{"id":41054,"date":"2018-07-04T11:00:23","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T11:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/25yearslatersite.com\/?p=41054"},"modified":"2022-12-18T00:23:20","modified_gmt":"2022-12-18T00:23:20","slug":"12-monkeys-the-value-of-sacrifice-season-4-episodes-7-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvobsessive.com\/2018\/07\/04\/12-monkeys-the-value-of-sacrifice-season-4-episodes-7-9\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Monkeys: The Value of Sacrifice (Season 4, Episodes 7-9)"},"content":{"rendered":"

“For them.\u00a0 And I’d do it again. This I know.” ~ Theodore Deacon<\/p>\n

“I wanted it to last, but I knew I couldn’t stay.\u00a0 For him, for you, for all those we’ve yet to save.” ~Hannah Jones<\/p>\n

“Either 7 billion people die today, or everyone dies forever.” ~ James Cole<\/p>\n

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” ~ John 15:13,\u00a0 The Holy Bible<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In my last analysis, I focused on different forms and acts of love.\u00a0 I argued that although Cole and Team Splinter were pursuing a weapon to kill Olivia with, this was merely a McGuffin, as Jennifer so aptly put it.\u00a0 The true weapon that everyone will have to use to win their fight against Olivia is love.\u00a0 Out of all the different kinds of love, I stated that self-sacrifice was the greatest form of all.\u00a0 Episodes 7-9 focus primarily on sacrificial acts of both love and necessity for the greater good.\u00a0 Many characters put the needs of others above their own desires, in order that good may win out.\u00a0 I will analyze every character’s sacrifice in this essay.<\/p>\n

—————————————————————————————————————————————–<\/p>\n

In “Daughters,” there is a flashback in which Jones and Hannah both make a choice that may result in\u00a0them never seeing each other again:<\/p>\n

“How long must I be gone?”<\/p>\n

“Long enough to understand and experience all those things which make up a life.”<\/p>\n

“Don’t ask this of me.\u00a0 Not now.”<\/p>\n

“Hannah, this envelope, it’s not a directive.\u00a0 It’s rather, a mssion of choice to be opened only on this date and only after you truly know what I’ve asked you to fight for.”<\/p>\n

“I cannot leave you like this.”<\/p>\n

“Please, Hannah. you must.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jones then sends her only daughter, the woman she has spent the entire series attempting to rescue and form an emotional bond with, on a journey that she may never return from.\u00a0 When Hannah opens up the letter after her violent fight against the two men that interrupt her date, she finds out that it is indeed, a simple request:<\/p>\n

“My dearest Hannah,<\/p>\n

I hope by now you’ve lived a life or at least part of one.\u00a0 I hope you see now what I’ve asked you to fight for:\u00a0 the good under all its complexity.\u00a0 And should you choose to continue, to lay down arms to love or to live, I shall not blame you…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hannah relinquishes her chance at living a normal life in order to ensure that she is able to find Emma.\u00a0 Her brief relationship with the bartender has given her a glimpse of the goodness underneath all the fake facades, and so she decides to turn down a potentially normal life in order to save the human race.\u00a0 It may be argued that Hannah realizes that she does not fit into the former world and thus has given up, but she could always decide to live peacefully on her own in the past and forget the fight.\u00a0 The fact that she’s willing to let this life go is a great act of sacrifice.\u00a0 Her decision to do so eventually results in her finding Emma and giving birth to Cole, two events that must take place to ensure causality.<\/p>\n

Emma’s decision to abandon the only purpose she has ever known, that of completing Titan, in order that she may live a life that is free of evil and obsession, may also be seen as a sacrifice.\u00a0 Although Emma is unaware that her presence in the past will help contribute to Cole’s birth, she is willing to throw away her sole reason for living so far because she has come to understand that her mother is a monster, not the loving person she once thought her to be.\u00a0 This takes extreme bravery and courage on her part.\u00a0 Her travel back in time allows her to come into contact with Hannah, but she is injured at the nightclub.<\/p>\n

\"Emma<\/p>\n

Cole’s father, Matthew, lovingly goes out of his way for a stranger in an attempt to rescue Emma but is unsuccessful.\u00a0 This failure results in him returning to his trailer and building a relationship with Hannah, who he assumes is Marion because Emma called out her name in order to ensure Cole’s birth.\u00a0 Hannah and Matthew fall in love, and although Hannah deeply yearns to stay and live her life with Matthew, she knows that she must leave in order to retain causality.\u00a0 When she speaks to Cole in\u00a0 “One Minute More,” she is talking about herself, not Emma, as we first believe:<\/p>\n

“Mothers die for their children.\u00a0 Yours died protecting you.”<\/p>\n

“What was she like?”<\/p>\n

“Lost, I think.\u00a0 She always said she felt trapped between two worlds.\u00a0 The one she was raised in and this one.\u00a0 She grew up without her mother.\u00a0 Never knew her father.\u00a0 I don’t think she realized how much that had shaped her until she was faced with the idea of giving you up.”<\/p>\n

“So she left and handed me off to my dad with nothing but that bullshit story.”<\/p>\n

“No, the story’s not over yet, James”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She sacrifices both her love for Matthew and son for the world.\u00a0 \u00a0Then, in her final sacrificial act, she takes a bullet for Cole.\u00a0 In the final scene of “One Minute More,” Jones and her daughter and grandson, Hannah and Cole, share one last moment together, all of them aware of Hannah’s final fate.<\/p>\n

After Jones is captured, she is interrogated by Olivia through mind infiltration.\u00a0 When Olivia invades Jones’ psyche, Jones willingly endures watching an illusion of Hannah being brutally murdered by Olivia time and time again.\u00a0 She eventually relents and reveals the location of the weapon to Olivia.\u00a0 Olivia is unaware, however, that this was Jones’ plan all along.\u00a0 The team back at the facility needed a tether in order to travel back to the location of the weapon.\u00a0 Deacon asks her why she waited so long to reveal the location of the weapon:<\/p>\n

“I’ve lost her once for good, and now I’ve lost her forever.”<\/p>\n

“Hannah is fine, Jones. Wherever she is, she’s okay.\u00a0 None of that shit was real.”<\/p>\n

“The fear of losing and the memory of loss is no less painful than the moment itself.”<\/p>\n

“Then why didn’t you give it up sooner?”<\/p>\n

“I needed Olivia to feel as if she’d earned it–a lesson she once taught me.\u00a0 The only difference:\u00a0 I learn from the past.\u00a0 She runs from it.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Putting herself through that kind of pain and agony for the benefit of her friends and mankind is a tremendously heroic act.<\/p>\n

Jones’ sacrifice allows Cole and company to travel back to\u00a0medieval times (not the attraction, as Old Jennifer jokes), but before Cole can use the machine, Jennifer blocks his path and insists on splintering first:<\/p>\n

“Wait, no, wait!\u00a0 If you’re the-whatever-the chosen one, you can’t go first.\u00a0 It’s too risky.\u00a0 Adler’s right, we’re blind.\u00a0 We’re in the fog.\u00a0 And I have always been your seer, from the beginning.<\/p>\n

“No-”<\/p>\n

“No.\u00a0 That’s my role in all this.\u00a0 To make sure that you get where you need to go.\u00a0 So you follow me this time.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jennifer knows that she’s taking a huge risk.\u00a0 As Adler told the group, they’re in the fog.\u00a0 They may end up in a different time than they’re shooting for or even a different location.\u00a0 They’re not even guaranteed a return home.\u00a0 Jennifer’s love for her friends has allowed her to take a leap into the unknown.<\/p>\n

\"Cole<\/p>\n

Eventually, the whole group, plus Jennifer, find themselves climbing the stairs in order to ring the bell.\u00a0 They reach the “weapon” which appears to use Splinter technology.\u00a0 Using their bell to create a paradox with the one on the pedestal, they activate the machine.\u00a0 But Olivia’s arrival results in the group’s capture and the destruction of the weapon.\u00a0 The team is lined up, knees on the ground, and death seems imminent.\u00a0 Olivia calls for Cole’s head, and he’s about to be brought to her when Deacon interrupts in order to save Cole’s life:<\/p>\n

“We honor time with patience.”<\/p>\n

“But Jesus Christ, you dishonor it with your endless speeches!\u00a0 Your Red Forest?\u00a0 Your perfect moment?\u00a0 Yeah, it’s dinner theatre.\u00a0 It’s a one-woman show for – let’s face it – a one-woman audience.”<\/p>\n

“A man who turns once, turns twice.\u00a0 Your loyalties were predictable, Teddy.\u00a0 Playable.\u00a0 You wanted a purpose?\u00a0 I gave you the one I needed you to have.\u00a0 To bring them here…to me…to die.\u00a0 My toothless bloodhound.\u00a0 You gave away everything you could have been.\u00a0 For what?”<\/p>\n

“For them.\u00a0 And I’d do it again.\u00a0 This I know.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Deacon surely knows from the moment he opens his mouth that he’s sacrificing his life.\u00a0 He would have to be a fool not to realize this, and we know he’s highly intelligent.\u00a0 He’s come so far from his selfish and evil tendencies towards the beginning of the series.\u00a0 Now he’s willing to give up tremendous power in order to die for what he knows is a benevolent cause.\u00a0 His conversation with Olivia and the execution buy enough time for the time suit to turn up so that Cole can use it to rescue the party.\u00a0 Tragically, Olivia’s team paradoxes the temple after Cole escapes with everyone, so Cole is unable to return to the site and rescue Deacon before he is killed.<\/p>\n

\"Olivia<\/p>\n

The chalk marks that Jennifer leaves on the wall at the end of “Demons,” by sacrificing a great deal of energy, no less,\u00a0 are deciphered by the crew in episode 9, “One Minute More.”\u00a0 They turn out to be a collection of all the time jumps that Cole has made throughout his journeys, although Team Splinter does not notice the significance of this particular detail when they first solve the riddle.\u00a0 They discover the date for the day the virus was released in the\u00a0 JFK Airport, April 3rd 2018, only to arrive too late.\u00a0 They return earlier, grab the vial from the lab, and return to the hotel to find Hannah waiting for them.\u00a0 After a brief, yet heavy, conversation, the group concludes that they were sent there by the primaries not to stop the plague but to release it themselves.\u00a0 Cassie is vehemently opposed to this idea, but Cole convinces her to follow through with the plan :<\/p>\n

“No, no.\u00a0 This whole mission has been about saving 7 billion people, not killing them.\u00a0 You can’t ask me to do this.\u00a0 For what?”<\/p>\n

“Either 7 billion people die today or everyone dies forever.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then later in the airport, he repeats her words back to her in an effort to reassure her:<\/p>\n

“Cole…there was a time we made a promise to these people.”<\/p>\n

“Just remember what you told me.\u00a0 Over and over again before we even met.\u00a0 Sometimes terrible things happen so that great things can happen next.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Once again, we have revisited the symbolic cycle of history and rebuilding, sin and redemption that I analyzed in my first article.\u00a0 Cole and Cassie are meant to spread the virus.\u00a0 As Cassie says, “All this time, it was us.”\u00a0 This is the largest sacrifice so far, a sacrifice that kills over 98% of the earth in order to ensure the survival of 2%.<\/p>\n

\"Remains<\/p>\n

But the most devastating sacrifice that just might have to be made is that of Cole himself.\u00a0 Once Jones, Adler, and Jennifer discover that he is the Djinn, they conclude that the “weapon” that the group spent so much time searching for was meant to erase Cole’s existence.\u00a0 Now that the weapon is destroyed, will the group need to rebuild it in order to erase Cole from the timeline?\u00a0 Or will Cole be given an easier way out?\u00a0 With the way that the themes are lining up, I highly suspect that Cole might have to make the ultimate sacrifice.\u00a0 After all, as the show foreshadows, the only fate worse than death is having never existed at all.<\/p>\n

Notes and Observations:<\/strong><\/p>\n