Den of Geek: Madeleine Stowe of the original Twelve Monkeys movie did a cameo in the finale. How’d you pull that off? Her character, Lillian, was another Primary. How plentiful are Primaries and why are they all in New York? A great way to look at Primaries is to think of them as if they were parts of a web. So perhaps something — a central event — is tied to how that web spreads out, and that’s all I’ll say. It’s very possible. And when you get to the end of the season and you realize that the “You’re walking through a red forest and the grass is tall” — the mantra that she’s somewhat brainwashed with — was placed there to make sure that a sequence of events took place… I think it’s pretty clear why the Witness would want things to unfold the way they did. Are the seemingly ageless Olivia and Pallid Man wholly unique? So we knew that the Messengers were very strong and had certain healing abilities, similar to Cole with the injections, which leads you to believe that the Messengers were probably engineered to travel through time. One thing we saw with Ramse in season 1 was that after the injections, he aged much slower than he would have normally. Ramse at this point in the series is about 70 years old, but the injections have helped keep him younger. We’ll see similar kinds of aging across the board with Olivia, Pallid Man, and people who’ve had to play the long game in time travel. So ageless people that look old could be even older than we think? Oh, yes! The long streak of hair on our show is a good indication that there’s much more story to be told than what meets the eye. And you can imagine with certain characters that have the injections, that do go back in time, when they appear older they might be even much older. Is Deacon done for? I won’t say what Deacon’s fate is, but we will address Deacon’s fate very soon. I will say about Deacon however that we love both the character and Todd — we would love to have both back. Yeah, there’s a big dilemma since we left a good portion of our team in Colorado… They may have to caravan back to get back to the facility, and who knows what dangers may lurk along the way and what they might pick up… Do you know yet how Jennifer will survive 1917? What’s up with the USB drive Olivia found in a season 1 webisode? Actually, I wrote that webisode! I have an exact reason for why the USB thing exists. Will we get to it season 3? Maybe, maybe not. But the placement of it and how it exists the way it does will be something that we will absolutely explain at some point. Yeah, the Origin is something that we have not forgotten, and we will definitely pay it off when the time is right. In general we really care about the loose ends of the story! In fact, those details are something that we track and actively make sure that we pay off. We don’t want to be the show that sets something up and then doesn’t pay it off, so we meticulously comb through our previous work and re-watch episodes and re-listen to dialogue and do all the things that we need to do to make sure that when the story reaches a conclusion — at some point — you will have had all your questions answered and more hopefully. How integral was fan involvement in getting 12 Monkeys a season 3?
Sean Tretta spoke to Den of Geek from the writers room, where he and the rest of the 12 Monkeys staff are hard at work on season 3. The series was renewed for a shortened 10-episode season and will return in 2017. For the full audio, visit the 12 Monkeys Uncaged podcast next week.
