Tonight’s episode of The 100 is brought to you by Let’s Make a Deal!
Our focus oscillates between Bardo and Sanctum – a return to form. The stories are evenly split and, if I’m being honest, not that thrilling. Yes, there’s murder and survival and deals with the devils, but overall this feels like an in-between episode. As in…here’s what happens most of the time when something huge isn’t going down.
Sanctum’s story starts us off with Shady making good on his promise to kill anyone who doesn’t kneel. Unfortunately, the Children of Gabriel are stubborn and every last one of them gets the gas (figuratively of course, realistically they get riddled with bullets), including leader Nelson who has to listen to his followers die before Shady gives him the death he requests. Bye Nelson! But, Indra happens to notice one of the bodies isn’t quite dead yet. He wisely plays dead and is rescued by our once Grounder leader, and brought to Murphy and Emori. They did kneel, for survival’s sake, and took up residence in the tool shop.
This isn’t an idle choice, Murphy and Emori stashed everyone they could save from Shady in the reactor room. It isn’t a bad plan but it gets tested quickly when Nikki shows up – having followed Indra – she is easily handled though, however Shady’s second in command, Knight, had Nikki followed (someone studied the importance of redundancy!), and now the psychotic commander knows something is up.
Luckily, Murphy played chess with Shady once so he’s confident he can deal with the upset, and he does…kind of. When Shady threatens to kill John unless he opens the reactor door, Emori announces if anything happens to her beloved she’ll blow the reactor. Shady tries to call her bluff, but Murphy reminds him that if they come out of the reactor room they are dead which means they have nothing to lose, they’re dead either way at least one of them kills the tyrant (in chess this is called a stalemate).
The Sanctum storyline has an interesting ending which I will get to after covering what happens on Bardo…
Bellamy proves he isn’t a total convert when he reveals to Bill he wants to save his friends. Bill isn’t a monster, he’s willing to spare them if Bell can get the Flame back, and if it can be repaired…and if the key is on it (that’s a lot of ifs!). But, his friends don’t want to hear it. They are devastated that the man they know has been sucked into this cult, with Echo making a plea for him to be reasonable, and Clarke telling him to “go float yourself” – basically the “go fuck yourself” of The 100.
Their resistance serves them about as well as it served Nelson, with Clarke and Raven getting mind-capped in an effort to force information about the Flame’s whereabouts from them. No idea what happens to Raven, but Clarke fights the process hard enough to endanger her life, at which point she makes a deal. Release her friends from prison and she’ll lead Bill to the Flame’s location.
Naturally, Bill’s less than trusting of the girl who already lied to him about the Flame once. He releases her friends but not to Sanctum – instead to parts unknown, only to be safely returned once Clarke actually makes good on her bargain. He even has the sense to leave Raven out as she knows how the stone works and would have clued in the others to the twist. Clever boy.
Speaking of twists…the ending of this episode results in both stories converging! It’s a pretty exciting conclusion to what is a pretty standard outing. But, I do need to explain some things I didn’t cover: Before Shady goes to the tool shop his minions bring him some gifts. A Bone Throne – which, I’m not gonna lie looks cool, but has to be uncomfortable, the Anomaly Stone, and the info about Nikki being followed. The reason I bring this up is because when Bill, Clark, some Bardo Disciples, Raven and Gabriel jump to Sanctum they wind up in Shady’s throne room – surprised AF.
It’s a truly amazing ending, honestly. I saw it building up but I still loved it. Now, some questions that need to be addressed: What is Nikki gonna do once she breaks free of her bonds (they didn’t kill her, obviously, but John did fuck with her mind a little by asking her what would Hatch do)? Where is Gaia? She stayed behind to warn her mom about Clarke and gang going into the Stone when she was attacked but Shady later reveals he doesn’t know where she is, so…what happened? Will Bill and Shady have a genuine throwdown? OR, will Bill put his Sith mind-tricks to work and convert Shady to his side? Wouldn’t that be interesting? I doubt it since that would be a bloodless coupe and this is The 100. Hey, maybe the war with Shady is the last war Bill’s been itching for! Oh…so many possibilities!
Also…quickly because I forgot to point it out – Jordan and Hope meet and they have a surprising amount in common. Given Jordan’s ability to emotionally connect with just about anyone, I’m gonna go ahead and speculate he might grow into the new leader of Bardo. Will Hope be at his side? Could be. She’s very vulnerable right now, it wouldn’t take much to sway her, but Jordan just isn’t that kind of guy. And that’s exactly why he might succeed – also why he should!
Let’s see, shall we?
