The 100 season 2 premiered last night! The episode was full of surprises, and our hearts were in our throats the entire time. Read the recap here!

In The 100 season 2, episode 1, “The 48,” honestly, we were expecting a carnage. Someone was gonna die for sure, and we were terrified every time Bellamy (Bob Morley), Finn (Thomas McDonell) or Raven (Lindsey Morgan) appeared on screen.

But perhaps the biggest surprise of the episode was that, for now, they’re all still (more or less) standing. There you go, writers, lulling us into a false sense of security. But we’ll enjoy it while it lasts!

Let’s go through the episode storyline by storyline, saving the best for last…

Forget radiation exposure, the Mountain Men are obviously vampires

When Clarke (Eliza Taylor) wakes up in her cell, Monty is gone. Instead, a suited-up sanitation worker is cleaning his cell, listening to music on her iPod (!).

Clarke breaks out and attacks the girl (this is going to be a recurring theme), and demands to be taken to her friends – but what she finds is not what she expected.

…Unless of course she was expecting a bunch of elderly people eating breakfast, but we doubt it. They are terrified of being contaminated by her, and she is apprehended by guards.

She meets President Dante Wallace (Raymond J. Barry), the kindly old man who appears to be doing everything in his power to keep Clarke and the others safe.

He explains to her why the Grounders and Ark survivors can survive on the ground while they can’t: they’ve been exposed to radiation for generations, and natural selection has done the rest. (Let’s not forget that it’s been less than 100 years since the bombs went off – their genes sure adapted fast!)

…And that’s all great and all, but let’s look at the facts: they’re super pale, they have cold hands, and they fear the sunlight.

Vampires. There’s no other explanation. They’re stuffing their new victims with cake because their blood will taste sweeter. Mystery solved.

Speaking of sweet: an adorable Monty (Christopher Larkin) and Jasper (Devon Bostick) reunion makes us forget about how worried we are about Finn and Bellamy for a moment.

Not Clarke, though. She’s determined to break free and find them, which is her way of being in denial. We might know the show wouldn’t kill off two main characters off-screen like that, but she doesn’t. She saw the charred corpses!

“This place is too good to be true,” she tells the skeptical Jasper and Monty, who argue that for the first time in their lives, they’re neither hunted nor hungry. Jasper’s also found a new friend in Maya, you know, the girl with the very cold hands… (no, we’re not gonna let this go).

Clarke attempts to escape, and almost gets the doors open. Again Jasper has a good point, that if she escapes, she’ll kill the people inside. And even Clarke realises that this would be a tad bit selfish.

She’s taken to the President again, and man, he’s doing everything in his power to woo her. He tells her a story of when he was a child, and they first discovered the presence of Grounders. They opened the doors, thinking it was safe, only to see their people start dying like flies.

He also gives her a whole new art set, but she just uses it to study her map, because Clarke is nothing if not persistent.

The worst party ever

At the dropship, Raven has still not stopped being awesome, despite clearly being close to death. A Grounder (or is it… Bane?) breaks in to kill her, but she turns around and blasts him away.

We’ll miss you, Grounder Bane.

Enter Murphy (Richard Harmon), who has a surprising offer: he just wants to stay with her, and not die alone. And you know what, we completely believe him. That doesn’t mean he won’t return to his former ways once he’s better, but for now, yeah, he’s kind of making peace with himself.

Of course Raven does try to shoot him, and is hostile as hell.

We do learn a little bit about Murphy’s past: his dad got floated for stealing medicine, and his mother drank herself to death, blaming Murphy for his father’s death.

And that’s sad and all, but the guy’s a monster. Let’s not forget that. We’re very happy the show is keeping him around though, because he’s intensely fascinating.

Taking the ‘Romeo & Juliet’ analogy to the next level

Poor Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos). Last season she was introduced as a badass, fierce rebel, and this year she’s being carried through the jungle like a child, delirious from the poisonous arrow she was shot with.

Lincoln (Ricky Whittle) is trying to teach her Grounder-speak, but their plans to go to the sea are derailed when they discover the need to find an antidote for her wound.

Although Lincoln faces death (by a thousand cuts, holy crap) if they return to his village, in the end, they have no choice.

We just hope Lincoln won’t return to find Octavia dead by the poison, only to kill himself, and then it turns out she wasn’t really dead… it just kinda feels like it’s been done, ya know?

Oh, also, on their way, Octavia sees an Orc in the forest. So now we’ve got Bane, vampires and orcs. The writers were right, this season really will be different!

WE ARE WARRIOOO — guys, not cool

Okay, was anyone else’s heart beating in their throat through this entire storyline? We had been cautioned that there would be character deaths, and that we should prepare ourselves for the worst (nice fakeout, by the way), and it seemed completely unlikely that both Finn and Bellamy would make it through this hellish adventure alive.

And yet, so far so good. Now we get to be terrified for their safety next week, too!

Finn has been taken captive by a Grounder who is bringing him to his leader. Another kid sadly doesn’t make the cut, and the Grounder kills him right in front of Finn.

Bellamy is in the woods with two (not so much) warrior kids, and they decide to try to pull off a rescue mission. Sadly Bellamy’s companions weren’t as brave as he thought, and so he ends up captured alongside Finn (and this was when we did the math, realised the Grounder only needed one prisoner, and started running around in panicked circles).

Then, just as the two kids decide to find their bravery (and stupidity) and charge at the Grounder, rescue comes from up high – literally. Kane (Henry Ian Cusick) and Abby (Paige Turco) appear, and we were delighted to see Sinclair (Alessandro Juliani) with them too!

“We’re here now,” Kane tells the stunned Finn and Bellamy. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

They reach the decimated camp, and find Raven and Murphy – but no Clarke, much to almost everyone’s chagrin. Amazingly, Raven doesn’t tell on Murphy, but Bellamy does. Murphy is beaten up some more, because duh, before Kane separates them.

He reminds Bellamy once again that the grown-ups have taken charge. “You are not animals. There are rules. Laws. You are not in control here anymore.” Yeah, no, Bellamy isn’t buying it.

Bellamy and Finn are convinced that Clarke and the others have been captured by Grounders, and pledge to go rescue them. Bad plan, guys, bad plan!

Abby carves a message for Clarke, and they return to the Ark survivors’ new home: a giant piece of the ship, which they name Camp Jaha. Aww. And speaking of Jaha..

Jaha… and the prodigal child?

Oh, yes. Up on the Ark, Jaha (Isaiah Washington) is finally giving up, and we have to say: the poor man has tried to die a million times. This time, it seemed like he’d finally make it, but nope.

Because guess what he hears right after he turns off the lights and says goodbye to his son? A baby.

Oh sh–.

The 100 season 2, episode 2, “Inclement Weather,” airs next Wednesday at 9/8c! What did you think about the season 2 premiere?

We’re relieved, but also wary. So far it seems like everyone’s doing well. Let’s just pretend for the next week like no character deaths are imminent, and that everyone is going to find each other, Once Upon a Time style.