Terry Matalas Talks 12 Monkeys S2 So Far [Exclusive + “Immortal” Preview] 

First up, a friendly PSA–if you’re loving 12 Monkeys, tell everybody. If you’re DVR banking it to binge later, please stop that and catch up NOW, because the ratings are down this season, and the show needs everybody’s eyeballs on it to get us closer to a season 3.

That out of the way,  let’s catch up with showrunner Terry Matalas on where find ourselves now that Cassie and Jennifer have spent some quality time together, and Cole and Ramse discovered that Deacon is indeed made of Teflon.

In “Bodies of Water,” Cassie went back to 2016 at 2044 Jennifer’s request to try to protect her as a Primary. In doing so, she had to trigger some wicked flashbacks to shake Jennifer out of her newfound equilibrium. Then she had to hope there was enough of Jennifer’s sanity remaining to save her when Olivia came calling again, and slammed Cassie into another Vision Quest.

Matalas says Cassie softened considerably toward Jennifer during the episode because that’s who she is at the end of the day. “Cassie still is all heart. She’s just hurting right now,” he explains. “When she sees how broken Jennifer is, and what a tortured life she’s had, she starts to sympathize with her, and they become friends.”

While she was separated from Cassie, Jennifer came face-to-face with the time map, which foretold the day she will die, among other pertinent information about the whole team, so I wondered why Jennifer didn’t snag it or at least take a picture on the same phone she used to bait Olivia. “At that moment, she had to rush out to save Cassie. She was worried more about Cassie,” he says. “Should they maybe have gone back and grabbed that thing? I don’t if it would be a good idea to go back [through a splinter] and break into [that house, but] it definitely comes back and plays a part [later on], for sure.”

We also saw Cole and Ramse try really hard, and fail, to get Deacon killed, and Matalas says that the arc plays out a theme from season 1. “I think that episode is about them learning to respect each other. For Deacon, they finally did the thing he’s been saying all along. [Cole and Ramse] finally made the hard choice and he respects that,” he points out. “For them, this guy is just hard to kill. And the fact that he came back and didn’t try to kill them… They’re at this impasse, like, ‘We may not have to like each other, but we can at least work together.’ That’s one of my favorite stories this season.”

We’ve also had a treat with the arrival of Michael Hogan as someone very important to Jones, even if she doesn’t remember him, and while the role seems tailor-made for him, Matalas says it wasn’t.  “I just didn’t see what I wanted in casting sessions from other actors,” he recalls. “I remembered meeting Michael years ago and…how fun loving and charming he was. [He’s] unlike his Battlestar persona but [was] exactly what we were looking for in David Eckland.”

This week on 12 Monkeys, the action moves to the 1970s, where we’ll see some rocking big collars and one of my childhood staples, the Diet Coke precursor, Tab, as Cole works on the Primary that Cassie tipped him off to last week, while she stays behind in 2016 with Jennifer and sorts through what she was told, and what she saw.

12 Monkeys airs at 9/8c Mondays on Syfy.  You can also watch the episodes online at Syfy’s website, through your cable provider login.

Here’s a sneak peek of “Immortal.”