I saw the 12 Monkeys movie with Bruce Willis years ago. I remember thinking it was decent enough. Watchable, as we say around here. But somehow I completely missed the 12 Monkeys television series.
That was a mistake.
Unfortunately, this one isn’t sitting out on the Free TV Frontier waiting to be discovered for zero dollars. I found it on Prime, where it’s included with a subscription. Not everybody has Prime, obviously, but plenty of people do — and if you’re one of them and you’ve never watched this thing, take a look.
Just make sure you’re actually prepared to watch it. No scrolling through your phone. No answering email. No folding laundry while vaguely listening from across the room. 12 Monkeys moves like hell and starts throwing dates, people, clues, and timelines at you almost immediately.
In other words, put your damn thinking cap on. And holy hell, is it good.
Welcome to the End of the World
S1E1: “Splinter” opens in 2043, long after a plague has wiped out most of humanity. James Cole (Aaron Stanford) is a survivor recruited for Project Splinter — an unfinished time-travel experiment that scientists have managed to get working for one fairly important purpose: Stop the plague before it happens.
Cole’s trail leads him back to 2013 and Dr. Cassandra Railly (Amanda Schull), who’s giving a presentation about pandemics. Watching that scene in 2015 probably felt like science fiction. Watching it now, in 2026, is a little different.
This show premiered five years before COVID-19 changed the world. I wondered whether having lived through a global pandemic would suck the drama out of a fictional one. We’ve seen the masks, the fear, and the disruption for real now. Does a made-up pandemic still work as entertainment?
Apparently, it does. Entertainment doesn’t always mean something makes you feel good. Sometimes it scares the shit out of you. Sometimes it lets you look at reality through a completely fictional lens. And sometimes you just want to know what the hell happens next. 12 Monkeys had me there almost immediately.
Excuse Me, There’s a Time Traveler in Your Backseat
After her speech, Cass heads to her car and discovers Cole waiting for her. He needs help finding a man named Leland Frost. There’s only one problem: She has no f*cking idea who Leland Frost is.
Understandably, Cass isn’t buying any of this. So Cole produces her watch. Not one that looks like her watch. Her watch. Except his came from the future. He puts the two versions together and things go sideways. Time reacts to two copies of the same object occupying the same space, and suddenly Cole’s crazy story doesn’t look quite so crazy anymore.
See You in Two Years
Jump to 2015. Cass is waiting at the hotel where Cole told her to meet him. She’s been there for a week and is finally getting ready to leave when he appears. And he’s still suffering from the same gunshot wound he had two years earlier. For Cass, two years have passed. For Cole, they haven’t.
That’s where 12 Monkeys really got me. Time travel stories can disappear up their own ass remarkably quickly. I usually need a corkboard and six different colors of yarn just to remember who knows what. “Splinter” gives us a lot of information, but it doesn’t feel like homework. Instead of stopping for giant exposition dumps, it keeps moving between the mission, the mystery, and different points in Cole’s timeline.
He Knows Cole (But Not Yet)
The search leads them to Leland Goines (Željko Ivanek), a bioengineer with the Markridge Group. Cole’s plan is beautifully uncomplicated: Find Goines. Kill Goines. Save seven billion people.
Then Goines drops the bomb. He recognizes Cole. They’ve met before — in 1987. Cole has no idea what he’s talking about because, from Cole’s perspective, that meeting hasn’t happened yet. Okay. Now you’ve really got me. (That’s a Kinks song, by the way. I can hear it in my head right now as I’m writing this.)
We’re no longer dealing with a simple “kill the guy who caused the plague” story. Cole’s own future trips into the past are already tangled up in the very events he’s trying to prevent.
Cole eventually gets what he came for and kills Goines. There’s just one problem: Nothing changes. Cole doesn’t disappear. The plague still happens. And when he returns to 2043, the mysterious 12 Monkeys symbol starts turning up in old photographs from around the world. Back in 2015, we meet Goines’ daughter Jennifer (Emily Hampshire) — in a psychiatric facility, drawing that same symbol all over the wall.
Technicolor Urgency Without the Technicolor
This is exactly the kind of television I love. I use Technicolor Urgency for shows with visual life and narrative momentum. 12 Monkeys certainly doesn’t have the “Technicolor” part. It’s dark. The future looks appropriately miserable. Nobody is dressed like they’re headed to Nantucket for The Five Star Weekend.
But it absolutely has the urgency. Things move. Questions produce more questions. It reminds me of why I can disappear into shows like 24, The Blacklist, and lately, Fringe. (Hell, put Harry O on Tubi or Roku and I’ll disappear into that, too). Some television practically reaches through the screen, grabs your shirt, and says: NEXT EPISODE. NOW.
I was trying not to start another binge. I may have a problem.
🔥 Our Verdict: WATCHABLE. 12 Monkeys is fast, smart, addictive television that turns time travel, a deadly pandemic, and a growing conspiracy into one hell of a reason to hit the next episode.
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