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‘The 100’ Recap: ‘Red Sky at Morning’

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? No, really. I’m losing my shit right now, running through every possible scenario that doesn’t end with someone dying from any and all sides involved. My trusty Magic 8 ball says ‘outlook not good,’ not good at all. “Red Sky at Morning,” the last episode before the presumably earth shattering two-part season finale of The 100, has definitely set the stage… it set the stage real good. It’s no secret that the delinquents (and their less intriguing adult counterparts) have been fighting war after war since they first stepped foot on Earth several months ago, and although at times the pace was just a bit too fast for my liking, or even too slow at points– everything is actually starting to come together. I had my doubts for a while there, guys…

I have absolutely no idea how we wrap up the season, and outdo last seasons surprising betrayal by Lexa, who left Clarke and her people at Mount Weather to die, and lead her clans to safety. Our dismayed leader had a decision to make, one that prompted Clarke to irradiate level 5 and wipe out an entire society within the mountain with a flick of the wrist. Talk about a twist! (Now I’m just rhyming and I’m going to have to blame the alcohol… or increased visions of donuts in my mouth. Choose your poison, peasants!) I’m assuming they’re going to do their best to outdo season two’s heartstopper, and I’m scared for that. So damn scared. I envision them transporting us to someplace unimaginable… somewhere I’m pretty positive I’m not prepared for.

This episode was written by Lauren Muir (congrats on her first piece of produced TV, way to go, girl) and Kira Snyder (one of my favorite people in the entire world). This episode ping-pongs us, in the most eloquent of ways, to Arkadia, Polis, Luna’s oil rig and even the City of Light. It’s no easy feat to bob and weave between multiple locations, featuring multiple characters/storylines but these ladies somehow pulled it off. The stakes are at an all-time high, following the controversy of Alycia Debnam-Carey’s exit, the audience being underwhelmed by the writing and character development this season, and ALIE getting painfully closer to her end goal, which starts with populating this pseudo-city, and it really has everyone on edge. I’ve already got my Xanax on standby because I have a feeling (mostly in my boobs) that Clarke is going to die. But, that’s a whole other article, now isn’t it?

The biggest question we’re faced as we lead into the finale of The 100 is if there’s a happy medium between Luna’s pacifism and total annihilation of the human race– can Clarke and her remaining faction lead everyone out of the City of Light and into a new world not under ALIE’s mind control? I don’t have the answer to that… but, I’m sure we’ll start to find out what’s next for our beaten and bruised characters within these last two episodes.

Luna aka Stevie Nicks is a badass

We got some backstory into Luna, and why she fled her conclave. After being forced to kill her brother in the first round, she was matched up against Lexa. A lot of people are taking issue to this storyline, they’re in the mindset that if Luna had stuck around and fought, that Lexa would be dead– which completely undermines her entire reign as the Commander. Where I do take notice that Luna’s dig at the fallen Heda to Clarke saying how it’s funny how fate works out that way was kind of a low blow… she did know that Clarke had feelings for Lexa at this point… I don’t think that was the writer’s intention. Luna is confident, just because she’s a complete and total badass, even after spending time in peace on the oil rig, it doesn’t mean that if she had stayed and fought, that Lexa wouldn’t have still been triumphant. Much like Luna, Lexa is a skilled fighter, and I don’t think it would have been as cut and dry as Luna made out it to be in that scene. We know Lexa was a great leader, the fact that Luna can handle herself doesn’t make Lexa and less of a warrior. So let’s just take a chill pill, or the City of Light chip and just calm the eff down.

Luna’s position to remain peaceful, and to not join this war that Clarke has been pitching her semi-clean face off since the moment they stepped on the oil rig is one that I both admire and I’m annoyed by. Luna has built a nice little society in the middle of the ocean, one void of inequality, and tyranny, but at the same time it’s not realistic on a larger scale. I think it’s important to note that while it might work for them in this small, secluded setting, that this mindset would probably not go as smoothly if applied so aggressively to those on the mainland. There has to be some happy medium, where force can be used, but that the ultimate goal is peace and harmony. I’ll be honest, during this episode I feared for Luna’s life on numerous occasions. Guest stars don’t really have a long shelf-life on The 100 (except for Pike, he just won’t freakin’ die!) and usually the most epic of characters meet their untimely demise, often for shock value. Thank goodness Lauren Muir was at the helm of this episode, seeing as she’s without a doubt Luna’s biggest advocate. Team Lunatics! The way the episode ended gives all the Luna fans hope that perhaps this wild haired hero will come in and save the day after all… or if that’s too tall of an order… we have a chance of seeing her next season if she doesn’t bite the dust in the finale. Don’t you dare!

Here’s some advice to Clarke and her crew while in the company of strangers: haven’t you learned by now that you should never trust a drink someone (let alone a new person) gives to you… like, post apocalyptic roofies are a thing and you really should be paying closer attention next time. I mean, they had to drink a vial of pass out juice to get on the oil rig, what makes them think Luna would ever go against her ways to take the flame without a little theatrics?

Ultimately, Clarke just wasn’t persuasive enough in convincing Luna to embrace her birthright and help her and the rest of the world fight ALIE. Especially after she was forced to do the very thing she stood so adamantly against: kill. In the 20 minutes or so that we saw Luna on screen, I felt more for her and the loss of her loved one than I have with several of the other characters that have been there since day 1. I don’t know if it’s a testament to Nadia Hilker, or if Luna was written in a way that immediately captivated me, but when my focus is more on a guest star, is that really a good thing? Many other shows have issues with developing their main characters organically, and perhaps The 100 has a few hiccups in that department as well. All in all, Luna and her backstory stole the show. Like, can we just have a spinoff of flashbacks to Lexa and Luna sparring? And then Luna teaching Clarke in current times how to perfect her fighting skills? No? Well shit.

Clarke in Charge

For a group who spends a good portion of their time blaming Clarke for their problems, and the fact that she’s an incompetent leader– they sure do look to her for guidance a lot. Between Bellamy, Octavia, and Jasper, each has said that Clarke is the reason for all this death… yet, at the end of the episode they’re all looking to her like “now what?” Hmm… how about y’all come up with a plan, seeing as you seem to think Clarke’s are so shitty and get people killed. Ever think about that? Yep. Didn’t think so.

I stand by my motto that The 100 has always been the Clarke show, life post apocalypse told from the eyes of this girl who has been through so much, so quickly. Yes, the show has other great elements– like Octavia and her ability to hold a grudge, Monty and his zero to stud status, and of course Murphy and his complete transformation since when we first met him back in Season 1. But, Clarke is the heart of the show, she’s (mainly) the reason why I tune in. To see what she’s going through, what she’s overcoming, and how she’s bringing this completely diverse and dynamic group together… yet again. Hence why I’ll be utterly dismantled if something were to happen to her in the finale– but we won’t let ourselves go there… yet. What I’m trying to get at is that Clarke is the leader. She deserves more respect then she gets and quite frankly, if people want to keep complaining about all the things she’s done or hasn’t done then maybe they should try and survive without her.

P.S. Clarke needs to stop saying ‘I’m sorry.’ When you have the one and only Stephen King tweeting about how much this poor girl apologizes, then you might wanna take note and let her live her damn life and stop feeling so guilty for doing what no one else has the balls to take on.

Raven Saves the Day… almost

Raven is not someone to rest around on her laurels, so it wasn’t a shocker that she would use her knowledge of ALIE to try and destroy her from the inside. If only it were that simple. We see Monty trying to deter her from going into ALIE’s code (which Raven sees as people and buildings) and just ending the whole place. They have their orders… wait for Clarke to come back with Luna and ALIE 2.0. But of course a sleep deprived and determined Raven isn’t going to stay idle for long. She knows that with ALIE’s administrator password she could move around the coding and ALIE wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing. After doing what she wasn’t supposed to and logging into ALIE’s backend, so to speak, Monty tries to stop her from going further. If he wasn’t around, I think that Raven would have been successful… but alas, The 100 isn’t that simple– right? It’s so painful to watch these scenes with Raven and ALIE’s programming because we really could have had it all, she was so determined, she found a backdoor and ALIE’s kill switch and she was so close to ending that bitch for good. I love Monty to death, but Raven having to handhold Monty’s hand is what stopped this deed from succeeded and it sucks. So bad. If he just let her do her thing, perhaps ALIE would be defeated already and no one else would have to die.

Monty

This poor kid isn’t traumatized enough so you force him to face his mom again. You know the mom he put a few bullets in not too long ago. Christopher Larkin really outdid himself in these scenes… he is forced to make the impossible decision to delete his mother’s consciousness from ALIE’s database, in a way killing her for a second time. The choice was quicker than I would have expected, but I can see why he did it so swiftly. He knew if he talked to her for one more moment, he wouldn’t be able to press the delete button. Would you? Too bad it was too little too late and ALIE pulled out just in time. That’s what she said.

Another notable, yet weird moment was Harper and Monty having sex, and although I would like to be on the side that says HEY THAT’S TOTALLY AWESOME, GET IT ON BOY, I still have an eerie inkling that Harper might be the one chipped within Arkadia. Now, that would be the logical thing, the reason why ALIE knows that Sinclair is dead, and some other suspect things… but I just don’t know. Maybe Harper does have a thing for Monty and she was craving some peen. Ya never know.

I mean, it came a bit out of left field, didn’t it? Yes, I love a good sexy time between adorable character as much as the next viewer, and I’m super stoked for Monty (and my girl Harper) to get a little peace and pleasure, but it just felt odd considering the mounting circumstances. Well, not that kind of mounting… well… ha. I’m blushing. Great. My guard is up and if we find out that Harper has been chipped this whole time, then I’m going to be borderline angry. Until then, Raven’s “finally” was the best moment within this odd sequence of events and I was just so happy that someone, other than me, was rooting for Monty to get some sky girl tail! Boom.

ALIE’s on the Ark!

What the what? This bitch uploaded her programming to the mainframe of the Ark’s ring? You know… the ring that Jaha was chillin’ on before he hopped on a nuke with his invisible baby in tow. I legit can’t handle this. My brain totally short circuited when I watched it. No lie. There were sparks coming out of my ear and everything. And for those of you confused as shit (aka my sister who was watching with me), this is bad. REALLY bad. With ALIE pulled out from the mainframe at Arkadia, the backpack destroyed, ALIE’s main source is now in space. Somewhere the delinquents are never going to be able to get to. So, now we’re faced with another daunting question– how are they going to stop her if they can’t hack her? Well, maybe they can… just in a different way. A way that probably requires Luna to take the flame, or Clarke to take a chip and I’m just like WHAT IS HAPPENING. I need to know.

You have to hand it to ALIE though, she’s smart. Too smart for her own good, and I really hope they defeat her in a way that Erica Cerra can still stick around, because she’s so awesome. Legit, her portrayal of this character freaks me out and excites me all at the same time.

The Unholy Trinity

Pike, Murphy and Indra: three names you never thought you’d see next to each other in a review, let alone teaming up to take down ALIE together. I don’t have too much to say on this topic, but I did want to mention it. Banding together to find the backpack and destroy it was probably the least thing I expected and why it really worked here. If only Murphy could have looked past his love for Emori and shattered that backpack before ALIE had a chance to upload herself to a mainframe that no one could touch, I would be a little less bitter.

Murphy is right though, no matter how much Indra wants her revenge, they need Pike and he might be one of the last adults from the Ark that can help them accomplish their freedom. Let’s hope he goes out in a heroic blaze… because, I still want him dead– just not as much now.

FINAL VERDICT

  • Someone please tell Jasper to just abstain from having feelings for people… much like loving Clarke, loving Jasper seems to be a surefire way for you to end up with your skin melted off… or ya know, with an arrow in your back.
  • Truthdom: “Even ALIE gives people a choice.” Octavia dropping her nonchalant nuggets of wisdom.
  • Jaha is getting on my last nerve. I really want to know WHY he did this. And don’t tell me that he wanted a peaceful place because the way that ALIE is making them live doesn’t seem like much of living… just existing.
  • Did you notice how they snuck in the fact that a few people on the oil rig were chipped? That’s how they found out about the flame and Clarke and why they were driven to waterboard poor Luna. It was a bit lazy for my liking, predictable in fact, but it served the purpose. Now, who’s to say there aren’t any other’s chipped on the oil rig. Luna might be forced out of hiding after all.
  • Even in the City of Light, Monty’s mom is still the worst!
  • Can someone punch Bellamy for me? K. Thanks. I’m just so sick of his whiny attitude. That is all.
  • RIP Shay, you did more to save your people and people you barely know than some of the original delinquents have to get out of this mess. You died well.

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