12 Monkeys Showrunner Reveals Season 2 Themes

When 12 Monkeys returns in April, the show will have several new twists and turns. With more time travelers – both working for and against the Army of the 12 Monkeys – things are bound to get complicated for our heroes, if that’s what they really are.

“There are consequences for changing the timeline, but not everything changes, some things are constant,” showrunner Terry Matalas revealed to ComicBook.com during a visit to the set. They were a bit beyond the halfway point of the season when we explored the set and talked with cast and crew about their new journey, one that will change the people as much as the time – which in turn will sometimes “change around the people,” he explained. “If you’re part of this mission and you have Jones’s injections, you’re kind of outside of time. This season will deal with that.”

Matalas explained that there’s a sense of entropy to time that is outside of anything explored or explained by science so far.

“Jones is very much a scientist, and relies on Hawking and Schroedinger and is trying to understand time travel,” he said, but at some point, “she learns that she has to throw that all away and look at it another way.”

That means exploring “what time wants, how time works, and how time and human beings play together” in season two, which leads Matalas to the main theme of the season.

“Time is on our side… but someone is against time,” he said ominously.

The someone may be the Messengers, the 12 hooded men we saw at the end of season one taking control of Project Splinter and the time machine.

“There’s only one reason to take over a time machine – you want to use it,” he teased. Whether they’re “villains” or not, though, he wouldn’t reveal.

In the end, the fight against fate and time is one he thinks people in the 12 Monkeys universe can win, “it’s very tough,” though. That leads him to the second theme, and that’s more directly dealing with fate.

“There are many endings, and the right one is the one you choose.”

12 Monkeys season 2 premieres Monday, April 18 at 9pm on Syfy.