“It’s been two years since we bombed the compound. A lot has happened between you and me.”
- Cassie
We are in the home stretch of the first season! It’s hard to believe so much has happened and it’s only nine episodes in. We begin this week in 2017 where Cole is still in Chechnya amidst the plague. He sees televised message from Cassie, urging the immune to get to safety in Baltimore (she makes a point of it actually). As Cole struggles to find transport back to the US we see some interesting hints at things that have come up in the future. For instance, once he actually gets past the barricades and into Army custody, they pass the Western Seventh quarantine facility (birth place of the West Seven). And after a little bit of travel and a surprise cameo by Jennifer Goines (she’s ranting about the 12 Monkeys to anyone who will listen), Cole is finally reunited with Cassie. I’m a little confused to be honest since I thought she believed he was dead. But then again, she obviously knows the plague hit so she had to assume he failed and got back to his time (even though we know that didn’t happen).
We get two time periods in the future this week. First, we see how Cole and Ramse ended up at the facility with Project Splinter in 2041. They’ve been on the run from the West Seven for years and things are looking grim. It is winter time and they’re out of food and ammo and they don’t have a place to crash. As they walk along, we get another call back to a few episodes ago when Cole mentioned that he’d love to go to the Florida Keys. I like how they are tying things together this week. Cole and Ramse spot some of the soldiers out in the woods and try to take them but they get taken underground and Whitley has quite a time beating the crap out of Cole. That is until Jones stops him after hearing Cole’s name. I have to hope she verified in the message that she was supposed to be looking for James Cole. Cole in fact asks that very question and Jones launches into her sales pitch on how she needs him to help save the world from the plague. She pontificates about how what they are going to do is something that the human race will never know happened and the world as they know it will be erased but she wants it that way. Cole says thanks but no thanks. In a rather surprising turn of events, Cole tries to escape with Ramse in toe, but his blood brother suggests that if Jones is telling the truth, then Cole needs to help out. Cole needs a purpose in his life and this mission might just be it. I have to admit I was not expecting the push in favor of Project Splinter to come from Ramse, especially given how much he’s been questioning things lately.
In 2043, after Jones control of her people by putting the kibosh on their hopes for a cure by pointing out that Foster cured a strain that died out more than a decade ago, she gets everyone in on a plan to get the entire core and machine that Foster has at Spearhead. Ramse heads back first to try and get Elena and their son out but they get caught by Foster. I have a feeling that was intentional. After all, Ramse doesn’t seem too stressed about the situation. While that’s going down, Whitley is trying to convince his father that Foster is full of crap and not to be believed. And for good measure, Jones shows up unannounced in Foster’s office and after reminiscing about the better days of being underground trying to find a cure, she shoots him. I guess she’s taking that core by force after all. Good on you, Jones! Whitley’s dad seems to be on the side of Project Splinter because he helps get the military guys working for Jones into the facility. It’s a pretty gruesome firefight that ensues and it looks like they kill pretty much everyone (they take a few hits themselves including Whitley’s dad). But they manage to secure the core and somehow haul it back to Project Splinter HQ to begin repairing the time machine. As the scientists work to get the machine back up and running, Elena points out that while Jones may have claimed that Foster’s cure was false hope and he was doing everything he could to convince people of his agenda, Jones was doing the exact same thing. It seems she might be right when she burns a picture of one of the strains of the plague (Foster may have in fact found a cure for the current strain). It seems Jones is hell bent on eradicating the plague even before it started so she can get a second chance with her daughter. It is rather selfish of her now that I think about it.
Back in 2017, Cole and Cassie’s reunion is short-lived and not at all happy. Cassie reveals that she knew the look for him because he told her to (or he will do since at the moment they are pulling a Doctor and River traveling in opposite directions in their joint timeline) and that a lot has happened since the bombing in Chechnya. It also seems that she is sick with the plague. I’m not sure it was necessarily established already when Cassie died but I suppose it could be in 2017 from the plague. Cole wakes her up briefly before she ends up dying in his arms. She calls him James which makes me think that they got a hell of a lot closer in the 2 years he missed by splintering. She gives him a slip of paper with an address and says it will save his life.
Cole finally gets pulled back to 2043 by Jones and she fills him in on what’s happened in his absence. Ramse shows up in the splinter chamber insisting that they need to get out and that Jones has been lying to them and murdered people for her own agenda. Ramse (correctly) points out that so far, the time travel agenda hasn’t worked. But Cole is firmly on the side of Project Splinter. He’s seen the world die. He’s held Cassie in his arms as she died from the plague. He has to save her, even if it means losing his best friend in the process. And based on the punch Ramse threw before walking out, I think this is definitely a split for our duo.
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