In The 100 season 2, episode 2, Jaha’s storyline had fans scratching their heads. Let’s find out what Jason Rothenberg has to say about the ambiguous development.
Last night’s episode of The 100 was fantastic. In “Inclement Weather” Raven went through surgery, Octavia (almost) pulled off an epic rescue mission, Clarke discovered the truth about Mount Weather (we told you they were vampires!)… and of course up on the Ark, Jaha found a baby. Sort of.
Related: The 100 season 2, episode 2 recap: Ghost stories
Jaha (Isaiah Washington) had just resigned himself to his fate when he hears a baby crying. He found it locked in a cupboard, and decided that he couldn’t let it die, so he devised a plan to get to Earth.
Only when he made it to the rocket that would take him to the ground, the baby disappeared, and a mirage of Jaha’s dead son Wells (Eli Goree) revealed that it had all been an illusion.
Wells realised that he had been hallucinating due to the lack of oxygen, but took to heart what Wells told him: he still had work to do. His people still needed him. And Jaha actually did make it to Earth, although he landed in the middle of a desert (oops).
After the episode, one of our biggest questions was whether Jaha’s subconscious conjured up the image of Wells to give himself a reason to live, or if there was something more spiritual going on.
Zap2It wondered the same thing, and posed the question to showrunner Jason Rothenberg.
“To me, it’s Jaha’s subconscious,” Rothenberg tells Zap2It, explaining that, “every time the baby is crying it’s because Jaha is having second thoughts about going back to the ground. As soon as he makes a choice to save himself, the baby stops crying.”
Considering that Jaha has been looking for a way to kill himself off since he discovered that Wells had died, it’s nice that he has finally found a purpose for living – and even nicer that it came through a final conversation with his son.
“[Jaha] never got to say goodbye, the two actors never really got a moment together, so this is really a special thing for me,” Rothenberg says of the scene.
What did you think about Jaha’s epiphany and his emotional moment with Wells?