Relationship Spotlight: James Cole & Dr. Cassandra Railly (12 Monkeys)

Yep, 12 Monkeys two days in a row!  This pair deserves it, though – they’re easily the best thing about an already-strong show.  Here’s to one of the best time-travel duos on TV (of course, splinter time-travel doesn’t hold a candle to TARDIS time-travel, but whatcha gonna do?)

Cole and Cassie form a great from-different-worlds partnership.  She’s from our time, with all its technology, convenience, and instant gratification.  Though his present is only 28 years ahead of hers, it’s the polar opposite.  His world has no society to speak of, just dog-eat-dog scavenging in the surviving fragments of the plague-ravaged human race.  In this way, they’re a bit like Crane and Abbie from Sleepy Hollow – Cole has no concept of 2015 life, from license plates to cheeseburgers, and when Cassie dresses to the nines to infiltrate a gala, his highest praise of is that she looks “clean.”  On his trips to the past, Cassie introduces him to present-day perks like takeout and helps him experience the lovelier things in life.  It’s great to see his face when he looks at a painting, and almost as great to see her watching him as he looks.

The divide between their worlds extends to more than early 21st-century accoutrements.  Their different experiences have led to entirely different worldviews.  Cole was only 7 when the virus started to spread, and he had to do very hard things from a young age to stay alive as society collapsed on itself.  He’s haunted by his past sins, and his desire to erase them fuels his mission to rewrite history.  At the same time, everything he’s seen and done hardens him, lets him pursue his goal by any means necessary.  He’s stolen, lied, and killed before, and he’ll do it all again; a recurring line of his is, “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.”  It’s a sentiment I hear in many stories, but I don’t often see a character express both sides of it as earnestly as Cole.  Additionally, from his perspective, everyone he meets in 2015 is “already dead,” which desensitizes him to any required violence – it was going to happen anyway, right?  He’s ruthlessly pragmatic and always keeps his eye on the prize, the 7 billion people he stands to save.

By turns, Cassie is horrified by his callous relentlessness, both from a “but you can’t!” moral standpoint and from a more personal concern for Cole’s capacity for darkness.  Her chief motivation is to help people, but she’s the one who usually insists that there must be another way.  Cole sometimes sees this as unwillingness to do what it takes, but Cassie comes at it differently.  She never watched the world die or had to kill to survive, and so her absolute beliefs have never been severely tested.  It’s natural that she feels there are lines that should never be crossed, and she gives 110% of herself on her side of those lines.  Her perspective is essential to the show, because sometimes there is another way, but Cole is often so laser-focused on the task at hand that he can’t see it.  Cassie reminds him that not all costs should be paid.

Over the course of the show, both greatly influence the other.  Cole softens more, learns to take quiet moments to enjoy what life used to be and more greatly value human life.  Meanwhile, Cassie grows both stronger and tougher, opening her eyes to the reality of the virus and going to ever-greater lengths to prevent it.  Both characters develop so much that, by season’s end, each has stood in the other’s position at least once, with Cole calling for moderation while Cassie insists on drastic measures.  It’s a terrific, engrossing dynamic, and any episode with significant Cole-Cassie interaction is immediately a cut above any that keeps them in separated.  I won’t discuss what happens to them in the season finale, but I’ll just say, I can’t wait for season 2!