't want to completely burn that bridge. She just wants to keep poking at Cole until she gets the reaction that she wants--and guilty sweetness doesn't seem to be it.

It hurts, watching them with this wedge between them. But it's also wonderfully well done--and it's perfect continuity. How often have people on TV really just needed to talk something out and never gotten around to it? Never even gotten around to admitting that there should be emotional continuity? But 12 Monkeys is a bigger and more thoughtful show than that, and it's taking the rocky road that means characters get what they deserve, and it's amazing.

10 things you're missing out on if you're not watching #12Monkeys

1. An amazing story that's totally Binge-able
As of this moment, there are fifteen episodes. Thirteen for the first season, and two so far in the second. That means that you can watch all of them in one day, if you're really dedicated, and get the full extent of the series without ads or breaks or waiting on anything! It's immensely re-watchable; these writers have put in all sorts of hints and clues and foreshadowing that you pick up more and more of when you rewatch, but the benefit of watching all at once is that you can track all the storylines without gaps between them. It's basically one big story pretending to be episodic, and though jumping in the middle could be confusing, there's so much story crammed into so few episodes, you can start from the beginning and be caught up in a week. (Watch on Hulu or on the Syfy site for the views to count!)

2. Complexity that works
We're two episodes into season two, and there's no signs that it'll be anything less than mindboggling. Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett took the framework of the movie--scavenger from a dying future goes back in time to stop a plague--and blew it up to epic proportions successfully.

There's story happening in our time, in the future, in various points in the past. There's characters who exist in more than one time-frame, even if they're not time travelers, and there's time travelers on both sides of the good-bad divide. There's moral ambiguity starting with "if I kill this one guy, I save billions" and upping the ante through "if I save this one person, it's worth the whole world dying" vs "can I let this one person die if it means saving the world" and onward. There's a lot of character development in just about every character shown on screen, both in real time and in flashbacks--and even, occasionally, in alternate realities. There's time loops, and imposed cycles, and conspiracies, and multi-generational plans in play--and there's Cole, smashing through it like a bull in a china shop, hoping to make things right.

And the world itself! The present day world we know is stranger than we think. The future is a near-perfect apocalypse that's still happening, which feels innovative to me. When was the last time any apocalypse wasn't a postapocalypse? All points they visit are carefully made as real as each other, so that no matter where in time they are, no matter how strange it gets, everything has the same level of clear reality.

And it works. It's like a symphony, it works so well. Or one of those puzzle boxes that's so well made it feels like a gift.

3. The best use of time travel in, like, ever
The best thing: time travel has a cost--it makes you sick and you have to weigh every time you do it against risk and reward, and the only cure so far is literally creating paradoxes inside your own body, which is dangerous, to say the least.

Sometimes time travel is more of a vehicle, getting people from one place to another, but as season one unfolded and into season two, it's more and more an intrinsic piece of the story's structure. Things happen out of order because people who aren't time traveling are stuck in a straight line, past to present to future, and people who are time traveling can hop all along that line, regardless of the usual order of things. People on both sides are working with time and against time while also working against each other, trying to bend history to their own will--and it sometimes works, but mostly it causes more trouble that they then have to work out. It's the main process for several long-games to happen and to play out.

They give us clear indications of which times we're in and there's always a reason for why we're there, and the show as a whole literally couldn't happen without time travel. It's about time travel, not just featuring it.

4. Awesome female characters as complex as the males
The main villain is a woman.

Cassie is the female lead, and as S2 happens, she has switched places in the moral grey-areas with Cole--which is amazing, letting her be as violent and single-minded as he was, something ladies on TV don't get a lot.

The biggest wild card on the show is Jennifer, who is either insane, or the sanest person on the show, depending on where her story goes, but who exists at both ends of the time-travel and is definitely up to something.

The creator of the Splinter Project is wonderful, semi-sociopathic, damaged, brilliant Jones, who is some sort of post-apocalyptic life goal, since I'd be about her age in 2044.

And the only one of the enemy agents we've seen directly so far is a woman.

It's kind of amazing, having so many women around who aren't only love interests, or arm candy, or bit players. There's love in there, but they're also damaged and striving and have goals of their own. They're not defined by the men around them. They're smart and resourceful and as able to take care of themselves as everyone else.

5. An epic love story--literally
Cole and Cassie--Casserole--is a ship that sails itself, but in between them meeting and any confessions they might have in the future, there's plenty of time for story, and it's Big Story. Cole comes back from the future specifically to meet Cassie, Kyle Reece style. Cassie believes in him so strongly that she goes off script to save him more than once. Now that Cassie is compromised, Cole is staying by her side to make sure she's alright, despite differences in opinion about how the mission should work. In season one, Cole saves Cassie's life three times, because her dying always results in history going bad. Their love is literally what is saving the world in those cases. It's a ship for the ages!

6. Anything can happen
Because of the time travel and the way they can rewrite history, they can do insane things like kill a main character three times and fix it. They can have scenes and episodes in any time period they want. They can interact with each other out of order, and characters can interfere with each others' pasts and futures. The entire world can literally be changed, and it will make perfect sense within the story.

It's brilliant!

7. Kicking a squeamish TV system in the shins with awesomeness
TV as a whole doesn't seem to like things like complexity, male-female equality, gleefully being smart and assuming your fans are too, and taking risks with characters and plot and reality. You know, the stuff that the target audience is specifically looking for, and that critics love. By watching 12 Monkeys and making it more popular all the time, you're poking holes in that dumb idea that lowest-common denominator is the best way to go! By not watching, you're proving that only cheap, stupid shows get views.

So watch the good ones and improve TV as a whole!

8. Stopping the Standard Fate Of TV Scifi in it's tracks
Ask any scifi TV fan about shows they're still mad about, and most of the list will be shows that got messed with, ruined, or cancelled before they could tell their whole stories. That's become a cliche--but also a trap. People want good shows, but they don't trust that regular TV will take care of them, so on channels like Fox, lots of the potential viewership just doesn't bother watching. And that means that the show gets cancelled anyway--a self-fulfilling prophesy. Syfy really should be the exception to that, being specifically for scifi, but it's a channel like any other, and even if ratings are an inaccurate way to judge viewership these days, they still want the ratings.

The only way they can get them is if WE watch the shows we want TV to keep making. The only way we can break the cycle is to give them such good ratings that scifi proves that it can support an audience over many seasons the way a show about doctors or lawyers can, even if the numbers aren't as high as those.

Let's not let 12 Monkeys be the next Firefly; let's make it the next Star Trek--seven years and a slew of movies and books!

9. Some of the best fandom and creator-fan interactions around
The 12 Monkeys fandom is a great one, full of smart, talkative people who understand both the show and the genre it comes from. Better yet, the actors, writers, and creators on the show do their best to be very interactive, answering questions and giving hints and reblogging links. It's (so far--knock on wood) a remarkably adult and drama-free fandom with lots of ideas and thoughts and opinions, and it's a great fandom to belong to.

10. Hope
A lot of scifi drama lately gets mean. The heroes can't actually make any headway. People die for no reason (cough - Walking Dead - cough). Things are needlessly grim and violent. The overall tone is nihilistic and soul-crushing, focusing on how pointless everything is.

12 Monkeys isn't like that. The show itself is aware of how cool all of this stuff is, and while it gets a little dark and very dramatic, it doesn't go down the grim-for-grim-sake path. And at it's core, it's not about how people can't change anything, or how Big Events ruin lives. It's about characters interacting with each other and finding better ways. It's about how mercy and love are better than slavish fate. And that's amazing after BSG showed everyone such a dark version of scifi.

12 Monkeys isn't sappy, it's genuinely emotional. It's not mean, it's about being better than meanness. It takes the story about making the world better and looks at it from all sides and strives to actually do what it says. And the existence of the show can make the genre better, too, if we keep it alive.

Monkey Musings 2 - There are no straight lines

One of the themes of this show is that there's no straight lines, and they've done a really good job of running with that. The virus wouldn't have happened if they hadn't sent someone back to stop it--the old Terminator Syndrome. But also, Cassie wouldn't have been there to save Cole when he landed in 2015 if he hadn't wound up too far back and told her to be there. They never would have found Jones to save him later in the season if he hadn't landed too far forward and met a later Cassie. Hell, he wouldn't have been there to begin with if he hadn't gone there to begin with and called home to tell them to send him! And as they said, it took time travel to invent time travel.

And there is, of course, the loops that the story takes, so that they're only linear if you follow the characters--once you start time traveling, your future and The Future are no longer the same thing.

But what's most fascinating to me is that there isn't any straight lines on the emotional level, even. 

If it weren't for time travel, Cole and Cassie never would have met, and Cole and Ramse never would have wound up on opposite sides. If Cole hadn't been there in the room with Cassie the last time she died, holding her in his arms, would he have realized just how much she meant to him? Would he have come back more determined than ever to save the world for her? Definitely, Ramse's defense of his child wouldn't have hit the brick wall of Cole's resolve if being out of sequence hadn't made it.*

And now, here in episode one of the new season, they're out of sync again. Cole has been in 2015-16 for only three months, and it's been rough but it's also been in civilization and all it's available luxuries. He's learning what it is he's saving, even if that's just a side-effect of being in it. Cassie, though, she's been in the future for eight months, more than twice as long.** What happened in her own time sits differently in the context of the reality of 2043-44, and what she has to do there. Cole is the one who has to wait for the heroic time traveler to come back, he's the soft one who values life. She's the badass, hard-nosed killer. And they don't match up now.

If humanity is the mark of progress, Cole has gone forward while Cassie has gone backward, and Ramse went off on some side route. Who knows where Jennifer is, or how she got there, but she's also in the future, pulling strings and sending people back--Ramse wouldn't have known what to do if she hadn't given him that necklace and told him a bunch of things he's now had almost 30 years to mull over as he goes back into association with her younger self. And isn't that an interesting thing? My tendency is to focus on Cole and Cassie, but behind them, we have Ramse and Jennifer; she said he'd be a good friend to her--but is that because of what happens now? While Cole and Cassie are coming back to common ground, how are Ramse and Jennifer going to deal with being on the same team now? How much did he have to do with her life when he was Ethan Seki and she was Leland's weird daughter?*** How much will that bear on their adult interactions now?

It's fascinating. It's complex, and a bit addicting, watching how people line up, or don't line up, watching them moving through their own timelines and coming into sync and falling out of it with each other. I feel like I need to make a character-infographic, but how would that even look? There's no straight lines to draw on it!

*And now--he's got that memory, that knowledge of her personal future (assuming it doesn't get changed along with everything else as they alter stuff this season), and if things start looking close to that, will he try to divert it? Will the still try to save her?
**Almost long enough to have had a child there, if they'd gotten to hook up before the left...(sorry, that's literally where my mind goes every time it's mentioned that something is eight or nine months)
***I would love to see a flashback of her as a little girl, and him talking to her because she's the only kid around and he misses his son.

Monkey Musings 1 - On waiting and on payoff

I always feel like it's a big risk to make fans wait--but I also know that it's better when a show as fewer episodes because there's no room for lame wheel-spinning. And 12 Monkeys has always been really good about eating up story. So much story. All the story. Like, seasons and seasons worth of story in an old idea of show shows work. It's one of my absolutely favorite things that this show does: there's no waiting around for things to happen, things are always happening!

All the waiting happens after the show is done airing for the year, and MAN did we wait! After the summer. After the fall season when everything else started coming back. After even the spring season, when we originally thought it was coming back, since it was a January show in season 1. There's a sort of madness that descends on fans as the waits get longer, and the way fandoms tend to deal with that madness is trying to fill the gap. Fan art, fanfic, and literally hundreds of theories! Man, we dissected everything and tried to figure out what all of it meant! I, personally, stuck to rolling around permutations rather than trying to figure out what's going to happen--because that way leads to insanity and a lot of disappointment when a show doesn't do what you want it to do, and I never want to be disappointed in this show.

But here's the thing, though. Our showrunner and our actors are there for us! I don't remember the last time I watched a show where the fans were so well-supported by the people who make the show, and it made the wait go a lot smoother--it kept the show active and present in our minds and it built the hype as much as the talking to other fans did!

But then, there's all this expectation. There's all this built-up "oh my gosh, everything is finally happening!" that comes with the new season starting on a show you love. And there's that fear that the endless building up with create an inevitable let-down, that nothing could possibly be as good as you imagined it could be. And, of course, this being the second season--how man shows had awesome first seasons and then went off the rails on the second?*

Thankfully, 12 Monkeys doesn't feel like it's going to be one of those shows. Season 1 was so tight, so well-paced and well-plotted, that there's hope that they can do it again, plus they had the extra time given by pushing the show back. I was so worried about starting the season, so afraid it wouldn't live up to how much I loved season 1--and I didn't need to worry at all. I watched the first episode three times, including live, and it's so good. It's more than worth the wait, and it sets up a really great tone and direction for the season that I can't wait to see unfold.

Is it too soon to say that? I hope not, because I'm so invested by this point. But thus far, all the hints and hopes have paid off. The first episode of the season was the exact balance of character work and conflict and awesomeness that make the show so wonderful to watch.

*cough - Sleepy Hollow - cough.

My 12 Monkeys S2 wishlist

The new season starts in the US tonight! I'll be livetweeting at 9pm along with everyone else, and then reviewing the eps for TV Geek Army and doing weekly Monkey Musings here a few days after each episode airs! But I'm so keyed up, I thought I'd make a list of my total pie-in-the-sky wishlist items that have been plaguing me, to get them out of my head and to sort of play a game with the season. I'll be updating and commenting on the list as things happen!

Let's see where this goes, shall we?

1. "I should have kissed you" (Ha! I know, right?)
2. Cole and Ramse having a proper sit down to hash things out between them. If not that, a proper punch-fest to do it like boys do. (update: No Cole and Ramse, so far, but Cole and Deacon went this route in 2.3, and it got them nowhere.)
3. Cassie being the one who discovers the past with wonder--but probably the sort that makes her life harder rather than easier, the way the show is going.
4. Cassie saving Cole's life over and over. (2.3 she saved him from electro-shock torture)
5. Ramse being a grandpa, all crotchety and annoyed.
6. Sam being a Creepy Kid, so Ramse has to question his devotion.
7. The Witness as a prisoner--maybe not even saying what Olivia says he says, but at least being something other than this all-knowing god she presents him as.
8. Cole's mom.
9. People realizing that Jennifer actually does make sense, and it rocking their world. (in 2.2 and 2.3, Cole is starting to understand this, but Cassie still doesn't like her and it's making her snappish about details)
10. Cassie meeting her own past self, or trying not to, and finding out that her normal life was not nearly as normal as the thought it was, and having a whole new crisis of identity.*
11. Deacon being the voice of reason--because how screwed up do you have to be to have his crazy self be the reasonable one?
12. Playing with the conventions of time-travel stories--I want all of it. Loops, side-tracks into alternate lines, pieces being snipped out. I want them to make a unified theory of time travel out of this show, and be the one that everyone refers back to when talking about time travel shows that come after.

Down the rabbit hole tonight, guys!

EDITED TO ADD: I have new additions to my wishlist!

• Cole and Cassie dancing again! Preferably twice: once, the classic "let's dance to get closer to our mark, oops, are those feels getting in the way?", and once just because they can and they want to.
• Flashbacks to Ramse's time with the Army! Who did he know? What did he do other than stand by windows in expensive suits? How did he fit into the hierarchy? How much did they actually tell him and how much did he figure out on his own?

*Like, what if her breakdown, and her sense that everything was wrong in Haiti was because that's a pivotal time-point and people keep going back there? What if this-season-her has to protect her own past breakdown?

A quick roundup of Danyi's Monkey Thoughts!

Over on her 12 Monkeys fanblog, Danyi has been doing a series of things to think about in 12 Monkeys Season 1, and it's been so much fun to share theories and swap ideas and play around with speculation. Go take a look:

#12Monkeys #MonkeyThoughts https://t.co/nyl2eN35gn @kiddle @pirategirljack @mrscify @eurasianjes @pshaps @12MonkeysSyfy @F_U_ng

— Danyi (@SinEater_Danyi) January 20, 2016

It's Friday! Which means #MonkeyThoughts #12Monkeys https://t.co/jOXYnomnGp

— Danyi (@SinEater_Danyi) January 15, 2016

It's Wednesday! Which means time for another Monkey Thoughts! https://t.co/yQsZ7Kp3ld #12monkeys #MonkeyThoughts

— Danyi (@SinEater_Danyi) January 13, 2016

And this first one about Ramse and his role in all this.

Keep track of her on Twitter for links every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!

Last night, Syfy started playing 12 Monkeys mini-marathons after The Expanse, and it was so good

12 Monkeys is currently airing three episodes a week after The Expanse at 11, 12, and 1, Tuesday nights on Syfy.

This week, we got "Splinter", "Mentally Divergent", and "Cassandra Complex", the first three episodes of Season 1. I hadn't really forgotten how good the episodes are, but I did forget how great it is talking to other fans live on Twitter while watching them. This was the first show I jumped onboard with so quickly while livetweeting, and I've met so many awesome people because of it--including most of the Professional Fangirls!

It's also interesting, going back to the beginning of a good show, after a gap where we watched other shows, and seeing how much was set up in the earliest episodes. And 12 Monkeys is a fantastic one for this second (or third or tenth) viewing--even if just to sit there and admire the construction of it. So many things that seemed unimportant on the first viewing became secretly important after seeing the end and thinking about it all year, most notably everything Jones says about anything. And now that we've seen ads for S2, there's even a few things that start looking like foreshadowing--like the scene in Cassandra Complex, where Cassie is learning how to shoot by holding a gun on Cole.

One of my favorite things is that they went for the feels right away. Cassie is declared crazy for believing in this man, Cole is amazed that she believes him, it's immediately them against the world, even before they decide to do it that way. Jennifer is joyfully nuts, but also haunted and damaged and looking for...absolution? The truth? And then Cole fights for his one connection in 2015, and gets to see exactly what his showing up in her life did to her in "Cassandra Complex". And, of course, Jones and all her secret feels, and Ramse and his devotion that is so bittersweet once you've seen the end of the season, and Max, and Whitley--and all in the first three episodes! Worldbuilding and character building at once, and it makes everything have all these layers of meaning and context and potential.

And damn, but this show is good. It's so bold and sure of itself and defined. I'm so happy it's back on the air, even in reruns, before the second season launch!

Did you watch those three episodes? Any new theories? Did you see anything in a new light? Are you watching it for the first time and want to talk about it? Share in the comments or come talk to us on Twitter!

Tweets about #12monkeys from:pirategirljack, OR from:sineater_danyi, OR from:kiddle, OR from:trincynna, OR from:ohgress, OR from:manisandmakeovers, OR from:acciolacquer include:retweets

12 Monkeys was at NYCC today!

The Panel, Part 1, and then Part 2!

Everything the panel and the trailer tell us:

The trailer shows the 40s, the present, and the future, and Terry says it's also going to have the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, and possibly some new parts of the future.

Cole and Cassie are together in the 40s! Smiling! And she's wearing a red dress at a place where there's dancing!

And then later in the trailer, they're holding guns on each other, and he's trying to convince her that she has a choice.

They say they've basically switched sides in the hardness scale (which I assume means they have to find a new middle ground to meet on).

There's a scene with all three--Cole, Cassie, AND Ramse!

Jennifer is going to be sane! But Emily won't say "how or why", and in the trailer, she's saying "you're finally going to stop me" so there's definitely a whole lot of other stuff going on there! We also see a little of her and Cole, and it looks like she's trying to convince him of something in one part, and maybe trying to kill him (or weirdly seduce him?) in another.*

Deacon is going to be a main character! He has to decide which crazy side he's going to side with, and it will depend on which he thinks he'll back the best chance surviving on. He knows who Cassie is because she was all over TV when he was a kid.** He's going to take her under his wing the way he once did with Cole.***

Maybe that's why we see Cassie stabbing someone?

Jones is going to have new people to work with! One of them is a love interest of some sort, since she says "Jones gets laid!", and there's some new complication in there, because we see her above saying something about "Using time against itself".

There's something worse than the Plague out there.****

There's going to be more character stuff this season, with the time-jumping being used to show back stories and the why's behind people's actions, as well as tell the story.

We're going to find out why Olivia and the Pallid Man don't age--Jones's serum slows that mess down some, but there's another way, too.*****

The trailer has one of those Blue Man Group people getting sponged down and it turns out to be a girl. We know almost nothing about them!

Cole says "I can feel it" and he's looking at his hands--is that when he starts splintering again? Or is it a new thing, like feeling time changing or something? And at one point, Cassie's trying to convince him that everything has changed and the mission is different, and he says that the only time anything changed was when he saved someone who was supposed to die. That argument might be the ideological boundary between them.

There's a shot that looks like the Machine tearing Cole apart! Is it his turn to be killed and saved by time travel?

The show isn't coming back until APRIL! Ugh, I thought we were almost done with the wait, but it just got four months longer! I'd rather have a delayed wonderful season than a shitty rushed one, especially after how tight and good season 1 was, but it's still a murderous wait.

My very own friend Danyi was one of the people who asked a question, and they knew who she was from Twitter, and when she asked about Cassie's grey-streak, Terry said something vague about a big trauma that happens to Cassie.

I feel like there's gonna be a lot of Cole looking sad.

And I'm sure there's piles of stuff I'm not remembering; what did you catch? Share in the comments, or come talk to me on Twitter!

Tweets about #12monkeys from:pirategirljack include:retweets

NOTES:
*Maybe she feels like she has to deliver the virus, since she was being all mothered by Olivia? Who knows what happened to her mind then? Like, the way she said "you're finally going to stop me" sounds like she doesn't want to do that, or she's realized that it's bad, but she feels like she can't stop herself...
**The same messages that brought Cole back to her in 2017, I'm assuming, but who knows how long she was the face of the CDC before Cole showed up?
***And we all know how poorly that turned out. If he's the sort who tries to make people like him, and Cole rebelled, can we hope Cassie would, too? Does she have a bond close enough to make her fight back, the way Cole had Ramse?
****Something that the Plague had hidden from history?
*****I'm guessing using the Paradox energy; Cole has now been exposed to both of them directly, and I wonder what that means for him.

#12MonkeysSDCC roundup!

Keep refreshing! It's happening AS I POST THIS!

#12monkeyssdcc Tweets

So it's been a week since 12 Monkeys concluded its first season

And this is the only photo I still have on my phone.

It was an amazing first season. When I heard about it, I'll admit I was a little "why, tho?" about the whole idea. But Syfy doing actual science fiction? Made by the guys who made Nikita and partially made Terra Nova? Starring that guy who was Pyro a million years ago?

Yeah, I was gonna watch it, even if it was horrible. And it so wasn't. I was basically hooked by the end of the opening monologue, but it really got me when things got weird--scratched-watch paradoxes, dudes disappearing shot and showing up two years later still shot, a Mission (capital-M, always) that immediately turns out to Not Be What It Seems. I love an ambitious show, and this one had some of that breakneck, holding-nothing-back energy that Sleepy Hollow had its first season*, and it just dove into piles of story. These thirteen episodes had as much story as, like, three seasons of an old show might have, and it was glorious.

And also, it was smart. It's not just that there was a lot of story--it's that the story was incredibly well crafted, with further episodes changing the meaning and context of everything that came before. Especially in the third act, every episode could have been a finale, and when the actual finale happened, it changed everything again. 

And it was real scifi. Time travel and viruses weren't just plot points, they were structural pieces necessary for the story to happen at all--which is how Big Scifi Pieces should be. And because time travel is awesome, it was used awesomely, to give us these phenomenal non-linear stories that uncover a little more each time we pass by them. This is how you handle a revelation-of-mystery plot. Take notes.

But the core of the series was the relationships--which were so human and flawed and tragic that they added both weight and normality to the increasing and delightful weirdness of the series. Cole and Cassie and their immediate connection (and how he can't seem to keep her alive), Cassie and Aaron and their failed normal life (and how he can't seem to let her go--or stop trying to control her choices), Cole and Ramse and the bromance to end all bromances that goes horribly awry (but still changes the world), Ramse and his family, everyone and the Monkeys, Jennifer and her dad, Jennifer and Cole, Jennifer and Cassie, Jones and Cole, Jones and Cassie, Jones and Whitley, Whitley and his dad, everyone and Spearhead, everyone and West Seven... There's a tight and thick weave of interpersonal relationships that all come down to love. Romantic love, platonic love, desperate love, familial love, lost love, love that is strong enough to change fate and alter all of history. It's amazing. It's epic. It's wildly personal and also universal in the way that Big Important Literature is. It's the relationships that ground te show and also make it universal.

Now, when I look back at the early episodes, it's with a mix of that feeling you get looking at baby pictures, knowing how everything goes wrong for those babies--and this pervasive wonder at how very much information was crammed into 45 minute chunks without damaging how understandable or accessible the immediate plot was. Those early episodes mean something else now that we know more than we did when we watched them the first time, but it adds to the re-watch-ability of the season. Now, there's new layers. Now, there's stuff that was always there that we missed tw first time.

And that's amazing to me, as a fan and as a writer. I feel like we've been given this really awesome gift, and I hope with every fiber of my being that they can keep it going at this high, complicated (but clear) level of story, plot, character, innovation, and joyfulness.**

Is it time for season two yet?

Notes:

* Please, holy mother of Fandoms, don't let season two of 12M go off the rails the way season two of SH did!

**Its weird that a show that gets so dark is joyful, but that's my main feeling--it's creating and experiencing joy in its own existence, and it's created this wonderful fandom that's been an amazing and unexpected addition to my life.

@pirategirljack livetweets roundup for Week 15 2015!

Hello again and welcome to ALL MY THOUGHTS IN ONE PLACE! Whoo!

MONDAY 4-6-15

Nothing at all because my whole life was preempted by sports and we watched like three old movies on Netflix because no one else wanted to watch Nikita starting half way through the first season where I am.

TUESDAY 4-7-15

The Flash: Rerun

Tweets about #agentsofshield from:pirategirljack include:retweets

Agents of Shield

Let's talk about: How I don't care at all about the division over which Shield is Shield, because there is literally no one to care about on the other side? I care about Team Coulson, and about Coulson keeping his family together, and about him, personally, figuring out a better way for Shield to work. I have nothing to hang any caring on for the other side, and since Bobbi looks like she's coming back toward this side, and Mac is being so paranoid he's ruined what I liked best about him--his reliable dependability--I'm just over it all.

But I do love Coulson being a badass, I love Mike joining the team and them stealing a jet, and I love them going on the offensive, finally, because really. They've been sitting back and waiting, and the world must be going to shit without Shield out there arriving before anyone knows there's a problem, and it annoys me that there's this wall around the show. Like, come on. Why isn't there more talk of what Tony is doing to pick up the slack? Why isn't there more mention of stuff going down in various cities (specifically, now, Hells Kitchen in NY, since Daredevil has been released, though it wasn't at the end of this episode).

I love these characters, and even though the show is much better than how it started, it's still hemmed in in weird ways, and I feel like it's wings are clipped. It's so frustrating.

Tweets about #izombie from:pirategirljack include:retweets

iZombie

Lets talk about: I know Kung Fu! Old reference, but a perfect one, and she was kicking people's butts and it was awesome. And the Clive storyline was brilliant--she thought he was a bad cop, and he was genuinely upset that she would just think something like that because he hates his undercover past, and they end back on that flirty, sassy tone we all love--but more affectionately and hopefully closer and more friendly because of this growing trust. I love the Liv-Clive partnership so much.

And! Major and Ravi are roommates! Even if it's just for Major to get closer to Liv again, and even if it's just a plot device to make those two people more a part of her actual life, it's amazing, and I love how they were just instant friends. It was like a meet-cute (Meat Cute?) when they were talking about moving in together under false meeting-pretenses.

Also, Blaine? He's got crazy plans, and I can't wait for that rich-Zombie-gourmet-brain racket to just go bonkers.

Tweets about #ncis from:pirategirljack include:retweets

NCIS

Lets talk about: How I have less and less to actually say about this show? Like, I still like it, I still watch it, but even liveblogging, I don't have much of actual comment? I might give up keeping it in this post...

But who else is really nervous about Tony's dad living so close?

Tweets about #forever from:pirategirljack include:retweets

Forever

Let's talk about: How Jo didn't go to Paris with her super rich but also super pushy new boyfriend because SHE WANTED TO GO WITH HENRY! Henry who's advice was to get lost in the city at the first chance and wander around until you find it naturally and honestly and really live it! AND THAT SHE WENT TO TELL HIM! And then Abe showed up with the news that HE'D FOUND ABIGAIL. Because OF COURSE HE DID. With the help of Lucas, who Henry doesn't know was involved at all. And who has horrible timing and news that trumps an almost-confession that I hope makes them shy and flirty and awkward for at least one whole episode!

WEDNESDAY 4-8-15

Arrow: Rerun of not even an old episode, which really annoys me.

THURSDAY 4-9-15

Tweets about #bones from:pirategirljack include:retweets

Bones

Lets talk about: Mr Viziri! And his brother I'd forgotten (or didn't know?) he had, trapped in Iran. I'm almost definite that this means he'll be arrested and then Booth or someone will have to go in and get him or whatever, which feels contrived OR that it means they were looking for a way to get him off the show that would be very emotional--but that option pisses me off, because it means all of Cam's relationships end tragically when everyone else on the show including her daughter we hardly see has been given happy relationships.

And is that a new creepy killer? We haven't had one of those in ages.

Tweets about #backstrom from:pirategirljack include:retweets

Backstrom

Lets talk about: Emotional development! Backstrom is still a terrible person, but this episode and last episode brought a lot of tragedy to the WHY he's a horrible person, and even though he goes about learning his lessons in all the wrong way every time, there's still this feeling that he actually IS learning them. He defended Valentine last ep, he actually, honestly cried this ep. He's making progress, and it's a very realistic, messy, painful sort of progress I don't think I've seen on a regular middle-of-primetime, not-very-serious show before.

And I love his team so much. I love how Niedermeyer knows everything but no one listens, and how he's just sort of a sad puppy about that fact, not pissy and mean. I love how Paquet makes the weirdest interactive-art-installation murder boards. I love Gravley's youngness, and how that doesn't damage her ability to do her job at all. I love Almond's self-possession, style, and vaguely flirty everything. And Moto! Moto did, like, all the legwork this episode, and followed hunches and did his research. It was amazing.

Tweets about #elementary from:pirategirljack include:retweets

Elementary

Lets talk about: How I STILL think this whole season is the story of how Holmes and Watson finally fell in love. Like, it's CBS and it's emotionally weird people, so I'm not holding my breath, and I'd be okay if they just confirm a deeply codependent friendship that isn't at all sexual because that never happens--but come on. That whole definition of friendship conversation? That was Holmes being emotionally open, honest, and basically saying "you're the best part of me and I want to be more like you, not you more like me, and I'm super worried about you". With an implied "do you want a hug because I kind of do". It's the closest we've gotten to anything truly love-like from him since he was trying to tell if that AI was actually sentient, and it was a lot more true and real than that philosophical talk.

Also? If the writers keep the Holmes-Watson story totally platonic, they'll be wasting the only adaptation of the series where Holmes and Watson being in love won't threaten people who worry about two dudes being in love. And why even bother genderswitching when everyone knows that the two of them are in love anyway?

FRIDAY 4-10-15

Tweets about #12monkeys from:pirategirljack include:retweets

12 Monkeys

Let's talk about: OH MY GOD IT'S THE LAST EPISODE UNTIL NEXT JANUARY EVEN THOUGH THEY STARTED PRODUCTION THIS PAST MONDAY!!! And how it's also the last day of the 12 Monkeys Theme Week, which really made the week fly by in a haze of feels and anticipation, but also made the finale so much harder to handle because now that's over toooooooo.

But for real, lets talk about:

• Mr Dr Jones was in charge of the Splinter Project, but it was Mrs Dr Jones's serum, so what did he have to do to get that? And is she already signed up with Spearhead? I mean, she had to not be there so she wouldn't know that Cassie was coming through, but where is she instead?
• CASSIE IS IN THE FUTURE. With a gut shot, no immunity (unless not being immune to the early strains doesn't mean you're not immune to the later, you just normally would have been dead already), and everything going to hell around her.
• What is up with those Ghost Soldiers? Are they the Army of the 12 Monkeys? Are they really those babies, because they look older than 28 years, and if they ARE those babies, how pissed are they going to be that Cassie appearing is not in the Plan they've been raised for?
• Aaron Marker is a tool, and that scene where they were interrogating him was hard to watch and brilliantly done--Cole really didn't want to do all that, and I think it was because Cassie was watching, but she's the one who told him to keep going--she's getting hard, and it's scary! And then he burned "to death" (in quotes because no body, no proof and he could still come back), and she wanted to save him, even after all that, and cried for him. So much emotional complexity going on there.
• And the Red Forest vision? Until that point, she was dedicated, but not cruel, and she always listened to Cole's advice--but afterward, she comes out, apparently not having been affected at all, although we have seen her losing hope and stuff when the red plants are around before, and that thread is still dangling about what they did to her, and she comes out and shoots Ramse. She's the one who saves people, not the one who shoots people, and that's scary too.
• How much time passed between hand-holding in the snow and waking up in bed?
• Why didn't they kiss when he thought he was sending her to her death? He knows exactly what splintering does to you, she's already bled a lot, and he has no way of knowing if she'll make it or if Jones can actually help her, so as far as he knows, it's probably just a doing-something-desperate sort of death rather than a doing-nothing-and-letting-her-die-in-his-arms-again sort of death. He refused to say goodbye, but he could have still kissed her.
• And we're just going to assume that "see you soon" now has exactly the same meaning as "as you wish" now, right?
• Ramse is not the Witness and was so weirded out that they thought he was! And when he saw that Cole had to choose between him and Cassie, he told him to save Cassie--even though saving her took his whole plan and threw it away, as far as he was concerned! It took him 28 years to come around, and Cole being alive gave him that final push, and then Cole came back and changed everything.
• Which makes me SO HAPPY, because I've been getting frustrated with how nothing changes, and without Ramse pre-knowing, there was NO REASON for things to keep going badly.
• Also, I was a little sad that he didn't go back to 2043 to get Cassie, but I know he really can't anymore, and I'm very very happy that he and Ramse are on the same side again--or at least getting there.
• Olivia is going to be SO PISSED when she finds out that Seki / Ramse didn't die, that Cole did not run off into obscurity, that she should have found out what happened to Dr Railly, and now because of it, Cole has access to everything Ramse knows (assuming they stop fighting and fucking compare notes, because everyone has different pieces to this puzzle), and Cassie now has access to whatever they know in the future--and can fill gaps there, too--and those Ghost Soldiers have no idea what's going on... It's gonna be epic.
• Deacon is so confused and I love it.
• Whitley and Adler survived! And there was so much sad-affection (sadfection?) between Whitley and Jones I almost died. I love those two so much. I want them to be in a cross-generational interracial love story, but I will settle for Jones, who didn't want to be a mom, just taking in all the strays.
• How is Jones going to convince the Soldiers to let her save Cassie? How is Cassie going to adapt to a mostly abandoned facility under hostile command? Will they give her Cole's old room? Because I need that.
• How long before we get reunions in the new season?
• How hard will Cole try to get back to her / get her back? Will the machine return her to 2015 the way it returned him to 2043 eventually, or will it be a different sort of trip because she was sent from the machine to itself?
• Jenniferrrrrr! She's still in charge of Markridge and it looks like everyone has basically forgotten about her as soon as she told them that she'd told Cole where to go--which was awful and which she didn't look happy about but did anyway, so what did they do to her to make her do it? She hates Cassie. She has 12 cases on her personal plane, but it's 2 years early. She wants to return the world to the animals because people are awful. She sent Ramse back to "undo what I've done" as well as whatever Cole and whoever else did. What is she doing?

Oh my god, I have no words. Well, I have a lot of words, and I'll be writing all sorts of fic to fill the gap, but I have no  idea what's going to happen next, and it's glorious, and I don't want to wait so long!

SATURDAY 4-11-15

NOTHING BUT DESOLATION BECAUSE 12 MONKEYS IS FINISHED FOR THE YEAR.

JK

Tweets about #outlander from:pirategirljack include:retweets

Outlander

Let's talk about: How the only good women in the past are Claire, who is headstrong and not very subtle, and Mrs Fitz who is hardly ever there. Gaillies is the least subtle person ever, flouncing around like she's untouchable, being all witchy in a really superstitious time and place, and now she's gotten Claire arrested. And Laoghrie, she's just a horrible brat. And everyone else is a dude.

I love Jamie and Claire together, but now it seems we're in the part of the season where everything is going to crap, and it bruises my heart!

Tweets about #snl from:pirategirljack include:retweets

SNL: Taraji P Henson and Mumford and Sons

Let's talk about: How Taraji is amazing. That is all.

SUNDAY 4-12-15

No more Sunday shows for a while!

New stuff coming up next week!

• Daredevil! But since it's all at once, I'm going to give it it's own post.