Discussing Eps. 7.9 - 7.16
Better late than never.
Since I got Netflix, I discovered that The 100 was featured on there and so I figured I might as well watch the final episodes of the final season and give my thoughts on it. This is going to be a long post so be warned.
Ultimately, I will say that they were building things up quite nicely only to really drop the ball at the end.
That final shot of Clarke seemingly doing her drawings while still on the Ark, suggesting that the entire 7 seasons were perhaps all in her head or some weird nonsense like that is about the only explanation that could work because none of it really made any sense at the end.
Good fucking grief, this woman!
The reason I truly believe that this was all in Clarke's head was because of how she came out essentially a winner in all of it, despite the alien's judgement that she wasn't worthy of transcendence. Her punishment was to be surrounded by her closest friends while living a serene life on Earth. Of course, Madi wasn't there but only because she wanted to be surrounded by her own friends, which Clarke was quite happy with. However, Echo, Murphy, Emori, Octavia, Levitt, Indra, Gaia, Hope, Jordan, Raven, Niylah, Miller and Jackson all decided to abandon paradise to live with Clarke on Earth as the last remnant of the human race?
Bullshit!
Even if it all was in her head, it speaks volumes to the sheer narcissism that exists within Clarke. The other characters, like Octavia and Echo and Indra and...fuck me...even Nikki!...who were just as much into warfare and killing for their people as Clarke was, were all able to put aside their murderous tendencies and choose peace over conflict. They were all able to seemingly see the error of their ways and at least choose to start down the path that could eventually lead to their redemption and/or rehabilitation. Clarke never did that. To the bitter end, she was defiant and seemingly remorseless.
I say remorseless because, despite the many tears she shed and how many apologies she made, she also made it clear that given the choice to do it all over again, she'd make the same exact choices as before. I fail to see how that kind of thinking could lead to any kind of repentance or remorse for what she did. When you see how Octavia dealt with her transgressions as Blodreina, you could tell that there was genuine repentance on her part. You got the sense that if she had a different choice to make, knowing the consequences of her original choice, she'd have made it. But with Clarke, you don't get that at all. And why would she when it seems like no one holds her accountable anymore (other than Madi).
If there was any moment that solidified that this series went off the fucking cliff, it's the fact that Octavia and Echo both forgave Clarke on the spot for killing Bellamy. Not that I'm against the concept of forgiveness, but considering that their rationale that Bellamy had changed into a different person and therefore was already dead in their eyes and so it was okay that Clarke killed him is asinine! Octavia, in particular, should not have held such a view given the fact that Bellamy held it against her for her misdeeds as Blodreina, which were far, FAR, more barbaric and cruel than anything Bellamy ever did. So for her to judge him as being dead in her eyes because he was somehow 'different' is unfair if not hypocritical. You'd think Bellamy suddenly became the Devil himself the way both Octavia and Echo just turned their backs on him.
Echo's sudden denial of Bellamy makes even less sense than Octavia's. Mere days before, she was willing to commit genocide by killing all of the Disciples because of what she thought they did to Bellamy. But all of a sudden, his REAL death, at the hands of Clarke over a fucking sketchbook, meant nothing! Oh, because he wasn't the same Bellamy that she knew before? He wasn't the same killing machine that she had come to know and love? Yes, he betrayed them and seemed 'cultish' in his behaviour. I'm not saying they didn't have a right to be concerned about where his loyalties lay and him being manipulated by Cardogan, who was clearly a cult leader. However, you'd think that for all they went through with Bellamy that they'd have at least tried and understand why he changed. They knew his character, his constitution. Wouldn't they wonder what had affected him so profoundly that it would cause him to change the way he did? Because, after all, it turned out HE WAS RIGHT!!!
But that didn't matter. Clarke killing him was just fine and dandy with the both of them! It was fine with everyone except Madi, who didn't even know him!
Like....what the fuck?!?
Which leads me to another 'what the fuck' moment in this final season: the sheer fallacies of Murphy and the rest of them's choice to abandon paradise and live with Clarke on Earth. One is that they can NEVER procreate. Sure, that may mean endless fucking without condoms and the fear of getting pregnant!
But consider the fact that Octavia and Gaia, in particular, have known what it was like to be a 'mother,' so to speak. Isn't it a possibility that they, if not Echo, Raven, Hope, and Emori, might want to become mothers one day? Did the aliens remove their biological clocks? Did they remove their sexual urges? Didn't sound like it. Consider the fact that there are only three eligible bachelors in that group to "share" amongst the rest of the women (Levitt, Murphy and Jordan), seeing as how Jackson and Miller don't count as they're gay and Niylah essentially has Clarke. Now, granted Octavia and Raven, and to a lesser extent Echo, know what it's like to live countless years without sex or intimacy. Not impossible, but it's not like they had a choice then. They did what they had to do to survive. Here, they CHOSE a life without ever experiencing that kind of love again. To watch as Hope and Emori and Octavia and Miller and Jackson and Niylah and Clarke live out their lives with someone to love and they cannot? I don't think the aliens took out their ability to feel jealousy and envy. Suffice to say, it is not going to end well.
And speaking of things not ending well, we get to the most obvious consequence of their choice. The aliens explained when discussing Madi: "She's at peace. She'll never feel pain and she'll never die." And so all those that decided to abandon that kind of life and join Clarke on Earth seemed to have overlooked one glaring detail.
These fuckers...these gluttons for punishment and pain...who have lost more friends in the most tragic ways possible...have shed more tears...have suffered more pain than one can possibly imagine because of death...they WILLINGLY signed up for a life where they will have to endure the pain of seeing their friends and loved ones die once again. And we're not talking of just old age here. They're on Earth, where they can die from a natural disaster or from an animal attack or from some physical ailment like cancer. And that can happen tomorrow, or next week, or next month or next year! The aliens seemingly never guaranteed that they'd live out their natural lives free of such things. One of them could get struck by lightning the next day and die. And upon death, they will NOT join the transcended where they could live forever. They will simply die.
The aliens said that no one had, in their experience, EVER refused transcendence (because clearly no one was that monumentally stupid!). And yet these goofy fucks did!
And they did it....for Clarke!
Consider that some of these people, like Emori, chose a life of peace and tranquility when they were in the City of Light. But now, they chose differently? This can't be the real world. It can't be! It has to be a goofy Matrix world created by Clarke because there is no way anybody would make such a choice in favour of Clarke. Especially when they know, in their heart of hearts, that she wouldn't make that same choice for them. She demonstrated that when it came to Bellamy. She chose Madi, who flat out told her that she didn't ask for her to make that decision, over Bellamy and killed him and cried for all of five minutes and then went on her merry way without lamenting the fact that she killed him for nothing. She is not the kind of person who would have made that kind of choice for all of them.
Consider also that the one person who she seemingly loved the most, according to the alien mind probe, wasn't Bellamy or Abby or even Madi....it was Lexa! Now, I have no doubt that this was done for fan service but still. This was fucking horrible, especially when you note how Raven envisioned Abby before anyone else. Abby should have been Clarke's vision, not Raven's! But this just adds to the horribleness of this character. In so many ways, she's the most selfish, remorseless, egomaniacal bitch on the planet! Out of all the characters, over the course of the 7 seasons, she never changed. She never changed from being Wanheda. Her rationale for doing things never changed. "I did it to protect and save the ones I love." That was ALWAYS her motivation and excuse for every single killing she ever committed, right up to the end. And she remained unrepentant of that. Compare that to Octavia who changed from Skiripa to Blodreina back to Octavia and showed genuine repentance for what she did. With Clarke, there was no change at all!
For fuck's sakes....I don't know how this character serves as a protagonist. She is neither relatable nor sympathetic/empathetic. She is the furthest example of a character that anyone should strive to emulate or even learn from considering she seemingly never bothered to learn from her own mistakes. A character like Raven or Octavia served as much better protagonists than Clarke ever did!
I felt bad for the Bellamy character. He went out like a sucka! Not only that but his ending was tragic. He was abandoned by the three women he loved the most: Echo, Octavia and Clarke. And he was killed by Clarke for a sketchbook that she never bothered to retrieve in the end. I suppose I should be happy that Bellarke never happened, since that's what all the Twitter people wanted. But I didn't want Bellamy to go out like this. For all the trouble he went through on that mountain, enduring the cold and creating that friendship with that Disciple Doucette, he deserved a better ending. I'd have been fine with him and Echo living out their days together. I certainly did not envision him being shunned by everyone and not being able to partake in the one thing he sacrificed his loyalty to his friends for: transcendence. He totally deserved to go out in a much better way.
I'm happy that Echo and Octavia made it to the end. Diyoza went out like a boss! Hope was annoying as all hell. But what annoyed me the most with their time on Bardo was how they were all seemingly able to fool the Disciple's mind reading system. This really annoyed me because for all of their technological advancement and ability to see into the human brain and to see thoughts and memories, the Disciples couldn't see that Echo, Diyoza and Octavia were essentially duping them?
I mean, they spent months training with the Disciples, undergoing psychological test after psychological test and you're telling me that they were able to fool them all? I don't think so. But beyond that and aside from that stuff with Bellamy, I'm happy that both Echo and Octavia found happiness, though it was a shame that Echo's hair didn't make it to the end! I was also annoyed with the whole Octavia/Levitt romance subplot but I suppose it served a purpose in that it gave them an inside man in Levitt to help them out. But as far as them as a couple go, I didn't feel their relationship at all. I mean...he's no Lincoln! And fuck me if I didn't call this partnership from way back when:
I'm actually glad these two ended up together. I always said that they should given that they shared similar childhoods (growing up with essentially no one around and hearing about Clarke and the others). And I was glad to see Jordan shine a bit, both in figuring out the code for the Last War and also for creating that machine that nullified the cloaking device of all the Disciples. Also, he was able to bring some tranquility into Hope's life and I liked that sort of yin-yang thing they had going on.
Speaking of yin and yang, I was happy these two made it as well, although I did feel there was some rather unnecessary drama surrounding their ending. I have no doubt they wrote it that Emori was going to die just so Murphy could come in as the knight-in-shining-armour and save her by uploading her mind into his. Very CW romantic of them! Though I don't understand how Emori was able to re-appear with her body intact on Earth when her body didn't transcend, only her mind. Her body died. Hers and Murphy's mind were joined into one so I don't get how it was that she was able to come back. Regardless, I was happy these two made it to the end. Though something does remained unanswered for me.
I recall last season when Murphy "died," when he was drowned in the water but was resuscitated, that he claimed he saw Hell and that he was going there for all of the sins he committed. Whatever happened to that? I really thought they were going somewhere with that and that he would have some kind of a story arc where that vision would be addressed and he would find redemption. Although he eventually did, becoming the "hero-type" that Emori found sexy, they never went back to that vision and I was sort of looking forward to them explaining that incident.
And I also wanted to point this out, whether anybody knew or not, that the actress who plays Niylah is actually Murphy's older sister! I only found that out by accident when looking up the actors to see if they had been in anything else. I really don't see the resemblance but I thought that was pretty cool nonetheless. As far as Niylah goes, I was indifferent to her making it to the end. Drunk Niylah was funny though.
Raven's story arc confused me a bit. Though I was happy that she too found redemption for essentially killing Hatch, owning up to her mistake and even permitting Nikki to take her revenge, it was weird that it was Raven who ended up saving humanity. I suppose that I understood why she chose Abby as her vision instead of anyone else, but I felt like the writers gave her the baton for saving humanity because they really had nothing else for her to do. Not that I'm upset because Clarke clearly wasn't up to the task and Raven had just come to terms with what she did with Hatch. But it felt almost arbitrary. Still, I suppose when looking at the cast, there really was no one else who could take the test, other than perhaps Indra. If anyone was going to succeed in saving humanity where Clarke failed, it would be Raven!
I was pretty bored with Madi's storyline at first but I have to say, she really knocked it out of the park in the end. First, she saved Indra in her fight with Sheidheda, taking the eye that he lost in his original body. That was sweet! And then, props to her for essentially being the only one to actually speak truth-to-power when she told Clarke everything that she had done wrong, including killing Bellamy! Fuck, that was great. And then, she sacrifices herself, pissing Clarke off in the process. And as a final "fuck you" to Clarke, she chooses (wisely, I might add) to remain in transcendence rather than spend any more time with Clarke on Earth! Fucking brilliant! I salute you, Madi!
Cardogan also confused me. Even by his psychologist wife's own admission, he was a narcissistic sociopath. He was a cult leader on the level of a David Koresh. But at the same time, he appeared in a vision to Bellamy who, to my recollection, had never met Cardogan before. So why did that happen? While he was a narcissist who sought to abolish the concept of personal love, he also was looking out for the betterment of humankind. He sought to elevate all humanity, regardless of what sins they had committed, even Clarke. Yet, he was an egomaniac, allowing the Disciples to refer to him as "my Shepherd," taking an almost Christ-like position as the Saviour of humanity. But he was community conscious, taking the Wrath of Khan motto of "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one." He was looking out for all of humanity, not just himself. So, he didn't make a lot of sense to me because he didn't fit into a standard villain box like, say, Sheidheda did. I wasn't really sure of his motivations, whether they were purely selfish or selfless.
Nor did I really understand the aliens in this either. In a lot of ways, they reminded me of the Borg from Star Trek: TNG! When, as Lexa, they noted to Clarke that humans were "a curious species. You've added so much to us already," they made it sound like they absorbed humanity. Or in Borg parlance...assimilated them. And given the fact that any species who failed their test would be wiped out from existence was essentially like the Borg telling any species they encountered: "Resistance is futile. Your biological and technological distinctive will be added to our own." This is a rare instance where I agreed with Clarke in where this alien species got off on judging another species and wiping them out if they didn't pass the test. Why not let the species go on and come back to take the test again if they didn't pass the first time?
I didn't like these aliens and the way they sort of gave humanity a second chance because of Raven. I didn't like the whole set up to begin with. The idea that there could only be one representative who would take the test for all of a specific species doesn't work, especially when you get a dipshit like Clarke taking the test for the masses. Also, they didn't conduct the test the way they said they would. They were initially going to test Cadogen by asking him a series of questions. They didn't do that with Raven. They just showed her how humanity was too militant and too aggressive to be rewarded with transcendence, only to be shown at the end that humanity could change. Their sudden turnabout was a bit too convenient and their whole involvement in general contributed to my disappointment with the ending.
Sheidheda! This guy was a TREAT to watch! I'm sure JR Bourne had a blast playing him, even down to his ridiculous outfit! But damn, was he ever a great villain! I loved the way he schemed, he way he talked, the way he fought, the way he manipulated everyone and was essentially one step ahead of his opponents. In many ways, he was your run-of-the-mill bad guy, who just wanted to conquer everything and everyone, but his entire demeanour and style made him fun to watch. He was definitely a highlight of the season and of the entire series, as was....
Indra! By far, my FAVOURITE character in the entire series! She was like Obi Wan Kenobi and R'as Al Ghul rolled up into one. I loved that she had her own story arc in this final season and that she got to match wits with the likes of Sheidheda. I was super glad that we got one final scene with her and her star pupil, Octavia. That was such a touching scene. It showed the wonderful complexities within Indra, in how she could be a tough and demanding teacher but also being able to reflect on her own actions and own up to them and to console and council Octavia. I also like that she was able to make peace with Gaia and show her that she did indeed love her and was proud of her.
But most of all, I truly did love her antagonistic relationship with Sheidheda. From her tricking him into revealing his true identity, to them battling it out, to them working together, to her finally defeating him by blowing him away with an alien gun....all of it was just so entertaining! I would have loved a series with just these two as commanders of opposing factions, making moves trying to best the other. In my opinion, these two saved this season from being a total mess!
As I've said about this show before, I think the shortened seasons and the long breaks between them hindered the potential of this show. I liked how they tried to add to the lore of the previous seasons while bringing all the elements together in a cohesive way. It was ambitious, perhaps too ambitious given the limited number of episodes that they had to work with to flesh everything out. The murder of Bellamy, in particular, felt very rushed and abrupt and the sudden forgiveness by Echo and Octavia of Clarke also felt far too rushed to be believable. These characters have held grudges for others who did far less traumatic things and so I feel like these developments occurred because of time constraints.
Having said that though, this series was definitely among the better shows that the CW have produced. It was thought provoking and challenging. When you compare it to dumpster fires like Riverdale or even Legacies at this point, The 100 was an intelligent, creative and well written show that took a lot of chances and wasn't afraid to throw in surprises that no one saw coming. I think on a platform like Netflix, it works well because when watching on CW, where you had to wait weeks between episodes and months between seasons, it suffered. Watching it all together gives it much better cohesion. Despite my criticisms, I'd recommend the show to anyone.
I'd be interested to know if they're still going ahead with The 100 prequel show. If so, then...
Mebi oso na hit choda op nodotaim!
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