The 100 season 4, episode 9 saw several characters figuring out what a “good death” looked like to them. Emotional and heart-wrenching — and with more than one pleasant surprise!

The 100 is finally back after a hellishly long hiatus (just a preview of what’s to come after the season 4 finale, haha, let’s not think about that now though), making up for its absence with an hour’s worth of complete emotional overload that I predict will be GIF’d practically frame-by-frame.

“DNR” marks the writing debut of Miranda Kwok, who will also return for season 5 — which is even more delightful after seeing her conscientious and well-crafted take both on the characters and the difficult themes The 100 sometimes tackles (I was particularly impressed with how she handled the Clarke storyline, more on that later).

The Murphy/Raven arc continues to be a personal highlight of the season for me, but in general, I really appreciated the nuances of both friendships and romances (and potential romances?!?!) across the whole episode. Despite juggling four separate storylines rather than the usual three, the episode felt slower-paced and softer than we’re used to, giving the characters time to breathe and quite literally make their peace with the world’s imminent end. It was a necessary calm before the storm ahead of Act 3, but felt so much more significant than just putting pieces into place.

Ultimately, the episode tells four versions of the same story: One or more characters come to the realization that they want to be in charge of their own death(s), and the characters around them have to accept that they can neither force nor compel them to change their minds.

tl;dr: You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. Some characters need to be reminded of this more often than others.

‘If anyone can convince mortal enemies to live together…’

Excuse me while I talk about the beautiful bromance of Clarke and Roan for approximately five years…

*time jump* Aaaand we’re back!

When Kane allied Skaikru with Trikru — knowing full well that Clarke had already allied them with Azgeda — it was just a matter of time before trouble came a’knockin. Especially since Kane and Abby seemed to genuinely expect Clarke to back down from her alliance, even knowing that her BFF Roan would get a pity spot in the bunker surrounded by all his enemies (seriously, that was a terrible plan).

Clarke protests, even calling Roan her friend — and rightly so, because he is her friend, arguably one of the only people who admires and respects Clarke as a fellow leader while simultaneously seeing right through her bullshit (Bellamy being another). He trusts her, within reason, but won’t just let her get away with doing whatever she thinks is best (as evidenced later in the episode, gloriously).

It’s a relationship that positions them as true equals in a way we haven’t seen much on The 100 so far, seeing as the show largely explores power structures by having characters represent conflicting points of view and try to convince each other to submit to a different way of thinking, rather than working to accept each other’s differences.

The political allegory here is obvious, and makes me wonder if we haven’t perhaps been taking the “transcending tribalism” narrative too literally. Because haven’t we been seeing multiple characters — Kane, Lexa, Bellamy, Roan, Jaha and now Clarke — all moving away from extremist inflexibility, realizing one by one that the rigid ‘us vs them’ mindset must make way for a tolerance of a spectrum of beliefs and allegiances, if one truly wishes for codependence, not submission? Isn’t this a super relevant story to tell through this sci-fi narrative that really has nothing to do with Grounders and Skypeople? Anyway. This is a much bigger topic that we should probably save for the hiatus.

Up until this point, Clarke has shown herself to be a good leader (especially when she’s working with others, and doesn’t let herself be swayed too heavily by other leaders), usually finding the most moderate compromise under the circumstances while still maintaining her authority and conviction. But what she hasn’t yet learned, and which is one of the final pieces in her leadership puzzle, is how to truly compromise — which sometimes means that, rather than always “bearing it so they don’t have to,” she sometimes has to recognize that this particular ‘it’ is not hers to bear.

A much-needed reality check

I love being wrong. (I mean, not as a rule, but when I’ve been steeling myself for a worst-case-scenario it feels pretty damn sweet.) And I love that the show basically used our collective fear of Clarke becoming Commander to psych us the f*** out before affording the Grounders the same dignity as the rest of the doomed characters: A right to face Praimfaya on their own terms, not bullied into submission by someone who, in Roan’s words, is making a mockery of their faith.

This episode confronts a very important issue that has been reverberating in fandom discourse (and indeed in pop culture at large) for a while now: As much as Clarke is the hero of this story, she’s not the hero of all the stories within the show, and certainly she is not and should not be the Grounders’ Chosen One.

Every action show/book/movie with a white lead necessarily relies on white saviorism to a certain degree, especially when dealing with separate cultures and peoples coming together, and The 100 is no exception. Even acknowledging that the lead in this case is a queer female, which is of course brilliant, the white savior aspect is no less significant, and worth discussing within the context of the story as it’s being told.

As we move closer to the reality that Clarke might actually end up being the acknowledged leader of one or more groups of people (at least that’s the narrative the characters within the show keep enforcing), it has become increasingly important for the show to not only acknowledge Clarke’s sense of entitlement/superiority with regards to Grounder society and religion, but to allow the Grounders to rebuff her attempts to be their savior as well as Skaikru’s. It’s wonderful to see “DNR” not only acknowledge this tension but to tackle it head-on within the narrative.

Of course Clarke very clearly has the best of intentions here. She genuinely just wants to save everyone — like Jaha in Arkadia — pointedly unconcerned with individual lives, tribes or belief systems. But that’s just it: just because she’s right from her perspective doesn’t make others wrong from theirs, and Clarke’s idea of what constitutes salvation isn’t a universal truth that the Grounders, or anyone else, have to submit to. It’s good of the show to subvert this trope, at least in part.

Roan is the one to call her on it, throwing three and a half seasons of Grounder-Skaikru conflict back in her face with the words, “you think we’re savages in need of saving?” Because yes, a part of her does. Whether fighting the Grounders in season 1, Mount Weather in season 2 or ALIE in season 3, Clarke has always believed herself morally superior to her enemies — not that she’s the only one; practically everyone on The 100 is fighting for what they personally believe in — and now, with Praimfaya coming, she’s completely unable to understand why the Grounders can’t set aside their 100-year-old history and the entire foundation of their society to share a tiny enclosed space for five years.

And because she can’t understand it, she believes it to be wrong, fully convinced that anything goes when it comes to saving these people from themselves — not stopping to consider their agency not only as a people but as individual humans, coming back to the episode’s over-arching theme of letting people live or die how they choose.

(And this isn’t even taking into account that, societies and beliefs aside, nobody on the show is actually under any obligation to carry on the human race. Not to be cynical, but humans are terrible, and maybe two nuclear apocalypses is the Earth’s way of kindly telling the species to buzz off.)

But all’s well that, er, ends. The Grounders will get their conclave, and Clarke won’t be Commander (even if she did take the Flame at some point in the future, it seems like the time of true Commanders is over, now that they “can’t trust the blood” anymore). It seems fitting that this is how the world as we know it will end: One last hurrah for the society that is likely on the brink of extinction, making way for something new.

And, hopefully, Clarke will learn that to be a truly great leader, you need to know when not to lead, instead of becoming increasingly fanatic in the quest to control everything and everyone (insert obvious Jaha and/or Mount Weather parallel here).

lol @ Octavia trying to be a farmer though

This was the most random interlude the show has ever done, but I highly enjoyed it. For a hot second Octavia really did try to put her fighting days behind her, and I applaud her for trying, but come on. Octavia is no more suited for life on Ilian’s farm than she was on Luna’s boat.

But it was important to give her time to have this realization. Like a lot of characters in this episode, Octavia is figuring out who she wants to be at the end of the world, and it’s more powerful for her to actively claim her warrior self after having an opportunity to choose peace than if she’d just continued down the path of destruction.

The idea of finding peace before the end sounds wonderful, especially the way Ilian tells it (is this the first time a non-Nightblood has expressed a belief in reincarnation?), and you can see the pain on Octavia’s face as he paints this beautiful picture for her, because she wants to believe it. She wants to find that peace. But there’s no other way for her to go out than fighting, and so that’s where she goes: To the war, where she can have a good death.

“Not much point in fighting at the end of the world,” says Ilian. But for Octavia, the fight is all there is. It’s a good thing that she’ll have something to fight for, too.

♫ And now, the end is near ♫

Continuing the theme of a good death and how the characters define that for themselves, we move on to Arkadia. Like Octavia, many of the characters — particularly delinquents, it seems — are realizing that bunker or not, their time is most likely running out, and have decided that rather than futilely trying to survive, they’d rather die on their own terms.

At the heart of this story is Harper, who is heartbreakingly hopeless as she simply can’t muster the energy to keep fighting in this never-ending, painful scramble for survival. But her line to Monty that “every time we think [we’ll be safe], something bad happens” speaks to a deeper issue than what Monty wrongly labels cowardice. Ever since they’ve landed on the ground, everyone’s lives have pretty much sucked, but Harper’s life has sucked more than most, and she must feel so trapped — forced to believe in yet another abstract plan that is probably doomed to fail like the rest.

In contrast to Harper, Jasper and the rest of the death squad, Monty and Bellamy still have hope, and this is at least in part because they also have purpose; for Monty, especially, his hope is very deliberately wrapped around a core sense of usefulness that Harper can’t share this time (as noted with a bittersweet “you’re a hero, Monty”). Monty’s got that unshakable confidence now — a confidence that Jasper, incidentally, gained and lost in Mount Weather. Monty cannot for the life of him relate to Harper and Jasper because he’s got a reason for fighting that’s bigger than himself.

Not fighting for anything but their own lives, and finding their lives to be useless if all they do is fight to survive, the people who are staying at Arkadia have only one thing left now: the choice of how and when to die. As Bellamy points out to Jaha, the fact that they have a choice, more than the decision they make, is the only possession — indeed dignity — they have left in this life. Bellamy, unlike Clarke and Jaha, immediately recognizes that nobody has the right to take that choice away from them.

I do wish The 100 had been able to spend more time setting up Jasper and Harper’s part of the ‘live vs survive’ storyline this season, because it’s a hugely powerful, heavy arc for both of them. But even with the relatively few scenes we’ve had to set this up, you can totally see why, with all the death and devastation — and, above all, helplessness — they have experienced, they would feel invigorated by this one ultimate act of rebellion, the manner of their death being the one thing in their lives they get to control.

It’s of course absolutely devastating to see Harper give up, to see her so physically spent and literally unable to muster up the strength to keep fighting for her own life. But Monty staying behind with the rover should give us some hope that she, if none of the other death cult members, will make it out alive. Because I think Harper does have some will to live left, especially if it also extends to making sure Monty survives.

Also, it would be remiss of me to not point out a Merlin parallel when I see one:


Credit: Jessica Jarman

Merthur. Marper. COINCIDENCE? ?

‘Said the cockroach to the raven’

Raven, Emori and Murphy are left behind to scavenge tech, but Emori truly doesn’t believe that the others are coming back for them. She points out that since Raven’s mind is broken, Skaikru doesn’t actually need her, and you know what? It’s a fair point from her perspective. After 408, is it any wonder that Emori has lost whatever little faith she might have had in these people’s compassion?

Skaikru truly have become so quasi-villainous in their actions this season, particularly through the eyes of someone like Emori, that it’s even a little surprising to the audience when Miller and Jackson (oh boy do I have Thoughts™ on this btw) actually do come back for them, leaving Emori and Murphy — who believed that they had been abandoned — totally speechless. Amazing little moment there.

And I’m always glad to get a reminder that, despite the whole there-are-no-good-guys thing, there is still some good in this world Mr. Frodo. Back in season 1, while Kane was trying to save the human race, Abby was making sure they deserved to survive, and we need to keep a hold of that balance even as things get murkier and more ambiguous.

Speaking of good things in this world: through the episode, Murphy is genuinely worried for Raven, and rightly so; this completes the quartet of storylines in which characters feel they have no other choice than to plan out a good death for themselves. In Raven’s case we learn that her brain is far worse off than we were led to believe in 407, to the point where hallucination/memory implant-Becca convinces her to spend her final moments spacewalking rather than deteriorating in the Polis bunker.

It’s a bit of an elaborate funeral she’s planning for herself, sure, but this is Raven we’re talking about. Between slowly withering away underground or dying on her own terms, weightless in space like she always dreamed, there’s no question what she’d choose. We can only hope this is a red herring though — I REFUSE to believe Raven is dying. There’s ALIE tech on the Ark right?

At this point, I think it’s safe to say that the Raven-Murphy relationship is one of the best parts of the season. I already wrote my ode to them after 406, and I loved what we’d gotten at that point — I certainly wasn’t expecting this much further exploration of the rich dynamic between them! (The cynic in me says that the writers are wrapping up their arc because one of them is dying, but expecting the worst is my default setting, you should know that about me by now.) I just love it so much, you guys.

Lindsey Morgan said in a recent interview that Raven is finding compassion for Murphy through his relationship with Emori, and I think that makes a lot of sense. His dedication to Emori is revealing his sympathetic side, humanizing him to the other characters, making him less selfish (and of course his actions have been less selfish in general). In turn, Raven is extending the compassion of forgiveness towards him.

There’s been a lot of fandom discourse about whether Murphy deserves forgiveness for his actions in season 1, specifically accidentally shooting and crippling Raven. But I think that line of thinking is, at least partly, missing the point.

To quote a little-known show I don’t ever talk about named Buffy the Vampire Slayer (you’ve probably never heard of it): “To forgive is an act of compassion. It is not done because people deserve it, it is done because they need it.”

Thus this is less about Murphy deserving forgiveness as it is about Raven and Murphy both needing to make peace with the other in this moment, at the end of the world, understanding that this is (hopefully not) the last time they’ll ever see each other. Ever since season 1 Raven has been holding on to all of this anger, Murphy has been full of all this guilt, and it’s time for them both to let it go.

The hug was a culmination of one of the show’s most satisfying slow-burns, and I am so incredibly grateful for The 100 allowing a relationship like this to exist and develop in the way that it has. TV is not usually this good, guys.

Also, for a moment there, I really thought Murphy might choose to stay with Raven, even though it’d hardly make sense if he did. Maybe he’ll come back for her, if/when there’s a new story development. Four episodes left. There’s time. #iwanttobelieve

For your consideration

Next on ‘The 100’: A Polis Battle Royale

The actual title of the episode is “Die All, Die Merrily,” which sounds like a Christmas carol, which is fitting, since a giant fight to the death is basically The 100‘s version of Christmas.

This is the one written by Aaron Ginsburg and Wade McIntyre, the one Marie Avgeropoulos and Tasya Teles have both hyped up as their favorite episode of the season, in which the clans come together to fight it out for space in the Second Dawn bunker.

I’M SO EXCITED FOR THE BLOOD BATH (please don’t kill my faves).

What did you think about this week’s episode of The 100?