I rewatched episode 9 of season 1 of 12 Monkeys and then leaped to episode 9 of season 4. And god, it’s such a perfect circle and the continuity is glorious.
I don’t know if Terry Matalas and the other writers planned it this way but in season 1, episode 9 (Tomorrow) Cole is trapped in 2017 and meets this version of Cassie:
And the first time I watched it, I thought it was because Cassie grew older, that would make sense right?
But then after watching the whole series I realized, no, no that’s not the reason. The reason why Cassie has the white streak is that this Cassie has already been to the future and splintered several times!
Cassie got the white streak in her hair from grappling with this medieval dude in season 4 to get the weapon.
Season 1!Cole is still so… not innocent but he doesn’t know what he has in his future, he still thinks it’s as easy as stopping one person.
Cassie mentions how his mission in Chechnya felt like a million years ago because, for Cassie, it has. She’s been through too much. She has done something so unbelievably terrible.
Cassie tells Cole: “A lot has happened since then… with you and me.”
Understatement of the century.
Because to their very horror, the whole mission they’ve set their whole life fighting against. Stopping the plague, saving the billions of lives lost, and to be faced with the heart-stopping realization that they were the ones who start the plague.
Even more horrific for Cassie is the realization that she is the one who has triggered it. She sacrificed so much to stop the plague from happening and to know the horror as a Doctor, whose whole mission in life is to stop it…
Then to compound horror upon horror is the realization that Cole himself has to be erased so they can reset the whole timeline. It’s just…
Time has already made a murdered of Cassie, and now time is taking away the only other person she loves the most.
This is why this back in season 1, episode 9 this hug meant everything to Cassie:
For Cassie she has loved and lost him already, she is the version who returns to this moment to set up everything that needs to be set-up to complete the causality of a time loop.
Like now with the benefit of hindsight:
“I thought it was over… and that you were erased.”
Because Cole hasn’t gone on the splinter chair yet to be erased, this timeline is still going because, in the future, Cole still existed. And Cassie is here in her present-past.
And it also makes so much sense why she’s sick because she was that close to the pathogen, this is why she dies. And this version of Cassie is the body past!Cole will find it in the pilot episode.
It’s all so cyclical and interconnected and it’s just so chef’s kiss.
Best. Time. Travel. Show. Ever.
I completely missed this bit of continuity and holy shit
to me the kicker to arrival is that you gain the weapon/gift of the heptapod language at the same time that louise does. the entire movie you think that the scenes with hannah are visions of the past, because thats how time works and thats how movies work and thats how our brains work, but the moment that louise says “who is this child?” it COMPLETELY destroys your understanding of the narrative and restructures the way u think about time. and IMMEDIATELY afterwards costello tells louise (and us) that she’s seeing the future. like. dude. awesome. the movie opens on hannahs death. every single part of the way this movie is set up is made to trick you into thinking that hannah died before the events of the movie. but no!! the movie is circular! the same way that the heptapods language and time is! the ending of the movie doesnt show anything about hannah getting sick because it doesnt need to, it was said at the beginning. basically im gonna blow up
