The 100 returned last night with season 2, episode 9, “Remember Me.” It was as heartbreaking, terrifying and wonderful as we knew it would be.
I have a confession to make: halfway through The 100 season 2, episode 9, I found myself completely mentally exhausted. It’s not that death and torture isn’t fun (er, you know what I mean), but there’s just been so much of it!
Still, the crying and screaming let up long enough to give us some absolutely fantastic story progression, both at the Grounder camp and Mount Weather. Let’s carve our way through this episode, dissecting it piece by piece. Grounder-style recapping, yeeeah.
Girl & the Ghost
(Yes, that IS a title of a KT Tunstall song, thanks for noticing!)
The episode literally opens with a shot of the blood on Clarke’s hands. You can almost picture the writing room as they structured this scene: “YEAH! This is so brutal! Then cut to her FACE! AWESOME!”
It’s storytelling 101, but The 100 just makes it work.
We see traces of Lexa’s benevolence everywhere; the fact that Clarke has been given a moment alone speaks volumes. Abby comes in to briefly comfort her traumatized daughter before Lexa enters.
“Blood has answered blood,” she says, deeming Clarke’s suffering worse than anything Finn would have had to endure. Them Grounders, they’re all about the pain.
But the sacrificing doesn’t end there: the Grounders want Finn burned with the bodies of the people he killed, and Clarke relents. “If this truth doesn’t hold, I killed Finn for nothing,” she tells the others. It’s nice to see Clarke managing to focus on the bigger picture, even now.
Abby has another little showdown with Indra, where she tells her, “You don’t want justice, you want vengeance.” She is far less forgiving of the Grounders and their ways, and I gotta say, I’m with Abby on this. They don’t understand peace – but maybe, through Clarke and Lexa’s alliance, they can.
Speaking of Clarke and Lexa, another highlight exchange from the episode comes when Abby argues to Kane that the Grounders are being led by a child, and Kane argues, “So are we.” All the awards.
After being screamed at by the poor, heartbroken Raven, Clarke watches the Grounders drag Finn’s body away – and his eyes open eerily to begin his silent judgement. This was a pretty on-the-nose way to deal with Clarke’s guilt, but I’ll take it.
Love is weakness
This really was the theme of the episode. Clarke had to mentally align herself with both Lexa and her mother before coming to a conclusion about how to get through this.
As they walk to camp, Bellamy (somewhat obtusely) asks Clarke is she’s “doing alright.” He proposes going off on his own to infiltrate Mount Weather, but Clarke refuses. “I can’t lose you too,” she tells him. I gotta say, I really like this friendship. I don’t care where the writers go with it, as long as these two don’t stop being comrades.
As the Sky People march into camp, a man who’s lost his wife and child in the massacre steps forward – and is beaten within an inch of his life, because that’s the Grounder way.
And you know, we’re told over and over again how merciful Lexa is, and it’s true, but it doesn’t change the fact that Grounders are kind of ridiculous. They value nothing but strength, and they see no other solution to a problem than pain and death.
It makes for brilliant television, but it’s just really hard to watch.
As they prepare to burn the bodies, Lexa gives the torch to Clarke, and Clarke’s hand is guided by ghost!Finn. “Your fight is over,” she says in Trigedasleng, and the Grounders are suitably impressed.
She and Lexa have an absolutely brilliant exchange after fire has burned down, where Lexa reveals that she’s lost someone she loves, too.
“Her name was Costia. She was mine,” Lexa explains. The point of this scene, brilliantly, is not that Lexa had a girlfriend – because like gender politics, I don’t believe sexuality is an issue in the world of The 100. The point is that Lexa has shut off her ability to love, deeming it a weakness she cannot afford.
“The dead are gone, Clarke. The living are hungry.” And this is how she leads.
(Sidenote: there’ll be a separate article discussing this, but I believe Lexa’s sexuality matters because it doesn’t matter. It’s a subtle, brilliant stance for the writers to take. More on that later.)
Blood will have blood will have blood will have…
It’s all very intense when Raven is falsely accused and tortured for trying to poison Lexa, but damn. Enough with the blood will have blood already! It’ll make the whole world bleed.
Indra informs the shocked group that Lexa has once again been “merciful,” and will only be punishing Raven rather than all of them. Raven is strung up, and tortured, and can we officially say that she’s suffered enough already?
Luckily ghost!Finn ends up serving a purpose, helping Clarke save Raven. She discovers the poison wasn’t in the bottle but in the glass, and Bellamy works out that Lexa’s right-hand-man Gustus was trying to break up the alliance.
Then HE is cut and killed. Ugh. I’m over it. But, silver lining: it did allow Raven to realise what Finn would have had to endure if Clarke hadn’t killed him quickly.
It was a nice moment for Lexa too when she pulled a Clarke (yes, that’s what we’re calling it) and ran Gustus through with her sword, ending his pain. “We’re not so different,” Abby remarks.
By the end of the episode, they’ve heard Monty’s signal, and Clarke tells Bellamy to infiltrate the mountain after all. She’s ready to risk Bellamy’s life to save her people – love is weakness.
She tells ghost!Finn as much, and we get one last look of pouty disapproval (one of the many things we’ll miss about Finn!) before he dissipates.
Clarke enters the tent with Lexa and the Grounders, and Abby is left outside holding Finn’s ashes. Clarke has made her choice, and she’s following Lexa’s example: if she wants to lead, she has to shut off her emotions. I wonder how long the compassionate Clarke can pull off that schtick.
The other guys and their big-ass hammer
Very briefly, let’s check in with Mount Weather. Miller has a big-ass hammer, cue sniggers, and they use it to find the communication lines, discovering that the signals are jammed.
Then Jasper uses the old kiss-to-distract-the-guard trick. Very smooth. But this is not the time for romance, because when they get back to the barracks, Monty is missing.
He’s gone to the command room, manages to deactivate the jamming signal… and then is captured, because that’s how storytelling works. Monty wakes up in a cage (and yay! Harper is still alive!), and discovers that the Mountain Men have prepared one for each of the 47. DUN DUN DUNNN!
Unfortunately we really only care about Jasper and Monty (and Miller, who’s awesome with or without his hammer), so this story still lacks a bit of weight. Good thinking sending fan-favorite character Bellamy over there to raise the stakes!
Closing thoughts
WOW. What a spectacular episode. Aside from the ghost-plot (it just lacked the show’s usual sophistication), we had non-stop brilliant character moments with Clarke, Lexa, Raven, Abby and Lincoln.
Observations:
– Bellamy, as a character, really needs something to do other than shoot concerned eyes at Clarke, so I’m glad he’s getting his own mission now.
– Octavia and Lincoln are splitting up. Again. But they did have a very public makeout session, so yay? I dunno.
– IF the show were to do another love story with Clarke, what would be more interesting: Clarke/Bellamy or Clarke/Lexa?
– Abby finally explained herself to Clarke, but is it too little too late at this point?
– Shock-lash jokes. Too soon.
– How did Lexa unite the 12 tribes? Can we have a flashback please?
– What is the Ice Nation? Like, Alaska?
