The Night Room

"" is the fifth episode of Season 1 of 12 Monkeys. It first aired at 9:00 p.m. on February 13, 2015 on Syfy.

Synopsis
[James Cole|Cole]] and [[Cassandra Railly|Dr. Railly]] face off with the Army of the 12 Monkeys when both discover the Night Room -- an off-site, black ops lab that houses the virus that will one day destroy the world.

Plot
So here it is 2011, and Jennifer Goines is delivered to the Night Room, a special lab that keeps her daddy’s little secret. It’s crazy secure and then in 2015, there’s Jennifer again, this time with different kidnappers (the Pallid man) – asking her where it is. Life is funny that way.

In 2043, Cole is getting ready to jump back to 2015 to see the Night Room. Cassie has found it through some connections at the CDC, and Jones is ready to act, as soon as the time machine is back up and running. Cole tells Jones that his ritual before jumping back in time, is getting his drink on with Ramse — so Jones decides to join them. She explains that if the timeline changes, that is, if Cole is successful, they’ll all just disappear. Also, they learn that Jones was married but, as she says, only a few days.

The party is interrupted when the core melts down a bit and explodes. When Jones and Cole demand that it be up and running by the following day, Ramse is worried. They are working too fast and getting reckless. But there can be no time to lose. Cole jumps to 2015, and he and Cassie travel to a building that looks like a restaurant supply business, but Cassie believes it to be the Night Room. When they break in, they bump into Ivan (a lab tech), and then are almost instantly captured by... the Army of the 12 Monkeys. The Army of the 12 Monkeys locks Cassie, Cole, and Ivan the scientist in the Night Room while they look for the virus. Ivan tells them that the vault with the virus can’t be accessed by anyone who works at the facility and that not even the Markridge people know that there’s been an attack. Now, the facility has a failsafe, where the lights can burn everything up to 1800 degrees – the problem is both switches have to be thrown at once. And one is near the vault and is basically a suicide mission, but would kill the virus. Just then, the Army comes back and takes Ivan, leaving Cassie and Cole to themselves. The Pallid Man talks to Ivan and kills him when he finds out the vault can’t be opened by anyone currently at the facility.

In 2043, Ramse and Max are concerned about the whereabouts of Cole, and Jones is not giving up any of the information. Max tells Ramse that West VII used to tell stories of an evil German doctor who turned people inside out. Ramse protests but also realizes that he doesn’t know much about Jones. Back in 2015, the Army has brought Jennifer Goines into the facility to help them with the vault. But first, the Pallid Man is going to shove bamboo under Cole’s fingernails and jabber on about ”The Witness” as the mastermind of this whole thing. (hell if we know). Cassie is horrified to learn that it was Cole who killed Henri in Haiti. He moves them back up to the lab, and they discover Jennifer Goines, cowering in the corner.

In 2043, Ramse is snooping around in Jones lab when he discovers Jones’s inner sanctum. He learns that in creating the time machine, she most certainly killed some people with the splintering machine. And that some of those she sent back were lost in time. Meanwhile, in 2015, The Pallid man gets the vault open and reveals the origin, a skeleton figure that gave birth to the strain of the virus.

So, the good news is that the origin has a failsafe system around it that melts people if they get too close. Not only that, but when that failsafe system is activated, Markridge Security is notified. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the Pallid Man has decided that Jennifer Goines is needed to continue to actually get the virus before the Markridge security forces show up. And it doesn’t look good for her. Meanwhile, in 2043, Jones confesses to Ramse that she had to send some samples back in time to complete the project. He tells her she needs to start considering giving up because it doesn’t seem to be working. What Jones is looking to bring back is not just the people, but also the ideas that went missing when humanity was lost. Jones promises Ramse she won’t let Cole die like the others.

Back in 2015, the Pallid Man wants Jennifer Goines to give him the failsafe codes to shut off the system that incinerates everyone that tries to get near the virus. And in the process, she learns that Cole is the one who murdered her father. Up in the lab, Cassie is infuriated because she can no longer trust Cole (because he killed Henri back in Episode #3 and lied), and Cole is moved to monologue about forgiveness for all of the killing, even though he knows he doesn’t deserve it. That’s when Jennifer Goines comes in and thanks Cole for killing her father.

When Jennifer enters the codes for the locked door, Cole realizes that Jennifer has the codes for the vault and that they can destroy the vault. Cassie goes back upstairs to get a mask and Jennifer goes a little nuts (okay, a lot. It’s Jennifer Goines). She enters the failsafe code and then they realize that the Army is still here. The Pallid Man has tricked them into thinking they left because of the imminent Markridge security forces’ arrival. Cole thinks fast and makes eye contact with Cassie to operate the failsafe that sets the Remains, the evil 12 Monkeys guys sans Pallid Man (who is upstairs with Cassie), everything on fire (well, after he and Jennifer take shelter in the vault). But also, not for nothing, Cole has a weird flinch of pain when the Remains are wheeled near him as Jennifer says ”There’s something about its eyes” — uhm... could he BE the origin?

Back in 2043, Max confronts Ramse about what he saw in Jones’ room (he keeps mum). In 2015, Cole begins to splinter as the Army of 12 Monkeys takes Cassie hostage. Cole returns to the future, where he finds he’s in a new timeline — one where the West VII are in charge of the Temporal Facility.

Production Notes

 * Noah Bean (Aaron Marker) did not appear and was not credited.