Home Featured TV Shows All TV Shows Movie Reviews Book Reviews Articles Frequently Asked Questions About Us

The 100: The Tinder Box

"So much for building trust."

So much for building anything, for that matter.

Because the newly renovated radiation-proof Ark is toast. The list is also moot. As is the negotiating Clarke and Roan just did.

The actions of two traumatized boys were the only fans to the flame that ultimately turned Arkadia to ash. Bad pun intended. Three traumatized boys if you count Roan, which I sometimes do. I still can't decide if I'm down with his leadership style. I think he really wants to do well, and he isn't usually impulsive or stupid or lashing out like a toddler. But how self-assured can a person that was ostracized from his home and family be? I mean, his own mother let him be banished. That has to burn... okay, I'll stop punning now. And I feel like his insecurity makes him easy for Echo (and Clarke) to manipulate which does not a stable leader make.

But that's neither here nor there. Riley is off his rocker. He's a loose cannon. Since when do we give loose cannons heavy artillery?? And it's not his fault. An army was coming. What was he going to do, not help? But how did no one else recognize that idiocy? And Ilian is going through the same struggle. Getting chipped into murdering his family is rightfully haunting him and he thinks that getting rid of technology will prevent it from happening again. It's not his fault that he doesn't understand the difference between a life-saving radiation-proof ship and mind control technology.

I'm terrible with computers and technology so I feel your pain Ilian. From what I pieced together, Raven was unplugged from the City of Light incorrectly and it's given her some kind of mindmeld with ALIE. Or Becca. Or something (side note: I wonder if Lexa is in there too trying to send Raven secret love notes for Clarke). And the mindmeld is giving her knowledge about things that Raven never learned, but Becca did. So Raven has the ability to know how Becca created nightblood and the flame and where she hid her rockets. But only if she thinks about it hard enough to give herself a stroke and even then she can't process the info as fast as her superbrain can so she has visions to receive the information. I think. Except the only known fuel for the rocket was in the Ark, wasn't it, and what's a rocket without fuel? And now Abby is hallucinating too. If Abby and Raven get neutralized, who is going to dumb down all the science for us?


What's left of the residents of Camp Dropship keep coming through in the common sense and long game departments. There is certainly a case to be made that they are also the main cast members and therefore they'd be the ones the writers want us invested in. But is it more than that? Does Monty have a stronger grasp on the repercussions of not sticking to the plan because he's been playing at this longer? And Riley just can't see past not wanting to end up an Ice Nation slave again? Another example is Miller's Dad getting down with setting fire right outside the only feasible means of survival when Clarke thought right away to take the fight away from camp. Is Clarke and co. stronger because of the support system they built when they were all alone and depended on each other so heavily? Am I babbling?

The overlapping scenes of the new plan to split Arkadia 50/50 with Ice Nation and chip on his shoulder guy blowing it up were nicely done. It was an almost funny representation of what life on the ground has been since The 100 was thrown to Earth. What are those mythical snakes that grows three more heads when one is cut off? A hydra? And I really, really enjoyed Bellamy getting his groove back in the nick of time to rationalize that his sister had to be alive, talk Echo into letting him tag along and talking Riley's finger off the trigger.

Stop arming Riley. 2 out of 4 Hydras, because (like many others pointed out), so, so stupid. Lazy writing.

Bits and pieces

The title makes me think of some kind of seven minutes in heaven game for Tindr users. But what it actually is, according to the internet machine, is something that is easily set on fire.

Chip on his shoulder guy has free reign of the ship. Not good.

How did Ice Nation grounders know that lasers on the chest meant guns were pointed at them? I guess from the mountain men, but would that work even if there were no guns or bullets and it was just a light? That could come in handy. Give Riley a flashlight next time.

It's fun seeing Clarke and friends can still come up with the smarter plan, but those giant boulder got moved into Azgeda's path pretty quickly.

The joy that flashed across Bellamy's face when he realized that Octavia was probably alive and again when Monty confirmed it could not have been any cuter.

It rubs me wrong that Clarke can trust Roan's bloody handshake when he went back on their first alliance so quickly. And at what point do you stop giving people second chances? How many knives to the throat are too many?

How was the lab not dusty at all?

It's a little shady how ingrained in the story Riley is when we literally just met him. Maybe the writers are trying to make us emotionally invest in him so they have someone to kill off this season. If so, it isn't working on me yet. But I can pretend if it means the ones I actually care about get to stick around.

Octavia has now survived being stabbed, falling off a cliff into a rocky river and an explosion in like a day. Sure.

Clarke staring down the army was awesome.

Raven comparing her hallucination to spacewalking and Octavia trying to tell Ilian about how much she hates her former prison are the kinds of continuity that I love. It was almost enough for me to give this episode more hydras.

Harper: "You're citing Pike?"

Echo: "What if it's a trap?"
Roan: "It is a trap. We're already in it."

Monty: "This is a tinder box. One shot and we'll be at war. If you do this, it will be a massacre."

Bellamy: "Riley? He shouldn’t even here!"
Monty: "That seems to be the consensus."

Abby: "I'm afraid if you keep pushing like this, you're just gonna make things worse."
Raven: "I've been through worse, Doc."
Abby: "Not worse than this."
They really aren't going to stop torturing Raven, huh?

Clarke: "You think you can shake my resolve? I was willing to sacrifice my own mother to stop ALIE."
Roan: "And I was willing to sacrifice mine to help you. Ain't we a pair?"

Bellamy: "Don't you ever get sick of it? The sides. My man, your king. Prime fida doesn't give a damn about what clan you're from."
Echo: "I'm glad you'll get a chance to say goodbye to your sister before it comes. Unless we all die here today."
Bellamy: "If you had killed her, these chains would be around your neck."
Echo: "It's like Queen Nia used to say: War makes murderers of us all."

Two weeks until the next episode.

4 comments:

  1. The Riley character is incredibly annoying so far. I did like the Echo and Bellamy scenes surrounding it though.

    Within the context of the show Raven's 'powers' and explanation was pretty simple, straight forward and already suggested literally the episode after Clarke saved her last season.
    Roan is likeable because he is capable of lashing out but also being unreasonable at the same time..I guess that's an accurate King.

    Ice nation grounders battled Pike and Farm stations, the grounders have been aware of Skaicru's guns since early season 3..

    It annoyed me at first that no one payed attention to Ilian but he had just carried in Octavia (only person who knows his true agenda) who had warnings of war in that moment he was a hero and easy to overlook in favour of the massive army marching towards you.

    This is not an attack on this reviewer because its a pretty fair and well reasoned review but i have noticed a trend with many other 100 reviewers that they tend to criticise, highlight and constantly refer to the shows flaws current and past way more than any other show..Even ones on the same network...I mean i love all the comic book shows on the CW for instance but they are rife with many more flaws and worse flaws than the 100 and they rarely get called on it..even when they are the 'but it was fun' excuse comes out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous, no offense taken. You make excellent points.

    As a big fan of The 100, I just didn't like this episode (obviously). It felt too sloppy. But, hey, at least we can agree that Riley is annoying AF.

    ReplyDelete
  3. To be honest both Riley and Illian are characters from the Pike school of character building created only to create conflict. While both have sympathetic reasons to act like they do I just don't feel any sympathy and I was rooting for Echo to kill both and be done with them and their interference on the plot. The world of the 100 is such a crapsack world that sob stories just don't have that much of an impact like in normal world shows. Especially if all of the characters have them.

    Maybe i'll get my wish with Illian in the next episode since I can see Azgeda pushing for an execution for what he did. Also I think they just lost all the rocket fuel so no synthetizing Nightblood in space.

    ReplyDelete
  4. both Riley and Illian are characters from the Pike school of character building created only to create conflict.

    Yes. And that's why they were so extremely boring. Jasper in season one started firing against grounders out of nowhere and that led to war. Finn in season two went crazy and that almost led to war. Pike happened. Can The 100 just stop with one character ruining the hard work of everyone else? Those characters' actions are dumb, contrived and not interesting to watch at all.

    You have more sympathy for Ilian than I do, Laure. I understand that he went through great trauma, has limited knowledge and believes all tech is evil, but he practically erased humanity's chance of survival, therefore I can only see him as immensely dumb. I was surprised he went through with his plan, though. I thought the writers were just squeezing some tension into the plot, like on Riley's case. Now, what?

    I thought it was kind of ironic that Roan and Echo watched Arkadia go down in flames right after they came to conquer it. It just goes to show how stupid is war.

    So... Abby and Raven are dying. Then again, everybody is on the brink of death. It's hard to worry about them when you already have to worry about everyone, which is a problem with this type of high-stakes storyline.

    Also, how rich was Becca?

    ReplyDelete

We love comments! We moderate because of spam and trolls, but don't let that stop you! It’s never too late to comment on an old show, but please don’t spoil future episodes for newbies.