This was such a fantastic episode... and it's not even my birthday.
I can't be sure but as far as I can estimate Octavia and the undergrounders aren't being shown in the same episodes as everyone else until they are able to escape the bunker. I really enjoy the poetry of that. That means we only spent time with Clarke and Maddie, Bellamy and Co. and the newbs this week. No word on Kane's cage match or where Abby ended up.
There are so many parallels between what is happening in season five to what happened in season one. The newbies on the block are a lot like the original 100 when they landed. Disorganized law-breakers doing what they have to to survive. And the writers seem to be going out of their way to make sure we don't confuse these newcomers with the original ragtag miscreants. I mean how many times did Bellamy really need to repeat the word murderer? We get it. We're still on team Bellarke. (Kindly note: I use Bellarke as a team name. Not a shipname.)
Bellamy and Raven are forging ahead to get everyone back to the ground. Bellamy is feeling pretty desperate to reconnect with his sister while Raven's guilt is pushing her forward. Lo and behold! Houston, we have a problem. Someone has to stay in space in case the threat of murder actually needs to be carried out. Gasp! On one hand, there isn't a lot of contrived avenues that the 100 powers that be won't take in the name of dramatic tension and hey, they almost always pull it off beautifully. So maybe I owe them the benefit of the doubt here. I have one main gripe though. Bellamy just read off the rap sheets of these people. Mostly (if not all?) are murderers and I assume that is true for the team that got to field trip down to the valley. Why on earth would he bank on the idea that the murderers on the ground would want the murderers they abandoned in the sky to live? Seems like an all too silly backhanded way to separate them from Raven. And Murphy since he was so desperate to take that dig at Emory. Although it was a little worth it to see the look on his face when he realized his mistake.
Does anyone believe that Raven and Murphy won't make it back to earth? Should I be more invested in their stranded state? Maybe what we're meant to be invested in is what it will cost to get them there... the price one or both of them will have to pay. I don't know. I'm rambling. I keep comparing this new season to the first season. Would that make Raven, Murphy and the napping murders akin to Abby, Jaha and Kane from way back when... Can we gleam anything using this comparison to what they will be up against? Mutiny? A culling? Oxygen sickness? I'm rambling again.
On the ground, Clarke starts out scrambling to protect Maddie and the valley. In much the same way Jasper was impaled in season one, Clarke traps one of the prisoners in order to lure his friends to be gunned down. It's interesting seeing Clarke struggle to regain the natural edge she's had over her enemies since the show began. Charmaine captured her, was able to correctly assert that she understood English and was using the radio to track movements and in the end got her talking and negotiating all without breaking a sweat. That's usually Clarke's badass roll, right?
And then the bffs come face to face again. Clarke now knows that her friends lived and he knows that she didn't die in the death wave. It was a pretty great moment. Almost as good as when they realized how happy they were to see each other when Clarke escaped from Mt. Weather.
This was everything I love about the show, artfully turned on its head and wrapped in a bow.
4 out of 5 human shock collars. :/
Bits and pieces
When Maddie came out of nowhere to save Bellamy and the gang, I thought it was Octavia for half a second. And that made me think that I hope Octavia as a queen is able to give me the heartfelt sibling reunion that these two deserve. Who remembers them finding each other in the pilot?
It's probably because not enough time has passed and Clarke hasn't showered, but everytime I see the red in her hair I am reminded that she is the commander of death. Is that intentional?
I loved Emori and Murphy together, but I like the friendship between Murphy and Raven too. He did shoot her, though.
The 100 has been renewed for a sixth season, y'all! Let's celebrate.
Charmaine: "283 lives for one. She must be pretty important to you."
Bellamy: "She is."
I think they showed Charmaine to be an incredible foe...I like how they did it in a subtle way and not through a show of force. She out maneuvered Clarke and left her desperate and with no moves pretty quickly.
ReplyDeleteWhile I enjoyed Bellamy and crew, I'm less enthused by the direction of the show this season than you. Yes, Charmaine was effective, but seriously, what did Clarke think was going to happen? Did she really think they're going to get back into their ship and leave? The grounders had a sizable advantage in numbers over the 100, and while the 100 had tech, their supply of weapons and ammo was very limited. Clarke should have guessed that she would be massively outgunned as well as outnumbered and direct confrontation is a lousy strategy. Clarke has been annoying me since the last few episodes of last season, and I'm getting fed up with her.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm really not into this whole culling problem cropping up again. How many iterations of the same problem are we going to have?
We can't have a the 100 season without some culling. ;)
ReplyDeleteI agree, if the frozen people on the ship were descendants of the convicts I would buy that they could care about what happens to the cryopods. Byt they are the same people who got locked up 100 years ago. And most likely spent all of that time (minus the mutiny) in cold storage. So why should they really care?