This show just continues to prove itself. Only three episodes in and we're already fairly invested in our main characters, we've already had a major death, and the villain has just been given some pretty major depth. Not only that, but the plot is unraveling quickly. The 100, or now 94, are going to be geared up for civil war meanwhile a threat of unknown strength lingers just outside their domain, not to mention the other secrets that the uninhabited Earth holds for our characters.
In that sense, this show isn't afraid to go where other CW shows may not go. It has several elements of a CW show, such as the "too-beautiful-to-be-real" characters and the teenage mains, but it also has several elements of much darker shows such as AMC's The Walking Dead in that it will force characters to make impossible decisions and have them suffer for it.
It also has creepy little girls.
But let's get into the episode to find out just what all of this means!
The episode centers around Clarke being given just one day to find a medicine to heal Jasper before Bellamy kills him, as Jasper's constant moaning is tearing down morale of the survivors. Thus, Clarke, Finn, and Wells set out. Wells volunteers himself as he is the only one among them who can recognize the medicine, though Clarke is against this because he had her father killed. Right?
Meanwhile, Bellamy's group decides to go hunting, but not before they are interrupted by a little girl named Charlotte. At the beginning of the episode, we met Charlotte, and she told us that she has nightmares every night of her parents dying. This was a running theme throughout the show all the way to very last, very chilling, moment where we see what the nightmare really is and who has to pay the fatal price.
The hunter group is also on the hunt for two characters who mysteriously vanished after a cloud of something came by and apparently hurt them. Staying behind to tend to Jasper are Octavia and Monti, who also have the responsibility of protecting him.
Team Clarke manages to find the seaweed as well as a car. Suddenly, one of the acid clouds appears and chases them. Both Team Clarke and Team Bellamy are forced to take shelter. Team Clarke stumbles upon a bottle of whiskey. Finn suggests they drink it, just because they can, and to spite Wells, Clarke decides she will too. After time goes on, Clarke gets a little happy and calls out Wells, asking why he had her father killed. Wells simply implies he had to make an impossible choice, though does not explicitly say what that choice was. Meanwhile, Charlotte has another nightmare, only this time, Bellamy suggests she fight her demons during the day, figuratively speaking, so she can sleep easier at night.
When the acid cloud blows over, we find that same boy that was hooking up with Octavia now riddled with radiation and is asking to die. Bellamy can't find it in himself to do it, so Clarke steps up, humming a soothing song before stabbing him gently in the throat and letting him die. All while Charlotte watches.
This is the first main area where The 100 is similar to The Walking Dead, in that Clarke is sort of like the Carol character, in Season 4. Carol knew that to save the group, she had to step up and make the play even the strongest would have struggled with. Despite Bellamy knowing this boy better than Clarke, we know that Clarke wants everyone in the group to flourish because they are humanity's last hope. Even if they disagree with her or hate her, she knows that everyone needs everyone to survive. Clarke made the big play and it will either come around to bother her or she will stand by her decision that killing him was the right thing to do.
This also gave our villain, Bellamy, some depth, as it showed that he wasn't a man to just shoot without thinking. Even when someone begged for death, he just couldn't do it. Sure, we've seen him torture people and we've seen him let people fight, but that's just the beast within him. After watching this episode and the events it entailed, I'm not entirely sure that a killer lurks so close to the surface as we may have first thought.
The group returns and gives Jasper the seaweed, nobody speaking of his death really, as the group experienced a similar cloud but were able to hide from it in the pod. Wells goes out on guard duty and it is revealed that he did not have Clarke's father executed, but rather, it was his mother that told the chancellor.
This episode was, well out of the three out so far, the most unique as it added a new element of flashbacks to the show. Normally, we'd see what's going on down on Earth and up on the Ark. This episode, though, we saw the Ark through flashbacks. It took us through the journey of Clarke's father finding out, telling his wife, Clarke hearing it, Clarke telling Wells, and even showing the execution scene. It gave us reason to believe that yes, Wells was the one that told of Clarke's father and his discovery that the Ark was on a timetable.
The past and present worked great this episode as it kept feeding us reasons to believe that Wells was guilty but until Clarke brought it up at the end did we realize that Wells and Clarke weren't the only ones that knew, Clarke's mother, Abby, also knew. Personally I completely forgot about that. This will certainly add an interesting twist to the show once, or if, Abby makes it down to Earth to meet with Clarke.
The end of the episode probably came as a big shock to everyone, as it was our first major death. In hindsight, it makes sense. But when it happened, it reminded me so much of The Walking Dead.
Wells continues to keep watch when Charlotte arrives since she is apparently unable to sleep. Then she freaking stabs Wells in the neck! WHAT. This girl, who is like thirteen at best, just killed off Wells! The reason? In her nightmares, she keeps seeing the Chancellor, Wells's father, ordering the execution of her parents, so in the daytime, when she sees Wells, she can only think of him. Thus, she took Bellamy's words of slaying her demons literally and killed the man who was "responsible" for her nightmares. She hardly feels remorse, too, she just keeps blaming him.
Then, just to really add to the creepy aspect of the show, she hums the same song Clarke did when she killed the radiation boy. She also stabbed him in the same place Clarke killed the other boy. This has me worried. What if this girl has a nightmare of some random person in it? Will she kill them?
We've got a killer on the loose that nobody expects and the Grounders are closing in. The 100 is certainly ramping up to be one of the best series of the spring season, and I really hope it keeps up with this absolutely fantastic momentum.
No comments:
Post a Comment