So, clearly groups in this thing are going to be fluid, so I'll try to be clear who I'm talking about without a constant frame of reference.
'Many Happy Returns'
Clarke and Anya: Our feuding tough girls spend most of the episode like a pair of bad girl stereotypes in a prison break movie of dubious quality, tied together, pursued by warders, constantly fighting and increasingly covered in mud. There is, however, not a trace of sleazy exploitation; the relationship is hard and spiky and genuine. It becomes clear that Anya despises Clarke because she's basically rubbish and still whupped her clan, and that she is heavily invested in proving her superiority, even down to ripping a tracker out of her arm with her teeth and damn the blood poisoning. When Clarke gets one up on her it's using tech (a slickly palmed Mount Weather tranq dart,) but that and the sight of Camp Jaha are enough to finally convince Anya - reluctantly - that an alliance against Mount Weather might be worthwhile (but see below under 'everything is Major Byrne's fault.)
Back at the Ranch: Camp Jaha has a new electric fence, and Raven is set to work with Ark engineer Wick on a radio beacon to contact the other crash survivors (if any.) Wick is heavily pimped as Raven's new love interest, but platonic or romantic they have a nice little theorist-vs.-practitioner rivalry. Wick makes her a leg brace and they create a beacon suspended from a weather balloon which guides Clarke home (but see below under 'everything is Major Byrne's fault.)
The Rescue Rangers: Bellamy, Finn, Murphy, Sterling and Monroe stumble on a crash sight. Everyone is dead, save a girl called Mia; a friend of Sterling, as it happens. Finn convinces Bellamy to leave Mia hanging from a cliff while they go after Clarke, but Sterling is already abseiling down to her. When the rope slips and Sterling dies (because, you know, I think none of the 100 has otherwise died this season) Bellamy gets a bee in his bonnet and refuses to leave, because Sterling was one of them and died to save Mia, and because Bellamy is getting the point that Abby (see next episode) is struggling with, that making the hard decisions is about saving who you can, not who you want to.
Under fire from Grounders, the Rangers are rescued by Olivia blowing Lincoln's fog-horn, and Bellamy is saved from falling by Murphy, of all people. With Monroe shot and probably poisoned, the team heads back to Camp Jaha, but Murphy and Finn go on. Bellamy gives Murphy a gun, and we all groan.
Jaha: Jaha is found in the desert and taken in by a family whose son is scarred by radiation and thus outcast from the Grounders. He bonds with the son, but in order to make the journey across this 'dead zone', the parents trade Jaha for a horse, there being a bounty on Sky People.
Everything is Major Byrne's Fault: This week, Major Byrne, the voice of authoritarian fuckwittage, first shot down the signal balloon on the grounds that it makes Camp Jaha a target and tells the Grounders where they are. Wick points out - quite rightly - that they fell to earth in a football stadium. Nevertheless, Byrne gives orders to shoot anyone approaching the camp, which results in Anya being killed just as she agreed to give a recommendation which might have secured the audience which Kane has gone to seek out, and Clarke hit in the face with a rifle butt.
'Human Trials'
Back at the Ranch: Abby spots Major Byrne hauling in her 'Grounder' and recognises Clarke, which sadly results in zero consequences for Byrne. Abby wants Clarke to take it easy, but Clarke is determined to rally a mission against Mount Weather before her homies start being used for dialysis. As if this weren't emotional enough, the Rescue Rangers make it home, reporting the loss of people but plethora of supplies at Mia's part of the station. Byrne of course opens by taking their guns, but Clarke runs in and hugs Bellamy. It's not something Octavia or the audience ever expected. Even Clarke and Raven have some serious bro-hug action going on.
Abby okays a mission to catch up with Kane and bring him up to speed, but nixes sending anyone to stop Finn and Murphy going postal on a Grounder Camp which is now confirmed to contain none of their people. Bellamy confides in Clarke that Finn has changed - like, a lot - and so they break out of camp with help from Raven and Wick. There is yet another charged scene where Olivia demands not to be left behind, since she is the only one who knows the Grounder territory at all. Bellamy simply hands her her pack, showing that he gets that she is not a little girl anymore.
Abby is slower on the uptake. She slaps Raven for helping Clarke to do exactly what she unabashedly helped Bellamy to do, and earlier almost went ape on Bellamy for bringing out the trufax that she's willing to trot out expediency if her daughter wants to take a risk, when she ignored it if someone wants to take a risk for her daughter. Like Bellamy, Raven has some home truths for Abby:
Abby: “She thinks that because of what she’s been through, she’s changed, but she’s still just a kid.”
Raven: “You’re wrong, Abby. She stopped being a kid the day you sent her down here to die.”
'Many Happy Returns'
Clarke and Anya: Our feuding tough girls spend most of the episode like a pair of bad girl stereotypes in a prison break movie of dubious quality, tied together, pursued by warders, constantly fighting and increasingly covered in mud. There is, however, not a trace of sleazy exploitation; the relationship is hard and spiky and genuine. It becomes clear that Anya despises Clarke because she's basically rubbish and still whupped her clan, and that she is heavily invested in proving her superiority, even down to ripping a tracker out of her arm with her teeth and damn the blood poisoning. When Clarke gets one up on her it's using tech (a slickly palmed Mount Weather tranq dart,) but that and the sight of Camp Jaha are enough to finally convince Anya - reluctantly - that an alliance against Mount Weather might be worthwhile (but see below under 'everything is Major Byrne's fault.)
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| I violently dislike this woman, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to or not. |
The Rescue Rangers: Bellamy, Finn, Murphy, Sterling and Monroe stumble on a crash sight. Everyone is dead, save a girl called Mia; a friend of Sterling, as it happens. Finn convinces Bellamy to leave Mia hanging from a cliff while they go after Clarke, but Sterling is already abseiling down to her. When the rope slips and Sterling dies (because, you know, I think none of the 100 has otherwise died this season) Bellamy gets a bee in his bonnet and refuses to leave, because Sterling was one of them and died to save Mia, and because Bellamy is getting the point that Abby (see next episode) is struggling with, that making the hard decisions is about saving who you can, not who you want to.
Under fire from Grounders, the Rangers are rescued by Olivia blowing Lincoln's fog-horn, and Bellamy is saved from falling by Murphy, of all people. With Monroe shot and probably poisoned, the team heads back to Camp Jaha, but Murphy and Finn go on. Bellamy gives Murphy a gun, and we all groan.
Jaha: Jaha is found in the desert and taken in by a family whose son is scarred by radiation and thus outcast from the Grounders. He bonds with the son, but in order to make the journey across this 'dead zone', the parents trade Jaha for a horse, there being a bounty on Sky People.
Everything is Major Byrne's Fault: This week, Major Byrne, the voice of authoritarian fuckwittage, first shot down the signal balloon on the grounds that it makes Camp Jaha a target and tells the Grounders where they are. Wick points out - quite rightly - that they fell to earth in a football stadium. Nevertheless, Byrne gives orders to shoot anyone approaching the camp, which results in Anya being killed just as she agreed to give a recommendation which might have secured the audience which Kane has gone to seek out, and Clarke hit in the face with a rifle butt.
'Human Trials'
Back at the Ranch: Abby spots Major Byrne hauling in her 'Grounder' and recognises Clarke, which sadly results in zero consequences for Byrne. Abby wants Clarke to take it easy, but Clarke is determined to rally a mission against Mount Weather before her homies start being used for dialysis. As if this weren't emotional enough, the Rescue Rangers make it home, reporting the loss of people but plethora of supplies at Mia's part of the station. Byrne of course opens by taking their guns, but Clarke runs in and hugs Bellamy. It's not something Octavia or the audience ever expected. Even Clarke and Raven have some serious bro-hug action going on.
Abby okays a mission to catch up with Kane and bring him up to speed, but nixes sending anyone to stop Finn and Murphy going postal on a Grounder Camp which is now confirmed to contain none of their people. Bellamy confides in Clarke that Finn has changed - like, a lot - and so they break out of camp with help from Raven and Wick. There is yet another charged scene where Olivia demands not to be left behind, since she is the only one who knows the Grounder territory at all. Bellamy simply hands her her pack, showing that he gets that she is not a little girl anymore.
Abby is slower on the uptake. She slaps Raven for helping Clarke to do exactly what she unabashedly helped Bellamy to do, and earlier almost went ape on Bellamy for bringing out the trufax that she's willing to trot out expediency if her daughter wants to take a risk, when she ignored it if someone wants to take a risk for her daughter. Like Bellamy, Raven has some home truths for Abby:
Abby: “She thinks that because of what she’s been through, she’s changed, but she’s still just a kid.”
Raven: “You’re wrong, Abby. She stopped being a kid the day you sent her down here to die.”
I really hope that Abby is getting a clue here, because after last episode's Major Byrne blamefest, this week (almost) everything is Abby's fault.
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| We heard a rumour that some folks still thought we were,in our way, quite reasonable. We can't have that. |
Mount Weather: When the President fesses that she left, Jasper and Monty are planning to head out after Clarke, but a radiation leak puts Maya in a coma and of course Jasper has to martyr himself when the sinister Dr Singh suggests an 'unorthodox procedure' to save her.
Meanwhile, deep below the mountain, an even more sinister Weatherian is turning Lincoln into a Reaper by conditioning him to fear a whistle using electroshock treatments and getting him hooked on a drug so bad that he'll fight and kill for it.
Kane: Kane plants his mother's bonsai tree and sends his guards back while he goes on to talk peace alone. He gets coshed for his trouble and thrown in a pit with... Jaha!
Finn and Murphy: Finn and Murphy come to Lincoln's village. Finding the warriors off tracking Reapers, they try to sneak in. Finn sets fire to the food store then takes everyone in the village hostage while he searches, threatening to execute a young woman when he finds a bunch of scavenged Ark jackets. The healer whom Octavia held hostage for Lincoln tries to keep his people calm, but one makes a bolt for it and when Finn shoots him it basically triggers a massacre, into which walk the Rescue Rangers Mk II.
Finn is all 'I found you, let's hug', but Clarke reacts basically the way you'd expect someone to react on finding their decent, upright, peacemaker boyfriend slaughtering villagers while Murphy of all people pleads with him to calm the fuck down.
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So... Man, I do not know what is going on with Finn, because he has gone from zero to completely off the res in no time at all. Still, it's nice to see that Murphy genuinely seems to have changed for the better, even if purely from a survival imperative, because so far no-one else seems to have gone that way and it's been pure downhill since a little girl reacted to Bellamy's inspirational speech by shanking Wells in the neck. Maybe Murphy and Finn got brain swapped or something; or soul swapped.
Of the 'adults', only Jaha, Kane and Sinclair (aka the dude from Battlestar Galactica who is still playing supporto-guy) currently have my vote. Abby's self-righteous hypocrisy is nauseating and Major Byrne is a self-justifying psychopath who wants to keep being the giant in the playground. None of them seem able to grasp that the 'kids' they sent to Earth in an unguided box are now adults too, even the youngest of them mature beyond their years.
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