The 100 season 6 continues Tuesday night with 6×02, “Red Sun Rising,” in which our heroes face their demons… each other.
After a brilliant season premiere last week, Book Two of The 100 is officially underway.
The second episode, “Red Sun Rising,” airs tonight at 9/8c on The CW. And, if you thought “Sanctum” was intense… well, you ain’t seen nothing yet. This episode is a RIDE from start to finish!
The official synopsis of the episode reads:
“SURVIVAL – The team on the ground fights to survive the threat they face on the new planet. Meanwhile, Raven must join forces with an unlikely ally to save everyone on board the Mothership.”
“Red Sun Rising” was directed by Alex Kalymnios, with a script by Jeff Vlaming (“Acceptable Losses”).
With both “The Chosen” and “The Dark Year” to her name, Kalymnios appears to be The 100‘s go-to bunker kru director — and for good reason.
Although “Red Sun Rising” splits its time between earth and sky, the episode continues to pull at the threads spun in both “The Chosen” and “The Dark Year,” examining Octavia as the unwilling leader of an unwilling people and her ongoing fight to justify the impossible choices she has felt like she had to make.
Throughout season 5, Octavia was counting on that final victory — getting her people to the promised land — justifying her increasingly extreme actions. Having been denied that absolution, Octavia is in a mindspace that, somehow, is even darker than season 5.
The promo reveals that Octavia is attacked by former members of Wonkru, with one declaring, “The Queen is dead” — a sentiment that a seemingly defeated Octavia almost looks like she welcomes.
Might the new threat teased in the episode synopsis draw these fraught factions a little closer together, in temporary unity against a shared crisis? It’s hard to imagine that such a thing as unity is even possible anymore.
As the promo and Inside the Episode video reveal, the team on the ground find themselves fighting an unexpected new threat: each other.
As hinted at in the children’s book they found at the abandoned compound (which you can read in full via Jason Rothenberg’s Instagram), Planet Alpha’s two suns eclipsing induces a plant-borne psychosis that, evidently, makes the exposed violent and dangerous.
We already saw it affect Emori at the end of the premiere episode, when she stabbed Murphy (!), screaming, “I won’t let him kill me.”
In the second sneak peek released by The CW, we also see something happening to Miller as he writhes and screams against the bugs that have apparently crawled inside him.
But what about the rest of them? They’ve chained themselves up, but for now, Bellamy, Clarke and the rest appear not to be feeling the effects of the psychosis. Will some of them manage to go free? And if not, should we be worried that some are chained up while others are not?
And if the effect doesn’t wear off, what kind of damage will the affected characters inflict on each other? What uncomfortable secrets might this psychosis force them to reveal?
“Red Sun Rising” is an amazing, tense episode from start to finish. Some of the confrontations on the ground feel like they have been seasons in the making, the horror movie-like, claustrophobic sequences thrilling as well as terrifying.
But not to be outdone, the Eligius part of the story is just as tense and claustrophobic, some of the episode’s best scenes involving characters we haven’t seen much of (yet) this season.
While the characters on the ground are forced to physically confront each other in brutal, traumatic ways, the Eligius characters have more time and space (haha) to talk out their issues and give voice to some of the things that will drive them this season.
And, as teased in the episode description, Raven joins forces with an “unlikely ally” — a team-up that I, personally, never knew I always wanted.
What part of “Red Sun Rising” are you most excited to see? Tell us in the comments, and tune in tonight at 9/8c on The CW to see the episode for yourself!