The 100 - Anaconda

Discussing Ep. 7.8

So after having to put some stuff on hold to tend to other stuff, I was finally able to catch up on the episode that I missed (I am glad that there is a break in new episodes right now). This was the backdoor pilot to The 100 prequel show and I have to say, I don't know how I feel about it.

Right off the bat, it was somewhat of a relief to know that the "key" wasn't necessarily Clarke herself but rather what she was carrying, which Bill thought was the Flame or the Key, as he called it. So it doesn't seem like it's necessarily anything to do with Clarke herself but rather with what she carries, which is presumably the personality and memories of Calliope, his daughter, and the knowledge of what Becca saw when she went into that special wormhole. I will say this about Clarke though. Even though she can be hypocritical and intolerable at times, I give the character credit for being complex and severely flawed. She's not the anti-hero, per say, but she's definitely not a character that you can look to as a Mary Sue or one dimensional to the point of being unrealistic.

Which could not be said of the prequel character of Calliope. Not that she was a Mary Sue but rather her character was a bit too noble, too righteous, too good considering her family environment and dynamics. I fail to see how she could possibly turn out the way she did and not be influenced at all by the personality of her parents, especially Bill. Bill is a legitimate narcissistic sociopath! That was the diagnosis her mother, Grace (a clinical psychologist), gave to him. Whether she said that as a joke or was serious, Bill's behaviour throughout the episode more than confirmed that diagnosis. Now, maybe I've watched too many videos on narcissism and such and therefore I'm a bit too sensitive on the matter, but it just seems so unlikely that the Cadogen family could exist at all the way it was portrayed in this episode.

Like I said, Grace is a clinical psychologist. It's her job to discover and treat mental illness, disorders and such. The fact that she diagnosed Bill as a narcissistic sociopath AND was married to him AND had two children by him makes absolutely no sense. I'm not saying it doesn't happen in real life, but it seems highly unlikely. Why would she marry him? Why would she stay with him? Why would she have a family with him? That's like a counsellor for sexual abuse and rape survivors knowingly and willingly getting into a relationship with a serial rapist! What possible motivation, other than perhaps money or a sense of survival, could Grace have for getting involved with Bill? She, more than anyone, would know that Bill would be completely devoid of empathy and remorse to the point that he would be both a bad father and a bad husband. Why knowingly create a family with someone like that? Now, if Grace herself were a narcissist, I could probably buy into that more. But that's not the impression I got of Grace at all. The fact that she was willing to die with Callie if Callie didn't agree to board the helicopter was proof that Grace wasn't narcissistic or a sociopath herself. So why be with Bill? How could she be with Bill?

Maybe she fell in love with him and felt like she couldn't turn away from him. That's possible but highly unlikely. She came off as a strong willed person in her own right. Maybe she fell in love and felt like, as a psychologist, she could "cure" him of his narcissism and sociopathy. A better assumption, but it doesn't speak well of Grace and portrays her as either arrogant or naive. In the end, I find it highly unbelievable that Grace could or would marry Bill and stay with him the way she did. I'm sure there's a bigger backstory to it all but making her a clinical psychologist was dumb. They should have given her some other profession and THEN I would have bought it that she fell under his snare and unknowingly enabled him and raised a family with him that produced a second narcissistic sociopath in Reese. And I have to say this....I don't know if the writers were watching Endgame when they wrote this, but having Grace say that Bill "is a lot of things, but he is not a liar!" was stupid. Part of being a narcissistic sociopath involves being a liar! It just does. Gaslighting, manipulation, and attempting to get away with any kind of crime or sin, by default, has to involve lying and deception. To remove that from Bill's character makes absolutely no sense at all! That was a fucking stupid thing to say.

Which brings me to Callie...the girl who should not be. She has a narcissistic sociopath for a father. She has, at best, an enabler for her father's sociopathic behaviour in her mother. She has a narcissistic sociopath in her brother. But Callie somehow, someway, managed to turn out as this righteous and virtuous do-gooder who takes part in protests and activism and seeks to help mankind? Bullshit! The best way I can describe how completely awkward and unrealistic this is is to compare it to the Trump family. You have Donald, the narcissistic sociopath. You have Melania, who at best enables everything Donald does (but to be fair, she seems rather narcissistic in her own right). You have the two sons Eric and Don Jr., who emulate their father's narcissism and insecurities. But instead of Ivanka as the daughter (who bears all the signs of narcissism that her father and brothers do), rather imagine that it was Greta Thunberg who was the daughter in the family! Someone like Greta, with her personality and sense of empathy and wanting to make the world a better place rather than have the world serve her needs, arising out of the Trump family would not, could not and does not make any sense at all! Someone like Ivanka coming out of that family makes total sense. But if she were like Greta, it would make no sense. So how is it that Callie arose out of the Cadogen family as the activist and morally sound character that she is? She can't!

Her brother, Reese, made sense. I could totally see someone like him arising out of that family. I totally wanted to punch him in his smirking fucking face! But that was the point. And credit where credit is due, Reese did show some degree of remorse. He later brushed it off, but you could see in his face when he burned Becca at the stake, when he betrayed Callie, when he saw his mother locked out...there was conflict within him. I like that. I can accept that. Callie on the other hand was far, far too good. Far too noble. And add to all of that, she was the one who created the Trigedasleng language? Considering that JRR Tolkien created his first constructed language when he was a teenager, I suppose it isn't that much of a stretch, so I won't harp on it too much. I'm assuming the prequel series would explain exactly why she created it because it felt like such a random thing to do.

But speaking of unbelievable characters, here we have Becca. The famous Becca, creator of nightblood, creator of ALIE, creator of the Flame. As if those accolades weren't enough, she had to be portrayed as such a genius, such a prodigy, such an amazing and intelligent character that she went to Harvard University....at the tender age of 10! Fuck off! Fuck the hell off! Why did they have to make her into a super fucking genius? It would have been just fine if they had said that at 15 or 16 years old, she went to Harvard and cut through all the programs like butter. Not 10 years old! I swear, whoever wrote this episode feels like they were writing some really bad fanfiction. It just felt like they really stretched the abilities of these characters to a point that they went into the realm of the absurd.

So I'll get to some of the more interesting and positive elements of the episode. I don't know when this episode was filmed or written, but I found this particular shot rather apropos, with the Russian Ankovirus spreading and everyone on the TV screen wearing masks. I thought that was rather funny and I'm assuming that the writers are playing both on the coronavirus and the news of Russian interference in American affairs, so they had no problems attributing a virus to the Russians.

This shot was rather interesting, if only because I had seen something similar before.

In Terminator 3, at the end when Skynet launches all the nuclear missiles to various parts of the Earth, they basically used the exact same shot. I'm assuming it was homage to T3 because if they're going to claim otherwise and say it was a coincidence....I'm not buying it. The shots appear far too similar to be coincidental.

I am very intrigued by what Becca saw when she stepped into the wormhole. What exactly did she see and does it have anything to do with what Murphy saw? She saw it as Judgement Day (another Terminator reference) and felt that humanity, especially Bill, was not ready to encounter that just yet. So what does Judgement Day look like? Was it Heaven? Was it a place that they could all actually go to using the Stone? I think that'd be kind of eerie, almost like Event Horizon where the were able to open an actual wormhole to Hell! Also, why is it that none of the Commanders or those who had the Flame ever knew about this? I'm assuming that the Flame contained records of Becca's experience so why hadn't any of them ever sought to find the Stone on Earth? Why are we only hearing about this now?

On the whole, I don't know if I'm sold on seeing The 100 prequel. They'd really have to work on Callie to make me invested in her as a realistic and relatable character. Though it was nice to see how some of the things that we've come to know on the show came to be, like "from the ashes, we will rise" slogan and Trikru and the language and all of that. Maybe with it's own series, the writers could flesh out everything better so that it all makes sense.

Definitely needs some work though. Onto catching up with the next episode!

The Vampire Diaries - Re-imagined

My alternate version of Season 6 of The Vampire Diaries is further completed with the remaining chapters of Part 2. Onto writing Part 3!

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13060315/1/TVD-Season-6-Rewritten-Part-2

The 100 - The Queen's Gambit

Discussing Ep. 7.7

It was a rather mixed bag of an episode, with a welcome focus on Emori and a rather unnecessary further degradation of Echo, with a battle of wits between Russell/DC and Murphy.

The Emori storyline, though a welcome focus on the beauty that is Emori, felt a bit weird. Suddenly, Emori is enjoying the attention and worship from the various Faithful, to the point that Jackson, Murphy and even Sheidheda feel like it's going to her head. I don't know if they're going anywhere with this and it felt like a rather contrived element to introduce into her character. If there is no pay off or any kind of development from this, then I don't get why they're introducing it at all.

Because speaking of elements introduced that seemingly went nowhere, Emori mentions that "the way out of Hell is paved with good deeds," which raises an eyebrow from Murphy that prompts Emori to tell him that there is no Hell. I found it odd that they're bringing this up again when it went absolutely nowhere last season. They mentioned it a couple of times but then it was never mentioned again. Will it go somewhere this season? I'm hoping it does and that both elements of Murphy's fear of Hell and Emori's ever growing sense of narcissism does contribute to something bigger. At the very least, that they both contribute in some way to the final arc of the season.

The Unification storyline really felt like filler and was used to accomplish two things. First, to get both Emori and Murphy into place so that they could be betrayed. And two, to get Nikki and Nelson on the same side, which is ultimately Russell/DC's side. So I guess it actually accomplished three things. But I will admit that I did like the psychological development that accompanied the various players. We got a better insight into the motivations behind Nikki (which we always knew was that of a criminal and someone who was out for revenge) and behind Nelson (who seemed to want to find his parents). I do wonder had his father not been a complete and proper prick if Nelson would have betrayed Emori the way he did. But I also wonder if Nelson could perhaps be the wild card in the scenario, given that he did seem to make a connection with his mom and was genuinely hurt by the actions of his father. It means, at least to me, that he has some motivations to do good if he perhaps sees a point to it.

Speaking of psychology, my favourite parts continue to revolve around Russell/DC. The chess match between him and Murphy was fucking glorious, if only to prove the point that I made before: only Indra could possibly match wits with Sheidheda. Murphy, for all his sarcasm and cocky attitude, was out of his element. What was cool was that their scenes together truly did feel like a chess match, with Murphy getting in some good moves that led the audience to believe that he had a chance at coming out of their encounter unscathed. The way he was able to get DC off his game by reminding him how Lexa united the tribes and not him was rather good. But in the end, DC was always in control, pointing out how Indra knew instantly what Murphy had to learn with time: that DC was always looking to seek control again.

What I will say that I didn't like about these scenes was both the timeline and how Sheidheda seemed to know too much. It was sloppy writing, in my opinion, to have Emori reveal how her people regarded her as a freak of nature, Freakdraina (or whatever they called her), and discarded her as such. Then here's Sheidheda, referring to her with the exact same nickname to throw Murphy off his game. How did he even know her nickname? And why bring it up now? Then there's his place in Trikru history. I was always under the impression that DC was a commander from long ago, that he was a legend from history. But it's revealed that Lexa usurped him and the Keepers of the Flame united to take him down. So how old is Sheidheda? From what time period does he come from? Indra made it sound like he was a Commander from her parent's era, not necessarily her own (she must have been a child when Sheidheda was around). So now I'm all confused. Maybe Baby can map it all out because I'm lost!

From there we go to Echo and her memories of Bellamy (before the beard...he looked weird to me now without it) and her on their time on The Ring. This was the time when she had beautiful hair and she wasn't a complete nutter! But it served to show the hypocrisy of these characters, which I'm assuming is the point. I had said before that I felt that Bellamy would not approve of Echo's tactics in trying to save him by killing all those innocent people. His line of "loyalty is a weakness when it causes you to do something you know shouldn't" went and proved my point. Echo going all nuts and killing people out of love and loyalty to Bellamy is wrong.

The other point of hypocrisy was the discussion between Hope and Diyoza. First off, I hated the fight scene between them. That was just all kinds of bullshit. Hope could best Echo with ease. She trained with both Dev and Orlando for a number of years in specific hand-to-hand combat techniques. And yet, she couldn't best Diyoza? Bullshit! Not knocking the Navy SEALS in the slightest, but I do know that hand-to-hand combat is actually quite low on their list of priorities in terms of training. So Diyoza shouldn't be that good! And it further highlights how shitty a fighter Echo is when everyone seems to be better than her! Secondly, Diyoza saying how "doing the right thing the wrong way isn't doing the right thing" flies in the face of what she continues to do. Maybe that hypocrisy is on purpose but it's more funny than anything else.

Speaking of funny shit, that scene between Echo and Octavia where Octavia hugs her.....what the fuck was that?!? I will say that in a sense it was touching, but fuck me! That was just all kinds of pathetic acting by Tasya and I felt NOTHING but annoyance by the whole scene. I guess I liked how Echo pointed out how she was made to be the villain in Octavia's bed time stories to Hope, but the way that Octavia forced reconciliation upon her was just....it just didn't do it for me. I know what they were going for and if other viewers got the feels from it all...great! I just didn't feel anything!

Further adding to my annoyance was Echo carving her face up like a fucking Jack-O-Lantern! I suppose I get the idea that Azgeda warriors would cut themselves up at some point as some warrior tradition. My question is....why didn't she do this before? She was loyal to Roan pretty much all her life. Wouldn't she have taken this step prior to this point? What I will give credit for is that they gave Echo the honour being the one to figure out why they were being kept together and were being treated well. It was as a means to recruit them into service, to fight in this war that would apparently lead to humanity's highest evolution.

So we get the big reveal at the end that it is indeed Bill Cadogan who is the Shepherd. It'll be interesting to see how it is that he survived for so long and why he needs Clarke. I still assert that Becca will play a role in this somehow but I'm probably wrong about that. I cannot possibly fathom why Clarke is considered "the key." Unless it means that they're going to kill her....then maybe I'm alright with it. But what has she done or her family have done to warrant her being the key?

Also, will this drawing have anything to do with it? They're getting into Manifest territory here with Madi drawing all these images that don't necessarily mean anything to her but will no doubt be prophetic in some way. Is this image an image of the future or is it merely folks stepping into the wormhole? And how the hell does Madi even know to draw this?

More questions than answers.

The 100 - Nakara

Discussing Ep. 7.6

So this was a rather weird episode. I felt like the Planet Frozen scenes and the Bardo scenes were more filler than anything else and I was far, far more invested in what was happening on Sanctum.

This was another wonderful episode that featured the bad ass Indra. I feel like this more than made up for her absence last season because her character is being featured but also going through some growth. I love the growing antagonistic relationship between her and Russell/DC. I feel like there is no other character that could stand up to Dark Commander the way Indra could and receive his respect the way Indra does. Madi couldn't do it. Clarke definitely couldn't do it. Neither of them have the maturity nor the experience to trade barbs with someone like Sheidheda. Plus, with Indra's own family history with Dark Commander, there really is no other character on The 100 cast that could serve as the main rival to Sheidheda.

And I can think of no other character that could rival Indra the way Sheidheda does. I have to say, I loved his interactions not only with Indra but with Nelson as well. Their fight scene alone was just incredible. He almost literally beat Nelson with one arm tied behind his back! I wasn't counting on him being able to turn the Children of Gabriel over to his side because I figured that they'd be more aligned with Wonkru than anything else because they were against the Faithful and the Eligius prisoners. But the way DC was able to manipulate and convince Nelson that an alliance with the prisoners might be beneficial was impressive.

If he was able to turn Nelson and the CoG onto his side so easily, I can only imagine how easy it will be to turn Nikki and the Eligius prisoners to his side as well. Though I'm curious how he will maintain the allegiance of the Faithful if they find out that he is not Russell Prime but rather someone else. Nelson now knows the truth and I can't imagine that he would keep the truth from Nikki and the other prisoners because why would he? And also, how would he merge the CoG and the Faithful since they obviously have very opposing beliefs and the CoG hold a very real grudge against them. Once again, I wish we had a longer season because I'd love to see a more fleshed out approach to DC's machinations and manipulations. I get the sense that he's going to rally everyone to his side far too quickly to be believable.

It's funny because I mentioned in the last review that I'd like to see Indra and Murphy in more scenes together and I got my wish. It's just so hilarious because Indra doesn't mean to be funny, but she can be with her deadpan and no nonsense demeanour that when she says stuff like "Excuse me, but I need to borrow your god," it just comes off as hilarious. Also it was rather interesting that of all the people who would convince Indra to take her rightful place as leader of Wonkru, it would be Murphy. Because he was right....behind Clarke, behind Octavia, even behind Kane, there was Indra. And her opinion that she was just a soldier and a warrior and nothing more was obvious nonsense. She deserved that position. Far more so than Clarke!

She proves it time and time again. With her interrogation of Nikki, I didn't even catch on that Indra had never mentioned what was stolen and her observation that Nikki never even bothered to ask what was stolen either told her all she needed to know. It's that kind of experience, that kind of insight and intuition that makes Indra such a great leader. But she's also humble enough to ask for help. Her approach of Madi (who I'm surprised to see at all this season) showed that she isn't the stone hard warrior that lives without doubt or fear. She felt lost and needed Madi's help. Madi wasn't able to and finally Murphy and Emori were able to convince Indra that she's the person for the job of Commander. And Indra proved their point.

And what do I always say about Indra in every episode she's in? You don't fuck with Indra! And she proved why, taking Knight down with ease. But again, she shows leadership qualities by not killing him but ordering him to go and find those lost guns. She can't afford to lose any followers at this point and plus, it would go a bit of ways to show mercy, if only a little. I can't imagine that Trikru won't follow Indra at this point. They have to. It's going to be a very interesting chess match between Indra and Sheidheda. I suppose that's why they had DC have a chess board set up in his room (which is weird because who could he be possibly playing with?).

 
There's not that much to say about the Diyoza storyline, other than that she obviously hasn't lost her touch when it comes to killing people and being utterly merciless about it. Her biting that guy's neck was just fucking brutal! But what I didn't necessarily appreciate about her ability to take everyone down with ease is that it once again shows how utterly inept Echo is. Echo got beat by Hope (who trained for all of like 5 years under Dev). Echo got beat by Orlando (an older man but a Level 12 Disciple). And yet, Octavia (who has trained for less time than Echo has) was able to take Disciples down with ease. Diyoza was able to do the same. Now, Diyoza I could accept considering her experience being a former Navy SEAL and what not. But Echo has really come off as rather incompetent as of late.

Not to mention very cold hearted. Again, I get that she's upset about Bellamy and all that but for fuck's sakes! I suppose that assassin's training never goes away (much like Diyoza's training didn't go away either) but as Echo and all of them are going around killing innocent people, I can't help but wonder what Bellamy would have thought about it all. Now, granted, Bellamy isn't innocent either. But it begs the question: when does it all stop? When is it justified and when is it not? How many innocent people have to be killed in the name of love?

Which brings me to the discussion between Raven and Clarke on Planet Frozen (or Nakara as it is called in the episode). At least Raven was able to look at what she had done and admit that she wasn't a nice person for doing what she did. She had that level of clarity and self awareness to see that she was a coward for letting Hatch and the other prisoners die in her place. But then there's Clarke, with her fucking not-so-sage words of stupidity: "The people we've killed, we killed to save the people we love." Well, that's just makes it all better, now doesn't it?!? Raven rightly pointed out that those people loved other people too. And she asks the question: where does it end? And I ask that question of Echo and Octavia and Hope. Where does it end? They went and killed a fucking old man! A gardener by the looks of it. What makes their lives or the lives of Bellamy or anyone else any more precious than his?

As far as the rest of the Planet Frozen scenes, like I said, it was filler. I will say though that it was really intense and borrowed a lot from other sci-fi franchises, most notably Star Wars. I couldn't help but hear Han Solo utter one of his many famous lines: "This is no cave!"

Them crawling through that narrow tunnel just gave me all kinds of claustrophobic feelings! I felt like they borrowed a page from The Descent series with those scenes, as well as borrowing from Cloverfield a little bit with that spider monster just coming up and trying to chew Raven's face off! My goodness, it was very, very fortunate that she was wearing that helmet because she just would not have a face after having endured an attack like that!

In the end, it seems like the Planet Frozen sequences were there to fill time, give that moment between Raven and Clarke and also to confirm what Baby had suspected, which was that Bardo was connected to the Second Dawn cult that had built that bunker on Earth. I am curious to know if Raven did indeed choose Bardo as their next planet or if they went somewhere else. Also, considering that they didn't find Bellamy, if they do go to Bardo, will that mean that Bellamy and Gaia are perhaps on the same planet together as well?

It will be interesting to see what other planets and environment that exist and just how inhospitable they may be.

The 100 - Welcome to Bardo

Discussing Ep. 7.5

This episode kicked ass, and it's for a couple of reasons.

First, no Clarke, so we didn't have to endure her asinine decisions.

Secondly, with no Clarke around, it fell on the bad ass Indra to assume control.

This was awesome. With an Indra-centric episode, you can't go wrong! What I loved about it was that she was cool under pressure, but you could also tell that she was tormented inside about certain things. It was all about the look on Indra's face. Especially when she was saw that that Sanctumite woman was going to set herself on fire. Indra looked real concerned. But she also maintained her edge throughout the episode, especially when challenged by Nelson. I had to laugh because when she asked if he was challenging her and he asked what she would do without an army if he were.....DAMN! The look on her face and the look on his face said it all! You do not want to mess with Indra!

And yet she was able to provide some levity, even though she didn't mean to. I really wish that Indra and Murphy had more scenes together. They couldn't be more dissimilar in terms of personality and experience and yet, when Indra had the idea to have Murphy pose as a Prime and they went to the tent where all the Faithful were gathering, she told him she'd have his back. Murphy hesitates to go knock on the door and Indra just gives him this look that the photo above just doesn't do justice. I fucking laughed when she gave that look and Murphy was "Alright, alright!" as that look alone was all she needed to say! 

I will say that it was really fucked up how the Faithful were willing to not only set themselves on fire as a means to force Indra to release Russell, but that they were going to light up children also! That was absolutely insane and shame on that father for letting them do it. I don't care how faithful he was, you don't let anyone do that to your children! Thankfully, Murphy saw it and intervened though I knew that he was going to get found out. The minute that guy asked him to recite the four pillars and he couldn't, I knew he was done for.

 

Enter Indra with Russell/DC and Emori in tow. I have to say, I loved this particular scene for a number of reasons. First, I love Dark Commander's style. He did what I would have done. Just go and slap the taste out of the mouths of your dimwitted followers for questioning your authority and for planning to light themselves and their children on fire! His whole demeanour was so damn dictatorial, it was impressive. "Kneel or die!" I think this personality fits the actor, JR Bourne, so much better than Russell Lightbourne did because it's just so much fun playing an evil guy! There are no moral chains and I could see that being quite liberating as an actor.

Then you had bad ass Indra realize the truth. I'm assuming DC's use of the phrase "Kneel or die" is what set off alarm bells for Indra, or at the very least confirmed what she had already suspected, and that was that Russell was somehow different. Because of course he was...he was all about peace and harmony before and now he's choking out his own followers and slapping the shit out of them and demanding that they kneel or die. I thought it was incredibly clever how Indra spoke that line in Trigedasleng as a means to test her theory, and Dark Commander fell for it. Fucking brilliant! I honestly thought that DC was going to order the Faithful to rise up and kill Indra then and there but thankfully that didn't happen.

I loved the little backstory they gave here, about how Indra's parents were given the choice to kneel and her father did but her mother did not. So there is a sort of history between Sheidheda and Indra and I think that she's made a very dangerous enemy of him now. Having him endure that surgery without any anaesthetic so that he would feel every bit of pain.....that look he gave her at the end told me that she's in his sights now. It will be very interesting to see where this all goes since Indra and all of them know Russell's true identity and how he plans to circumvent all of that to reclaim authority is a mystery.

On the other side of the wormhole, we got the backstory to Octavia and Hope's journey through Bardo (which I'm curious why it's called that). I had to admit, it was somewhat confusing keeping the timeline in mind as they were going back and forth, back and forth. At the very least, they answered a lot of questions but brought up a slew more. They were able to determine who everyone was thanks to the reading of Octavia's mind. I have to say, that was rather impressive technology they were wielding. It seems with every new civilization that The 100 crew encounter, the technology factor goes up as well. 

Apart from the Indra/Murphy scene, this one made me laugh out loud too. Levitt was essentially binge watching The 100 from Octavia's memory! Although, to be fair, I don't think he got the full extent of what happened. He's only seeing it all through Octavia's point of view, which would be biased, obviously. It was interesting, if not touching, how Octavia named Bellamy as the one whose hand she would reach for when Levitt presented her with that odd scenario. Of course, various faces popped up including Lincoln, Clarke and others. There were a few questions arising from Levitt's sessions that made me go "what the fuck?" I have to admit that I found it a bit too convenient that Levitt would be such a sympathetic person as to be so inspired by Octavia's journey that he would volunteer to assist her at the risk of his own life. A tad too convenient.

So let's address the blonde elephant in the room. Through Octavia's memories, they came to learn of Clarke's existence, and this is what prompted Anders (the guy with the white hair) to determine that she was the key to ending the last war that humanity would ever fight. Seriously?!? I'm going to be very interested to see how they turn Clarke into this messiah of sorts because it sounded like a whole lot of bullshit to make her the Neo of The 100 series. The other thing was the focus on Murphy in Octavia's memory. Levitt made it a point to specifically ask about Murphy and I can't help but notice that this is the second time that someone has asked specifically of Octavia about Murphy (the first being Hope when she was little). I don't know if there is any real significance to this or if they're playing to the Murphy fans on Twitter but if it's the latter, they better cut that shit out because it's getting annoying. I like Murphy but there's no need to highlight him like that.

In a lot of ways, I'm glad that this is the final season as it seems like the writers are running out of ideas and reusing the same character template over and over again. Anders is like the third guy in a white robe who is in charge of a small community of people who devote their lives to him and regard him as some kind of infallible and charismatic leader. There was President Wallace at Mount Weather (and to some extent, his son Cage), there was Russell Lightbourne and the Primes on Sanctum and now there's Anders on Bardo. Hell, you could even include Jaha on The Ark as being of the same ilk. How many of these types of characters are we going to run into? 

So we get to the here and now and a lot of questions came up for me. First off, as Baby noted in the last review, not only did they cut Hope's hair but they also dyed it blonde. How? Seriously....how? I can see them fashioning a pair of scissors and maybe some razors so as to give a proper haircut....but how the fuck did they dye her hair blonde using nothing but what you find in nature? It's not like they had bleach handy or even hydrogen peroxide, let alone a L'Oreal Preference hair colouring kit! Secondly, why did they cut her hair? Why did they cut Echo's? There were plenty of women on Bardo who had long hair that was tied up in a tight bun, so it's not like it was the norm for women to cut their hair short, military style. 

Thirdly, during the flashback, they explained that when Hope and Octavia were to go through the wormhole and return to Sanctum, they would lose their memories of Bardo and would arrive on the other side not knowing anything but what they remembered before they entered Bardo. Why? Why does it only work when leaving Bardo? Why doesn't that work when leaving Sanctum or Skyring or any other planet that they jump from? And my last question was....

....who is this guy? He looks familiar.

So we finally see the elusive Bellamy after all this time. But it's for such a brief blink-and-you-miss-it moment that I wonder what the point was in the end. Well, I think I know what the point was and it was stupid. Of course Bellamy isn't dead. I'm willing to bet that the explosion that Disciple set off pushed Bellamy and that conductor into wherever it was that Anders had programmed into the wormhole. Somehow, I don't think it's Sanctum and I wouldn't be surprised one bit if Clark and Co. find Bellamy on Planet Frozen sometime down the road. Or perhaps Gaia will find him in whatever world she got transported to.

But it seems that all this was set up so that Echo would go batshit crazy. I'm beginning to think that with that Karen haircut, she somehow inherited the Karen personality, so much so that not only did she speak to the manager about her complaints....she fucking killed him! I think Orlando unwittingly unlocked Echo's Karen Level 12, otherwise known as Karen Beast Mode! This was insane and it didn't help matters than neither Hope nor Gabriel bothered to stop her. The most they did was tell her to stop, almost halfheartedly. They made no real effort to stop her from killing that guy who had nothing to do with the explosion or with Bellamy's fate. They had ample opportunity as Echo was just wailing away on the guy's face, and then when she reached up for that metal rod, there was no question as to what she was planning to do. They had time to stop her but they didn't so as far as I'm concerned, they're all implicit in that guy's murder. 

So now the questions that arise for me are: where did Bellamy go to? How will Hope, Echo, Octavia and Gabriel get out of Bardo? How will Sheidheda get out of the situation he's in right now? How will Indra manage the rest of the Faithful along with those Wunkru members who have seemingly lost respect for her? And how in the world does Clarke become the Neo of The 100?

I guess we'll find out!