Todd Stashwick Interview: 12 Monkeys' Deacon, Jones and “The 12”

Todd Stashwick on 12 Monkeys season 2: Deacon changes sides, sort of

The cast and showrunner of Syfy's time-travel drama 12 Monkeys used New York Comic Con 2015 to preview a second season that would arrive in April 2016. The panel promised new eras, bigger threats and answers to some of the first season's largest questions. After the panel, Barbara Sukowa and Todd Stashwick sat down with reporters at a press roundtable to talk about the season's central problem: what the heroes do about “The 12.”

Stashwick, who plays Theodore Deacon, and Sukowa, who plays Dr. Katarina Jones, both moved up to series regulars for season 2. That is a useful detail, because it matches what they described: more screen time, more complicated people, and relationships that rearrange themselves.

The first question put to them concerned the power dynamics. Season 1 ended with Jones humbled and Deacon on shaky ground, so how would those shifts play out? Sukowa started with Jones. In the first season, she said, Jones's intellectual confidence did not help her much once brute force entered the story. In season 2 she has to deal with that. Personal issues come to the surface, the plague and time travel matter more, and Jones has to go to the bottom of why she is doing this mission at all.

Stashwick answered for Deacon with a joke that is also a character summary: the apocalypse makes strange bedfellows. By his account, Deacon ended season 1 having put his weight behind a faction and realized, about halfway into the finale, that it might not be the horse to back. His line of thought, as Stashwick described it, was that he may be crazy but these people are crazier.

Deacon, Jones and Cole: the baggage

Stashwick was careful not to give away too much, even stopping himself mid-sentence. What he did say is that Deacon is an opportunist who puts more faith in humanity than in the clay-faced figures he has been dealing with. He sees a chance to improve his situation and aligns himself accordingly. As a result, he is not simply an antagonist in season 2, and at times he behaves like an ally. That does not mean the writers have declawed him, and Stashwick stressed that the baggage between Deacon, Cole and Ramse is still heavy.

He added that Cassie Railly brings out another side of Deacon, one in which he feels he can help her survive in this environment. His relationship with Jones, by contrast, did not exist at the start. Deacon was something outside the facility, and the two have to build a relationship from nothing. Sukowa described Jones's view of Deacon as that of a necessary evil, like an arranged marriage in which the partners must deal with each other and sometimes find something good. Stashwick agreed that this lets the cast explore the characters differently from season 1.

The 12 and the Witness

The second question was about the relationship with the 12 who arrived at the end of the first season. Stashwick said that when Deacon got into bed with them, a phrase he enjoyed for the visual, he had little idea what he was joining. He knew only that they would get into the facility and that he would obtain something for his men. He did not know time travel existed. Once he understands how far their plan goes, he sees them for what they are and may want no part of it.

What season 2 reveals, he said, is that the plague was just the opening move. It was a small part of what the group wants to achieve, and the viewer will learn much more about the true nature of the Witness and of the 12.

That led to the question everyone wanted answered: do you know who the Witness is? Stashwick called across the table to showrunner Terry Matalas, who confirmed that the audience would find out during the season. Sukowa added that it comes at the end.

Why the show feels different

Sukowa also talked about the show's treatment of time. In her view, the concepts of time and of humans interacting with time are interesting enough to blow viewers' minds. Stashwick picked that up and said it is the thing that sets the show apart. Beyond the guns, there is a strange psychological and spiritual side, with a hallucinatory, cult-like quality. He did not want the show reduced to people running around with guns, and said the strangeness is part of what makes it special.

Key takeaways from the roundtable

• Jones: Her intellect did not protect her in season 1, so season 2 turns inward and asks why she is on the mission.
• Deacon: He moves toward ally territory, driven by opportunism and by doubt about the 12.
• Jones and Deacon: Sukowa likened their pairing to an arranged marriage.
• The 12: Deacon did not know what he was joining, and the plague was only part of their goal.
• The Witness: Matalas said the identity would be revealed during the season, and Sukowa said it comes at the end.

What the interview says about 12 Monkeys season 2

Read now, the roundtable is a good snapshot of what the writers were building. The first season, which premiered on January 16, 2015 and ended with “Arms of Mine” on April 10, 2015, was about a plague and a race to stop it. The cast was already signaling that the second would widen the scope. The show would go from a mission to a mythology, and the characters on the margins, Deacon and Jones above all, would move toward the center.

The interview also shows a cast that was comfortable with the weirdness of the material. 12 Monkeys is a loose adaptation of the 1995 film of the same name, directed by Terry Gilliam, which itself drew on Chris Marker's 1962 featurette La Jetée. The series ran for four seasons and 47 episodes, ending on July 6, 2018. The mix of paradox, cult imagery and gun battles that Stashwick described in 2015 stayed a hallmark.

If one thing stands out, it is Stashwick's willingness to admit how much he could not say. Deacon in season 2 is hard to pin down, and the cast knew it. Readers who search for todd stashwick 12 monkeys are mostly looking for Deacon, and this conversation shows the thinking behind the character's second-season turn.

Sources

• 12 Monkeys (TV series), Wikipedia — cast, characters and series run