- "Once upon a time"...
the beginning of many a story
and yet the ending of every tale.
To tell a story in a way that matters,
it should begin with "now."
Now is the story of two children at play
in the midday sun.
Laughter unaware of love,
until right this moment, until now.
[uplifting music]
Now is the living picture of a perfect day,
blissful and ignorant of tomorrow.
♪♪
Now is the middle of the story.
A good life behind, another ahead.
♪♪
Until finally,
now is the ending of now.
The time once upon a life was lived.
[dramatic music]
"Forever after" is rarely happy.
♪♪
[thunder booms]
[flickering]
♪♪
Please, just a moment longer.
- [echoing] Our Red Forest is in danger.
Those who wish to destroy me are searching for a weapon.
Something ancient built by Primaries,
somewhere in the past.
♪♪
- How can I serve you? - Find it before they do.
And I shall return to you your perfect moments...
forever.
♪♪
[dramatic music]
♪♪
- [breathing heavily]
[bittersweet music]
♪♪
- What is it?
- Oh...
I can't stop trying to figure it out...
How I fit into all this.
Serpent. Demon.
Jones found my birth certificate.
♪♪
- What did it say? - [scoffs]
It was filed months after I was born,
When my mom dropped me off with my dad.
Said her name was Marion Woods.
Just a name. That's it.
- Let's go back.
- Jones says it's too dangerous.
My causality is paramount.
If the weapon really was meant for me to find,
she doesn't want to mess around with before.
We keep moving forward until the end.
♪♪
- The end.
- What is it?
- All this talk about the end, and...
♪♪
You and I never talk about after.
♪♪
[beeping]
[upbeat foreign-language music plays]
♪♪
[whirring]
- [yawns]
[computer alert beeping]
[dramatic music]
♪♪
Holy shit!
[knock at door] Guys, I found something!
Come on, out of bed! Let's move!
Besides, I know what you're doing in there.
Better be careful this time. Butt stuff only!
♪♪
Voilà! Ta-da!
[clears throat] This is July 21, 1966.
What do you see?
- "Climb the steps, ring the bell."
You found it. - Yes!
- Couldn't help but notice the dead guys.
♪♪
Who are they? - Unidentified.
Two men shot to death.
The police at the time believed
it was related to organized crime.
But in the late '90s, a series of reports
related to the Cold War became declassified.
- They were Soviet spies.
What are they doing? - Trying to buy a weapon.
- Their communiqué from the KGB to Moscow,
intercepted by the FBI, said that the seller
was to meet them with a weapon,
which they described as ancient and of unimaginable power.
♪♪
- Unimaginable power!
♪♪ Mystery MacGuffin
♪♪ We're going on a hunt
Primaries from somewhere, "somewhen" in olden times,
built us a weapon to break the cycle, right?
Something Her Bitchness hadn't foreseen.
This could be it.
♪♪
- 1966. It's all we got.
- I'll go with you. - Guys!
Guys, what about the artist formally known as Primary?
both: No.
[The Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer In The City"]
♪♪
♪♪ Hot town, summer in the city ♪♪
♪♪ Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty ♪♪
♪♪ Been down, isn't it a pity? ♪♪
♪♪ Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city ♪♪
♪♪ All around people looking half dead ♪♪
♪♪ Walking on the sidewalk hotter than a match head ♪♪
♪♪ But at night, it's a different world ♪♪
♪♪ Go out and find a girl
♪♪ Come on, come on, and dance all night ♪♪
♪♪ Despite the heat, it'll be all right ♪♪
♪♪ And, babe, don't you know it's a pity... ♪♪
- Report says they're in room 38.
The manager said 37 is occupied,
so it won't be as easy to get the jump
when the seller arrives.
- Well, the time of death is in an hour or so.
Hey, what are you doing?
- What do you think I'm doing?
- Okay, there are two ways this goes.
One, you go in there looking for the weapon.
And what do you know? Bang, bang, loop, loop.
It was us who killed the Russians all along.
Two, surprise... it's the Army of the 12 Monkeys...
Olivia's final suckerpunch.
- I can't sit here any longer.
Let's go stretch our legs,
peek in the window or something.
[dramatic music]
- No rushing in? - No.
I just want to get a breath of good old 1966 fresh air.
Promise.
Come on, it's a nice night.
Hmm?
- Bullshit.
♪♪
- Nice wheels.
Think it's our Russian spies?
- Only if they want to draw attention to themselves.
[distant clattering]
- Shit.
- They're running.
♪♪
- God damn it.
- We're too late.
♪♪
- Must have got out through the window.
♪♪
Cassie.
♪♪
- Whoever killed them wasn't the seller.
[telephone ringing]
♪♪
- Hello?
- Who is this?
♪♪
- You called us.
- You don't sound Russian.
- Why would we?
- You have the money?
- Yes.
- I'm on my way.
- No. Change of venue.
Uh, there's been some local heat.
We're moving. - Where?
- Manhattan. Emerson Hotel, suite 607.
♪♪
- 10:00.
[line clicks, dial tone drones]
- What the hell are you doing? What if this is a trap?
- Then they're walking into ours now.
- If we're lucky.
And history has proven we're not.
- We don't get this weapon, there is no history.
Come on.
♪♪
[car horn honks]
- All right, it's almost 10:00.
You'd better go. - Go where?
- Well, I've been doing some thinking.
We know I make it far enough
to get that splinter suit working again, right?
- Future asshole?
- Right, so, if causality can work against us,
that means it can work for us,
which means I should be all right.
- Listen, present-day asshole, we're doing this together.
- No, there's no way this guy's coming here alone.
We need eyes in the lobby.
Nobody can leave here with that weapon except us.
♪♪
[elevator bell dings]
[indistinct chatter]
- Of course I'm sure.
I hung my coat on the goddamn rack when I came in.
You have a thief in this hotel. - My deepest apologies, ma'am.
I'm sure it's a simple mistake.
[high-pitched whirring]
- Excuse me.
♪♪
[knock at door]
- I'm coming.
♪♪
Sorry about that. [clears throat]
♪♪
Where is it?
- Talk first.
♪♪
- You want a drink?
♪♪
We have, uh, whiskey or whiskey.
[sniffs]
♪♪
- Whiskey. Neat.
♪♪
[indistinct chatter]
♪♪
[door closes]
- The seller's in suite 607.
♪♪
[gun cocks]
♪♪
- The Widow.
♪♪
Take her.
♪♪
I won't be long.
[elevator bell dings]
♪♪
[glasses clink, distant clatter]
- [chuckles]
♪♪
- You're not Soviet. This I know.
Did you kill them?
- Money's all that matters.
♪♪
- Show me.
♪♪
[arm snaps]
♪♪
- Tell me...
do you even know what you are buying?
- A weapon.
- So claimed the Ahnenerbe.
Then again, no one really knows what it is.
I have a man waiting in the bar downstairs.
He will give you a case made of lead.
Your weapon is inside.
♪♪
[gunshots]
[lid clangs]
♪♪
- No. - [wheezing]
- No, James. Are you shot?
- [continues wheezing]
- James. Can you talk?
- [wheezes]
- Can you squeeze my hand?
Squeeze my hand. Come on, squeeze my hand.
♪♪
- [choking] - Stay with me.
Look at me. - [choking]
- Oh, God.
It's poison.
♪♪
[whooshing]
- Dr. Railly!
What happened? Mr. Cole's signature...
- I need you to send me back earlier,
to the beginning of the day, now.
- Why? - He's dying.
- I'm losing Mr. Cole's tether. I can't pull him back.
- What's happening to him? - He was poisoned.
Symptoms of induced paralysis. - His vitals are fading.
- Send me back earlier. I can warn him.
- Give me a few hours,
and I can send you back well before, days even.
- We have to send her back now.
Mr. Cole's causality... if he dies before we send her,
our timeline may shift.
You need to go back before his tether breaks.
- Minutes earlier is the best I can do
without recalibrating.
- Do it.
Dr. Railly, the risk of...
- Paradox, I know. - Ready.
- Initiating.
[whirring]
[electricity flickers]
[dramatic music]
♪♪
[elevator bell dings, telephone ringing]
[indistinct chatter]
- Of course I'm sure.
I hung my coat on the goddamn rack when I came in.
You have a thief in this hotel. - My deepest apologies, ma'am.
I'm sure it's a simple mistake.
[high-pitched whirring]
- Excuse me.
[indistinct chatter continues]
♪♪
[telephone ringing]
[gun cocks]
♪♪
- What are you doing here?
Seller's gonna be here any minute.
What happened to you?
- Moments from now, I'm gonna find you in here dying.
The Tall Man's father... the one from the revival in '53...
he's here for the weapon, too.
I need you to go downstairs,
get other me, and go back to 2043.
♪♪
- Did I get the weapon? - No.
You're going to die. - The seller was here?
- He dies, too. - You're here now.
We can change things. We have the advantage.
[knock at door]
♪♪
I'm not going.
- Don't do this to me.
[knock at door]
- Be right there!
♪♪
Listen, we need the weapon.
It's the only thing that matters now.
- It's not all that matters.
[knock at door]
- I'm coming.
♪♪
Sorry about that. [clears throat]
Where is it?
- Talk first.
♪♪
- You want a drink?
♪♪
We have, uh... - Shit.
Whiskey or whiskey. [elevator bell dings]
♪♪
[gun cocks]
♪♪
Take the stairs.
♪♪
[distant clatter]
♪♪
- [gasps]
[gun cocks]
- He's grown feet and inches
in the decade since we last met.
But you, not a day.
♪♪
Traveler.
♪♪
Well done, son.
.
- Last we met, you spoke of love
I have seldom felt since my own.
My first wife...
Isabella.
Aah!
Lived on the same street,
played the same games,
loved the same things.
Each other, most of all.
Married and passed in the same house.
I lost my faith there
but found another.
I didn't want Heaven.
I wanted her.
And there's no tomorrow
but yesterday...
in the Red Forest.
- It's no happily ever after. It's destruction.
- It's freedom.
We live here in the past tense,
trapped inside memory's perceptions.
The after in the Red Forest...
one can arrange moments into whatever you please.
[dramatic music]
Jacks and pick-up sticks
on the same floor you dance on...
♪♪
Where she never has to die.
♪♪
Before the day is done,
I imagine you'll understand.
♪♪
[gun cocks]
♪♪
- Now, now...
if you would be so kind.
♪♪
Face each other.
♪♪
Now kneel.
♪♪
Mm, I know that look.
I see those eyes.
They used to be mine and hers.
Look long enough,
and eventually the light goes out.
[briefcase opens]
♪♪
Where is the weapon?
- You'd have to ask him.
- [chuckles]
♪♪
The business of religion
is transformation...
person into better person,
body into spirit.
♪♪
What I once thought was...
supernatural,
my son found in nature.
♪♪
His Bible is botanical.
♪♪
There's a balance to nature.
Medicines and poisons.
- [grunting]
♪♪
- What one thing does,
the other undoes.
- [gasps]
[grunts]
♪♪
- Amen.
- [spits]
- In a moment... - [spits]
- Neither of you will be able to move.
Your blood will feel like acid in your veins.
Your lungs will cease to function.
Unless...
♪♪
You counteract it with this.
♪♪
- [squeals softly]
- Where is the weapon?
- [gags] - Cassie.
[grunts]
♪♪
- Speak while you still have use of your tongue.
- [grunts] Downstairs.
He said there was a man. With a lead case.
It's where the exchange was supposed to happen.
♪♪
- Choose...
you or her.
- Her.
♪♪
- I'm sorry you'll have to see this.
But when the forest is red,
this is a memory you can rewrite
however you wish.
♪♪
- [wheezing]
- [whistling]
[Cassie gasping]
♪♪
- James, I'll come back. We'll do it again.
We'll get it right this time. - Get the weapon.
[breathing heavily] You can't do both.
.
- Dr. Railly, the risk of... - Paradox. I know.
- Ready. - Initiating.
[whirring]
- What if her plan doesn't work?
- Dr. Adler, I need to you to program a jump
before his tether breaks.
- The best I can do is 13 hours earlier.
- Do it.
There's something missing here,
something that can give us the upper hand.
Ms. Goines, can you find it?
- Me?
We got two dead Russians,
a seller of some kind of weapon.
- Of unknown origin.
- 12 Monkeys. - And poison.
So to splinter him back would be futile.
- Okay, so we have to get help back then.
But we can't call the authorities.
Wait. - What?
- That declassified report from the late '90s... who filed this?
- It's redacted. - Yeah, there's...
there's some flowery shit in here for a Fed.
Listen. "We must face this world.
"Learn its ways. Watch it.
"Be careful of too hasty guesses at its meaning.
In the end, you will find clues to it all."
- That's a quote... H.G. Wells, "Time Machine."
- Berlin Wall.
Cole said he had a friend who loved H.G. Wells.
- Agent Robert Gale. He was FBI.
Shot to death in 1961, but this is 1966.
Unfortunately, he's long dead.
[upbeat rock music]
- Unless... - Something would have had to...
- Change.
♪♪
[indistinct chatter, bell dinging]
[telephone ringing]
♪♪
- Y-you must be Jennifer?
- [clears throat]
- Oh, uh, right. Uh, bartender.
I took a cab uptown from the Bronx.
Uptown from the Bronx? - [grunts]
- Smelled like springtime after the rain,
so I'd like a martini, stirred, not shaken, with, uh...
- No, four. Four olives on the side.
- Is this really necessary?
- Good. Now listen.
My name is Jennifer Goines. And I'm...
- From the future. I know.
- Okay. My friends Cole and Cassie...
- Are in trouble. Got it.
- And now we have to be very careful because of...
- The Army of the 12 Monkeys?
This ain't my first rodeo, sister.
- Fine! Worst spy ever!
First question... how are you still alive?
[dramatic music]
1961. That's when you die...
shot in East Berlin, trying to cross the wall.
[gunfire]
- Sometimes you just have to go it alone.
- Gale. Gale!
- This is for you. - What is this?
- Fate. [gunfire]
♪♪
- [coughing]
- [speaking German]
- Easy, easy. Easy.
[laughing]
♪♪
[grunts, laughing]
Fate, my ass.
[laughs]
[engine rumbling]
[engine stops]
- It's a real gas guzzler, that one.
[Dick Flood & The Pathfinders'
"I Didn't See You Standing There"]
♪♪
[suspenseful music]
♪♪
- Psst. We're running out of time.
Cole and Cassie are probably here already.
- Relax.
Wait until the Tall Monkey Man arrives.
Grab him after he kills our Commies in there.
He'll never get near Cole or Cassie.
And, Jesus, would you please stop pacing?
- Hey, there's a lot at stake here, pops, okay?
My friends, the fate of the universe,
time and space.
On that wall in there is a message
passed down to me through eons.
- I know. "Climb the steps and ring the bell."
- Ding! I got to know what it means.
♪♪
[sighs]
♪♪
I could just ask them.
I could go right now and ask them before they die.
- No, you can't.
- Monkeys are gonna ice them anyway.
We've got time. - What are you doing?
♪♪
Are you insane?
♪♪
- Yes.
Sorry to bust in on you guys. Just one question...
"climb the steps, ring the bell,"
what does it mean?
♪♪
Shit...
- What the hell is wrong with you?
♪♪
Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It's us!
We're the reason they find the room like this.
- It's an oops loop.
- All right, well, that's it. The jig's up.
As soon as Cole and Cassie come in,
we tell them exactly what's going on.
- No, negatory!
We need to save our friends and get the weapon.
- So we got to make them think nothing's changed, then?
- Okay.
♪♪
God damn it. Of course it was me.
Stupid me. Loopty-doopty me.
♪♪
- Oh, shit.
Come on. Come on. - Okay.
- We got to go, now, now!
- Oh, God. - Wait, would you...
Oh! [lamp shatters]
- Shit.
- No, no, no! But this...
- Come on! - I got to close the door.
- God damn it.
- Oh, my God. This means the Monkeys were never here.
- Did you lock the door? [thud]
♪♪
- They must have got out through the window.
- [whispering] Oh, my...
There's no way to get the weapon and stop the poison.
- [whispering] I planned for that.
- What is it? - Easy, toots.
I'm FBI.
[distant car horn honks]
[normal voice] My guy at the Bureau says most likely
Cole's gonna need this... activated charcoal.
It takes a minute to work, but it'll soak up the poison,
stop it from getting into his bloodstream.
Then we got to hit him with this...
pralidoxime chloride.
That'll get him breathing again.
- Is this gonna work? - Maybe.
- Maybe? Maybe's not good enough.
- Psycho, it's quarter to 10:00.
The Emerson's 20 minutes away. Maybe's all we got.
[engine turning over, revving]
.
- [gasping]
- [whistling]
[dramatic music]
♪♪
- Mr. Shaw.
♪♪
Where's the weapon?
♪♪
- FBI! Nobody move!
[distant siren wailing]
♪♪
- We'll see each other again...
when the forest is red.
♪♪
- Don't.
Freeze, now!
♪♪
- Get the weapon. You can't do both.
♪♪
- Jennifer!
- Are you Cassie one or Cassie two?
- What? - It doesn't matter. Okay.
You need to give him this,
but make sure it absorbs for a minute,
and then you got to inject him with this.
♪♪
- I'm about to walk through that door.
If I don't find him like this... - I never show up.
- The weapon.
- Downstairs, man with a lead case.
♪♪
[door opens]
[lid clanging]
♪♪
[Cole groans, wheezes] - No.
No, James. Are you shot?
James, can you hear me? Can you talk?
- [wheezes] - Can you squeeze my hand?
♪♪
Squeeze my hand. Stay with me.
- [chokes] - Oh, God.
It's poison.
[electricity flickers]
[whooshing]
[syringe plunges]
♪♪
- James, come on.
James. Come on, breathe.
Breathe!
♪♪
[grunting]
♪♪
[indistinct chatter]
♪♪
- Hi.
Um, your buddy's dead.
Now, you... you could gamble,
and we could do the whole shootout thing,
but spoiler alert... you die.
Or you could just hand it over.
You pick.
♪♪
Excellent choice.
♪♪
- Deacon!
♪♪
Why are you doing this?
This isn't you.
- Oh, it's me.
I'm exactly where I want to be.
♪♪
[clicks tongue]
♪♪ Don't you
♪♪ Forget about me
- [crying] No.
[grunting] Breathe!
Come on! Come...
[dramatic music]
James, breathe!
[seagulls crying] Breathe!
[grunting]
Don't leave me.
- [gasps] - [gasping]
- [coughing]
[grunting]
♪♪
- Well...
look who's back from the dead.
- [chuckles]
[distant car horn honks]
[liquid pouring]
Hey, uh, Glum and Glummer...
cheer up.
Not every win is a victory.
- This might have been our last chance.
- You said this weapon was ancient, right?
So, uh, why not go back earlier,
to when it was found?
A do-over?
- The seller did mention something about a group
it belonged to.
The Ahnnen... Ahnnener.
Ahnenerbe.
♪♪
- The Ahnenerbe?
♪♪
The Ahnenerbe was a pseudo-scientific
institute in the Third Reich dedicated to researching
the archaeological and cultural history of the master race.
We dismissed them for what they were...
wack jobs looking for magic to win the war.
But there is that...
something the, uh, SS called "Die Glocke."
♪♪
- "The Bell."
♪♪
- What if while the Nazis were digging around the world,
they found something?
Something that was intended for you.
Your Primary weapon.
♪♪
That comes from a interrogation of an SS officer at Nuremberg.
Read the description.
- "An object made of metal,
"carvings of unknown symbology,
"possessing unknown radioactive properties
"that have a unique effect...
on time."
- Just so we're clear,
we're talking about going back to World War II.
♪♪
- Whatever you need, you know where to find me...
or when... when to find me.
- You've done enough. Go live your life.
We'll take it from here.
- Be careful back there.
[electricity flickering]
[whooshing]
♪♪
[chuckles]
♪♪
- Thank you... for everything.
♪♪
I mean this in the best possible way.
I hope I never see you again. - [chuckles]
♪♪
[whooshing]
♪♪
- [chuckles] That...
is just so goddamn cool.
[lounge music]
♪♪
[indistinct chatter, bell dinging]
- This new mission is so profoundly dangerous...
to us, to causality, to time.
- I want to go.
[dramatic music]
♪♪
- No.
♪♪
There's something else I need you to do.
♪♪
- I know what I put you through.
I'm sorry. - Are you?
- [sighs]
Look at this place.
We're running out of chances to end this thing.
- And what about after? - We break the cycle.
Reset time. No Red Forest.
- I mean us.
What's left for us at the end of all this?
A memory... maybe?
The alternate timeline
of a little boy from Philadelphia?
♪♪
- I saw something today.
♪♪
After everything went black...
I saw water.
♪♪
I think it was the Keys.
♪♪
It was beautiful. It felt...
perfect.
♪♪
Nothing could feel like that unless you're there.
♪♪
I don't know what it was. - It was a hallucination...
♪♪
Your brain deprived of oxygen. - Or it was...
♪♪
After.
- You can call it whatever you want.
But at the end of all this, there is one simple truth.
♪♪
We can save the world, or we can save each other.
♪♪
We can't do both.
- Cass...
We always knew this is how it was gonna be.
♪♪
[sighs]
- Before the day is done,
I imagine you'll understand.
♪♪
Witnessing my wife die the way she did,
I wouldn't wish it upon anyone else...
unless I thought they might see...
That without time's will, its shackles,
there is the after of the Red Forest,
where one...
never has to choose anything...
over the ones they love.
Doesn't that sound right to you?
♪♪
- Yes.