It’s been a few weeks, so we’re picking up after Clarke and the Gang return to Sanctum. Best to do a little catching up before breaking down “Blood Giant”…
As per the last episode you’ve got The Shepard and some of his Disciples showing up on Sanctum with Clarke and crew to find the “key”. They happen to “bridge-in” to the throne room where Shady is playing chess with John. Oh, and Emori and the refugees are still hiding out in the reactor after John got kidnapped. Nikki is there too as a prisoner.
That about covers it. Let’s get down to business.
Episode 13: “Blood Giant”
Instead of breaking this episode up into teams on different planets, it gets broken up into teams in different places. Clarke, Bellamy, Conductor, John, Raven, and Bill are one team – they get split up by Bill with Clarke going off alone to get the Flame while John and Raven stick around as insurance. Indra and Shady are another “team” – trapped in the throne room tied to a column being guarded by some Disciples. There are Emori and the refugees – hanging out in the reactor with Nikki along for the ride as a prisoner. Finally, Gabriel teams up with Dr. Jackson at the lab. Why? Because the red sun eclipse is here and all hell’s about to break loose!
Our first and second teams get created fairly quickly. After landing in the throne room, Bill wastes no time showing Shady who’s the boss. Spoiler, it’s the Shepard with his advanced weaponry and invisible guards. Shady tries a last-ditch violent solution (as Grounders do), but it winds up getting him fatally stabbed by yet another invisible guard. With him out of the way, it’s very easy for Bill to subdue the remaining Grounders (including Indra sadly) and take some hostages to ensure Clarke makes good on her deal.
The red sun eclipse kind of works out for Emori. Being trapped in the reactor with Shady forces trying to break in, she does the only “reasonable” thing she can think of – turns off the power so the rabid bugs can get in and maybe take care of her problem for her. Nikki rears her ugly head for a minute to make an empty threat, but the darkness helps the hostages take back control. Meanwhile, outside, Bill’s not getting how much of a problem the red sun is. Bellamy eventually gets through to him, thanks in part to John and Raven’s input, and the four of them (no thanks to Conductor, who wanted to make it a trio) race off to the reactor to stay alive.
Gabriel, who pointed out the red sun issue when he started to hallucinate, is working with Dr. Jackson to make more anti-toxin. Haunted by Josephine Lightbourne (his ex), who basically acts as the devil on his shoulder, Gabriel begins to contemplate taking the Flame for himself when Clarke retrieves it. Luckily, he eventually conquers his crisis of faith, takes the cure, and destroys the only means by which the Flame could have been salvaged.
All of the teams wind up converging in the throne room, where Gabriel presents a machine that could repair the Flame (which, as mentioned, he then destroys). He points a gun at Bill and as all standoffs tend to do, it ends badly. The conductor winds up dead and Bellamy rushes to him. Bill’s face in that moment is clearly disappointed, he was hoping Bellamy was like him – immune to personal love connections (in this case friendship). It’s obvious Bell is upset at his friend’s death.
But all of that pales in comparison to the big surprise ending. Turns out Shady knew about Madi’s journal, he tells Bellamy about it, and Clarke happens to overhear before going through the bridge. She’s genuinely worried if Bill gets the journal he’ll kill Madi to get the info in her head, it’s a very real concern, but the best part – hands down the best part of this whole ordeal is that Clarke kills Bellamy but doesn’t actually get the journal. That’s right! She murders her former friend (and real-life hubby) in a last-ditch effort to save her adopted daughter only to fail. Clarke runs out of bullets, she’s unable to subdue the last two Disciple guards nor is she able to grab the journal before escaping through the bridge. The last image we see is Bellamy bloody on the floor with Clarke’s crying face faded in next to him. My question is: is she crying because she had to kill Bellamy to save Madi, or because she killed Bellamy for nothing.
So juicy! Gotta hand it to this show, they are making this final season of The 100 count!
Other things of note in this episode:
- John Murphy’s conversations with Raven are priceless. Absolutely priceless. Give these two a spin-off show now!
- Raven gets to face the consequences of her actions when Nikki manages to get the drop on her in the reactor. To my surprise, Nikki does not kill Raven. I get it, the whole living with your guilt is worse than the easy escape of death, but still…Octavia would have killed her.
- Why exactly did Shady save Indra? He knew he was going to die, and the invisible guard was about to kill his enemy when he warns her of the impending attack, but the question is: why? Does he respect her in some way? Did he really not think he was going to die? Did he expect that saving Indra would spare him a worse death? That last one seems to be the reasoning except that it doesn’t really pan out – Indra orders Gabriel and Jackson not to treat Shady’s wounds, which means he’ll die slow and painful. Is that really what he wanted?
- Where the fuck is Gaia!? This is the second episode to address Indra’s missing daughter without any follow up! I wonder if she’s gonna wind up being some crazy Chekov’s gun…
The next episode preview shows us returning to Earth. Is Gaia there? Is anyone there? I saw Shady, and Octavia, so I’m definitely curious about what’s going down.
