Well with most of the known CW shows about to go on a season break, it would appear it is up to its newest entry, The 100 to keep the channel fresh. Sadly, we're closing in on its own season break but then we have the summer and that's for movies, not television. Duh.
Luckily, we keep getting good entries for the series as well as good set-up for what is to come. Character returns, multi-fronted wars, and teenage angst.
All of the angst.
This week showcased how bad things can get based off of distrust. In fact, "Distrust" might have been a better episode, but "Unity Day" is also an ironic title.
Unity Day, for our dear surviving and supposedly civilized humans, is the day celebrated when the thirteen nations of the Ark came together to form the Space Station. On this day, too, Jaha decided to have a big speech about everyone getting to go down to Earth, despite we all knowing that this is a load of garbage since there aren't nearly enough dropships. Somehow the survivors of Earth get video feed of if, which is cut off shortly.
How's it cut off? Well, a bomb goes off that kills six people, including Kane's mother, and he is set off on a path for revenge. Of course our people of Earth don't know about this, and instead decide to party. Octavia slips out to get it on with Lincoln our Grounder friend, but Finn catches them just as they leave the act. Quality timing.
Finn asks for Lincoln to set up a meeting with the Grounder leader, as he wishes to avoid a war between the two sections. Lincoln says that Finn must bring Clarke and he will bring his leader. Of course, Finn is a little worried since Finn is not on Clarke's good side, and of course, Clarke disagrees with him.
She explains that she doesn't trust the Grounder and that since the Grounders attacked first that they have the right to fight. It's fairly obvious at this point that Bellamy is rubbing off on Clarke, and while Bellamy is also a bit relaxed, he is still gungho about fighting the Grounders and claiming the Earth...or at least their little bit of land. Before there is very little chance that Clarke would have wanted war, but, she seeks revenge just as Bellamy would and does.
Going against Finn's wishes, Clarke tells Bellamy to follow behind in secrecy. Bellamy reins in Jasper and Raven to help, too, bringing along some guns in case they need to take care of some business. Clarke and Finn discuss the possibility of things going wrong while Clarke secretly leaves a trail for the trio to follow.
Back on the Ark, Diana pretends to have caught the culprit, and Abby and Kane realize she was not present when the explosion went off. She dances around telling where she was and Kane goes to visit the same guy who had an outburst after the Culling, the big sacrifice thing. Kane tries to find out who it was who sent him but the man manages to escape and the prison section is cut off from its power supply.
Much of the power in Ark is being drained as the first dropship, the Exodus ship, is being prepped, secretly by Diana for her own men to hop aboard. Abby and Jaha are on it inspecting when Jaha takes a squad to go recover Kane in the prison section when one of his men reports the power loss. Abby hides in the ship as Diana appears, with everyone calling her Chancellor.
This is a pretty quick character reveal that was so shrouded in mystery for some time. First we see her being shady, then we, the audience, discover her to be the criminal mastermind, and in just the next episode, everyone knows about it. I don't know, I mean I'm glad that Kane didn't turn out to be the obvious bad guy but I suppose that now Jaha is going to have other things to worry about.
But they're not the only ones worrying, as Clarke and Finn meet up with Octavia and Lincoln, who has brought along the Grounder leader Anya and two armed guards, which goes against Finn's request. Anya and Clarke discuss how the newbies to Earth actually have done far more damage then the Grounders did to the kids. The flares eventually did land and burned a village to the ground, the raiding team to capture Lincoln took out a few Grounders and then they did indeed torture a prisoner, and that these are acts of war. We see here that the Grounders are not so much vicious as they are territorial. When the 98 landed on Earth, they invaded sort of a nest and the Grounders were probably just trying to kick them out. Does that justify the violence? No, but it does give us a motive.
We also get an interesting little tidbit of information from Anya that there have been others before Clarke and Bellamy who have tried and failed with superior technology to fight the Grounders. What. Jasper also spots some archers and spearmen in the trees taking aim at Clarke and Finn.
Back on the Ark Diana preps the Exodus ship for launch as Jaha tires to ply the doors open, which would void the launch sequence and allow his men to get inside. Jaha and Diana have a little argument about trusting or whatever until Diana spits out that there aren't enough ships for all the citizens of the Ark. How this is Jaha's fault I'll never know because that seems like a design flaw for the creators but we'll roll with it. The man trying to ply the doors open manages to slip inside when Abby is discovered and knocked out. The Exodus ship disconnects from the Ark, severely damaging it and forcing nearly half the Ark, thus half of its citizens, to lose power and possibly freeze to death.
Jasper takes action and fires at the Grounder scouts, and with Raven and Bellamy's help take them out. Anya and her men leave while Clarke, Finn, and Octavia scurry away, Lincoln returning to his leader. When the arrive back at base there is a lot of arguing over whose fault it is that this all happened, but, to be honest, I've got to side with Finn.
This was a very Finn-centric episode to probably showcase his surprising stand on the argument. Despite being stabbed by the Grounder, Finn knows that it was out of instinct since he was being attacked, and now comes to not only sympathize with them but also wants peace with them. They've exchanged blows and now that it's done they should try to work together to patch their relationship up. It'll be interesting to see how he reacts when the fighting starts happening and how active he will be in it.
Clarke and Bellamy have a small moment where Bellamy brings up a joke from earlier when they spot the ship that does not deploy a parachute and instead crashes and seemingly explodes on impact, Clarke fearing that her mother was on it and is dead, leaving her fate in the balance.
This episode was pretty tense but mostly served as a bridging episode to get us beyond the notion that peace is a viable way out, that since shots have been fired the Earth is a battleground. Finn and Octavia seemed to be the only ones desiring peace and it will be interesting to see how that plays out for them. The Ark is almost completely powerless and it seems that escape is their only option, so, how they organize that will be a trip on its own.
Next week should prove to be interesting as it is the first act of war. We get to see that one guy, Murphy, come back all beaten up and he has apparently brought with him a virus vaguely similar to the one that the survivors in the prison saw in The Walking Dead. Should this be the case then we will see people dropping like bugs, not to mention the Grounders superior ability to be stealthy and undoubtedly fight hand-to-hand. Advantage is certainly the Grounders in the future of The 100.
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