CW boss Mark Pedowitz was quizzed about The 100‘s controversial season 3 deaths, and reaffirmed that he is still “very happy” with the series.
The 100 season 3 was tumultuous on-screen and off, as the show dealt with the fallout of not one, but two major deaths of minority characters.
First it was Lexa, played by Alycia Debnam-Carey, who was killed by a stray bullet after consummating her relationship with lead character Clarke (Eliza Taylor). The decision to kill her, as has been outlined before, was made partially because Debnam-Carey had been cast on another show, and partly to propel the City of Light storyline that drove the back-end of the season.
That didn’t make the blow of her death sting any less, however, particularly since The 100 had been so inclusive of its LGBT fanbase, and the creators were simply not prepared to handle the ensuing backlash from the community.
Related: Why Lindsey Morgan and Eliza Taylor are grateful for The 100’s complex female characters
Then, two episodes later, main character Lincoln (Ricky Whittle) was killed off as well, with a bullet to the head, a troubling visual at the best of times. At this point, the increasing backlash from not only the fans but also Ricky Whittle himself could very easily have led to the show’s implosion.
But at the TCAs this Thursday, CW president Mark Pedowitz reaffirmed his previous statements that he stands behind The 100 and its creative decisions, acknowledging the ‘learning curve’ the crew is facing in terms of social media interaction and handling of controversial topics.
Said Pedowitz, “Jason [Rothenberg] had a great learning curve on what social media can do, whether you can be adored or hated at a given time.”
The social media climate certainly turned on a dime for Rothenberg and his team, who had previously been celebrating Clexa along with everyone else, and were even playing into the shipper debates that dominate the fandom.
After Lexa’s death and the immediate, resounding backlash that followed, creator Jason Rothenberg released a lengthy statement in which he affirmed that he had “spent a great deal of time” reading reactions, and acknowledged that he is “still learning.” He has stayed silent ever since, likely in an effort to let fans and critics carry the conversation, and to avoid further backlash.
For his part, Pedowitz believes that the backlash to Lexa’s death — which has certainly been a lot more widespread than to any of the many other LGBT characters that have been killed off recently — had a lot more to do with the social media interactions between the writers and the fans than with the death itself.
“My take on this is I think there was much more of a social media reaction and how Jason handled the social media reaction,” says Pedowitz. (Note: He is probably at least partially right, though I think the way she died had a lot to do with it, too. The ‘stray bullet’ trope is, unfortunately, very prevalent with LGBT characters on TV.)
As for the actual show itself, Pedowitz’ position is clear: “We’re believers in letting showrunners tell a story. I’m a believer in letting a creative tell a story. If you start limiting certain things, you’re going to start limiting the ability to be creative.” (The issue of tropes vs. creativity is a whole other discussion, and you can read some of our thoughts on it here).
The CW boss also noted, somewhat surprisingly, that GLAAD — which has reportedly met with networks in the wake of the Bury Your Gays disaster of 2016 — has not reached out to him to discuss The 100, or any of the other CW network series that have recently killed off LGBT characters. “There’s been no outreach to me from GLAAD in any way, shape or form and I’ve had good relations in the past. There’s been none,” said Pedowitz.
Moving on to address Lincoln’s death, Pedowitz once again noted that the actor’s other engagement contributed to the decision to kill him off, along with the lack of storylines for the character.
“Jason felt for a long period of time that he had written that character into a box,” Pedowitz said. “We felt it differently. There was a long discussion about this. At some point, we found that Jason had a great way for Ricky’s character to be written out so that [Octavia] could go forward in some way, shape or form. Ricky’s comments were about number of lines and stuff like that. Ricky was a great performer for us, but it is the showrunner’s right to [decide] how many lines an actor gets in a particular episode.”
Moving forward, fans of the series will be relieved to hear that Mark Pedowitz continues to stand behind The 100, confessing himself “very happy” with the series, which is “an unbelievable performer in delayed viewing and in digital streaming.”
“I love that show. I really do, I just love that show,” Pedowitz affirmed. “I was one of the people that encouraged Jason to go to a very dark show. To me, he knows how to tell the stories.”
He does admit that the first half of season 3 was “a little confusing with the Ice Nation and everything else,” though the latter half “picked up” once the delinquents were back together.
And we can probably expect much more of that in season 4, where Pedowitz teases “it’ll be much more intimate stories.”
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