"If death has no cost, life has no worth."
My first notetaking scribble when I started watching this episode was, "This is so not fair. I got a Finn episode."
I was wrong. This episode was amazing.
What Finn did
Like other soldiers before him, Finn lost control of himself in a tense situation he didn't completely understand, and he killed a whole lot of innocent people, including children. Killing innocents is inexcusable. The Grounders were justified in demanding justice, and threatening war if they didn't get it.
When Abby and the others were talking about never giving Finn up, I thought, he's so not worth it. Why should the Ark survivors die en masse for Finn, who massacred innocent people because he was obsessed with finding Clarke? (Which does not make it Clarke's fault, or Murphy's fault. It was Finn's fault.) At the same time, I understood the other side of the situation. Don't give up one of your own, especially one so young. Especially considering the extremity of what the Grounders had planned for his extended execution.
Finn was a romantic. In the flashback, Finn sacrificed his freedom for Raven's mistake because he was under 18, and she was not. He could have died for it, too. He drew all of the anger and hatred for the loss of three months of oxygen onto himself. How interesting that as it turned out, Raven got the chance to spacewalk, anyway; Finn's original sacrifice was for nothing. He was called "spacewalker" derisively, and yet he never got to experience the freedom of a spacewalk himself.
This time, Finn sacrificed his life instead of allowing the Ark survivors to fight a war on his behalf. He had to be deeply terrified of what was going to happen to him. In his last moments, he knew what Clarke was doing to him, and he didn't struggle or scream; he thanked her. Honestly, it makes Finn seem like a much better person than I've taken him for up until now.
What Clarke did
What Clarke did for Finn was absolutely hard core, and took incredible maturity and strength. Clarke even offered to take Finn's place, and she was sincere. How many teens would have the courage to do something like that? It was so like Buffy in "Becoming," even down to the body language and dialogue. (I wonder if that was intentional?) I also kept thinking of that incredibly upsetting execution scene in the 1992 movie, The Last of the Mohicans. I cried. Not so much for Finn, but for Clarke.
Lexa the Commander saw the difference in the hundreds of Grounders that Clarke killed in battle, and what Finn did to non-combatants. Interesting that Lexa would have been not just ousted but killed if she didn't have Finn executed. Also interesting that she accepted and respected Clarke killing Finn herself. I wouldn't have swallowed all this earlier in the series, but Clarke has become such an amazing character that I totally believed it. It was what Clarke would do.
I also loved that Clarke and Abby have reconnected so strongly, particularly the scene where they clasped hands. They're the natural leaders of the Ark survivors. Forget Jaha and Kane. They've had a few good moments while in command, but mostly they screw things up. In fact, during the Abby/Jaha/Kane meeting, I was pissed that Clarke and Bellamy weren't included. By now, they should be.
What Raven did
I'm starting to like Murphy, and I was angry at Clarke for blaming him, and even angrier at Raven for trying to sacrifice him to save Finn. I wonder how Raven will react to what Clarke did for Finn? Will Raven see how incredibly difficult it must have been for Clarke to kill the man she loves in order to save him from suffering such a terrible death? Or will Raven jump off the deep end because she loved Finn so much herself?
I've always liked Raven tremendously, but letting Finn take the fall for her back on the Ark made me lose just a bit of respect for her. Even under the circumstances.
Bits and pieces:
— Lincoln has recovered but is still in restraints. He is clearly having a hard time with what he did as a reaper.
— Jaha compared sacrificing Finn to sending the Hundred down to the ground. He was right on that one.
— During the scene where the air was escaping from the airlock, I kept saying, "Raven! Put your freaking helmet back on!"
— The transition from Raven in the drop ship to Raven spacewalking was lovely.
— I just realized that Alycia Debnam-Carey, who plays Lexa, is one of the stars of the new show Fear the Walking Dead. It immediately made me like her Fear character a lot more.
Quotes:
Finn: "You're running fluid dynamics specs while we're having sex. I think you've been over it."
Raven: "Multi-tasking."
Murphy: "Byrne actually gave me a gun. I guess we really are screwed, huh?"
Lincoln: "We've all got a monster inside of us, Clarke. And we're all responsible for what it does when we let it out."
Abby: "No offense, Marcus, but I'm keeping the job until this is over."
Clarke: "The things that we've done to survive, they don't define us."
Finn: "What if you're wrong? What if this is who we are now?"
Finn: "Am I going to get in trouble for this?"
Clarke: "I'm soaked in Grounder blood. Take me."
Finn: "Thanks, Princess."
Just excellent. Four out of four barbarians at the gate,
Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.
Clarke and Lexa's interactions always steal the episode and it only gets better. Speaking of Alycia Debnam-carey (Lexa) is so much cooler on this show than on Fear the walking dead.
ReplyDeleteRaven's cry when she realized what had happened was heartbreaking.
Never a fan of Finn from the start, but what he did for Raven was very honorable.
It was also a big move by the writers to kill him off but better for the series as it allows everything to move forward and especially in Clark and Ravens case for the characters to grow.
I really liked the resolution of this episode --- particularly Clarke’s choice and Lexa’s acceptance of it --- but I was incredibly frustrated with Clarke, Bellamy, and Abby through most of the hour for not seeing the necessity of giving Finn up. I was fine with Raven not accepting it, because it made sense for her to not see the bigger picture with Finn’s life on the line (especially given what he did for her). But I felt like Abby, Clarke, and Bellamy had been through enough and made enough tough calls to see that Kane, Jaha, and Lincoln were right. What Finn did was inexcusable, as you say, Billie. He was guilty of war crimes, and no one else should have had to die for his screw up. Especially other innocents.
ReplyDeleteAh, well. At least they came around to acceptance in the end. And the writers allowing Finn to be the one to ultimately make the call, and to accept his own responsibility, was probably the best move for that character. Finn was never a favorite, but they made his arc and his death count for something. Kudos.
I was totally yelling at Raven to put her helmet back on, too!
So here is the episode that cements the greatness the series has become. I'm so glad the writers had the balls to go throught with the inevetible. Now we know that even a place at the beginning of the credits does not make a character safe (I guess apart from Clarke).
ReplyDeleteThe episode itself was the good side of predictable. The obvious flashbacks in a characters last episode (just like Wells had) that explain his entire backstory and inform the decisions he made.
I've been rushing through the season (8 eps in 4 days)and since this is apparently a midseason finale maybe I should take a few days to get this episode to sink in before continuing.
Patryk, I was waiting for you to get to this one. Of course, I was also very impressed with this episode. The 100 really did find itself in its second season.
ReplyDeleteSo my comments are being read, I will have to make an effort to deepen my thoughts for the next episodes then. :)
ReplyDeleteThe show has multiple plotlines going and transfers characters between them with deep planning which would in lesser shows (say like another forest filled post-apocalyptic show with a female lead - Revolution) turn into a random events plot. I guess this shows the advantage of a shorter episode order with longer break in between seasons.
In another random train of thought I forgot to type in previous episodes: Mount Weather surivors are reminding us that there are 3 types of WMDs: nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. While they are suffering from the 1st they themselves use the 2nd (reapers armies) and 3rd (acid fog) which I guess is deliberate in showing how completelty stuck in the ways that lead to the apocalypse they really are and should not be allowed to rule the planet again.
I'm with Jess Lynde on this one. I found it hard to believe that no action had been taken against Finn before, given the severity of his actions and the delicacy of the diplomatic situation with the grounders. The whole "they can't possibly expect us to give up one of our own" thing detracted from my enjoyment of the episode. Particularly given how harsh the justice system on the Ark was. In fact, the whole plot thread annoyed me because I didn't believe Finn would have gotten out of the village alive to start with.
ReplyDeleteAnd while I liked Clarke's final actions (and I liked Finn finally giving himself up), I assumed that was where they were headed as soon as I saw the knife. Killing the Commander would have been idiotic. And Patryk's right that they needed to kill off a major character. There have been way too many near misses (Raven, Abby, Jasper, Finn himself, Lincoln) and you start to lose dramatic tension when you put characters into seemingly certain death too often without anybody dying. I'm kind of getting tired of Jaha's constant unsuccessful attempts to be a martyr.
I can't really blame Raven for letting Finn take the fall for her. If she hadn't she would have been dead, and he still would have been in prison for stealing the suit. And she would never gotten into the situation without him anyway.