The 100 season 8, episode 8 gives us a big win for team free will, a big loss for humanity, and a big… anomanom.
Well, Kabby fam. Diyoza fam. Jordan fam. Are we okay?
This episode of The 100, written by Miranda Kwok and directed by newcomer April Mullen, picks up the pace from last week’s introspective “Nevermind,” leaving us reeling… in more ways than one!
A lot of movement happens in “The Old Man and the Anomaly,” both physically and of various plot points that need to be set in motion for the rapidly approaching endgame. Lines are drawn, new dynamics are forming, and players are moving into position.
“The Old Man and the Anomaly” is split up into three completely separate storylines that I’ll attempt to break down and discuss individually, because they’re all hugely significant.
Yet, different as they are, there is a very strong through-line tying them together (and making this episode hyper-relevant to the season as a whole): the complimentary, yet surprisingly contradictory concepts of eternity and second chances.
As Russell says himself: “When the universe gives you a second chance, you take it.” And the second chance is all well and good, but the taking is of course the problem with what Abby does to Kane and Gavin — she takes Gavin’s life, she takes Kane’s free will and (debatably) his humanity — and, to a lesser extent, what Murphy is almost willing to do to Clarke. Suddenly the second chance becomes another ‘us vs them’ judgement call: our second chance at the cost of their first.
When the universe (or Monty — same difference?) grants you a second chance, it means making a better choice or becoming a better version of yourself than you were before. This is what Russell meant. This is what Emori does. It is what Gabriel tried and failed to do. (Cycles, spirals, infinity loops. No matter where they go, there is no escape.) It’s what Echo has done, and what Clarke wants to do, and probably where Octavia’s story is headed.
But for the Primes, the second chance Russell and Gabriel gave them after the first eclipse turned into a third, and a fourth, and a seventh, slowly diluting the human instinct to make the most and the best of your limited time into a slow, selfish, immoral forever, eternal life fueled by so much death. (It’s so… vampiric.) Why try to break the cycle when you are confined to an endless loop with no beginning, middle, or end?
Monty’s beautiful idea of a second chance which has driven Clarke and Bellamy and everyone else to “do better” has thus been weaponized, turned into something ominous that challenges free will, identity and humanity. Just like that, the words have been stripped of their redemptive meaning to instead become a blanket excuse to do morally questionable things like “only choice”, “there are no good guys” and “first we survive” used to be. We are, it seems, still stuck in the infinite cycle.
And that brings us to infinity. Forever; eternal; this abstract concept that the Primes have made real, and which seems now to directly challenge the concept of humanity. Which I suppose has been the case all along.
To infinity and beyond
In science fiction, ‘eternity’ is usually something we associate with robots and technology (‘living forever as a machine’ is more than just a Friends reference).
Science fiction primarily occupies itself with the merging of humanity and technology, sometimes with the end goal of extending an individual life indefinitely and essentially inventing immortality — a trait that in mythology would turn humans into gods, but in sci-fi usually turns them into inhuman, cyborg creatures.
It is a well-trodden storytelling path that is invariably littered with big human questions like: where does humanity end and technology begin? What is a life, anyway? What defines personhood? What makes us human? Is humanity — a label defined by humans — a flexible concept that evolves with our robotech capabilities?
One of the biggest ways we try to distinguish between life and artificial intelligence is by saying that the very definition of life is its inevitable end. In other words: death is what makes us human. By that logic, depriving a person of death is also, in a way, to deprive them of life and humanity.
The Primes would disagree with this, of course. Murphy, too. And Abby. But I daresay Kane would not.
While Abby is in space forcing an eternal (half)life on Kane because she can’t bear to let his life end, compromising both of their humanities in the process, we’ve got Emori on the ground offering a much more philosophical, and dare I say human, interpretation of eternity as a concept.
With the beautiful words “I will love you forever, even if we die today,” Emori rejects Murphy’s offer of immortality at the cost of her moral humanity, instead proposing that forever, their forever, is made forever despite the fact that it will one day end. (Or maybe because of it.)
The fact that they will eventually die does not invalidate their infinite now; that their eternity has an end does not make it less eternal. (In fact, it might be the opposite). Just as Monty and Harper, who actually lived ‘happily ever after,’ got to live their forever.
Death is what the Primes are defying, and we have seen how this makes them less human and less in touch with life. By choosing to die, Emori is also choosing to live, by her SpaceKru family’s example.
And then there is Gabriel, living in a forest of youth and age and time, seemingly denouncing humanity because he, like Kane, was robbed of the chance to die human and forced to be this unnatural, otherworldly being they call a “god,” but which is really just a way of saying inhuman.
Rage against the machine
Well… I suppose it was only a matter of time before the memory transfer technology was going to kick us in the nuts, huh?
We were told before the season started that Abby’s new addiction was to save Kane, and I guess it really was that straightforward: she ignored her daughter acting strange, she ignored the horrors of Prime society and the questionable science of memory implants; she carved Kane’s soul out of his skull, forced it into a dead man and called it resurrection.
(We can and should be horrified by this. But I feel compelled to point out that in season 4, Kane defied Abby’s wishes to die in Praimfaya and brought her into the bunker, sacrificing an innocent person to do so and condemning her to a miserable existence she didn’t want or choose. Now, she has essentially just returned the favor.)
After watching this episode, I sat for a while and thought about what makes up the ‘soul’ of a television character. When trying to wrap my head around the character Marcus Kane, played by Grayston Holt, I was trying to feel out: would it really be Kane to me? Theoretically, it shouldn’t be impossible to accept it. Sometimes TV shows and franchises recast actors, it happens, and we’ve learned to suspend our disbelief.
But on The 100, it’s a little different, isn’t it? I’ve always said the casting is one of the strongest aspects of the show, but obviously the writers deserve equal credit for seeing an actor’s potential and running with it. Characters like Murphy, Indra and Emori only exist in the form they do because of the actors cast to play them. Mackson happened because the writers recognized the potential of the characters together as played by those actors.
And, similarly, Marcus Kane is who he is and has evolved the way he has because of Henry Ian Cusick. Cusick made Kane who he is. So if the new Kane is sticking around, I certainly will appreciate seeing Grayson Holt engage with the other characters and play in this world. But will he be Kane to me? I don’t know.
But of course, in this context, it’s hard to actually think about the person inside Grayson Holt’s body as Kane. Full disclosure: I’m still struggling to accept the memory drives as anything other than a digital copy of a person’s consciousness. We saw the monitors with ones and zeroes; it’s a scan and a digital reconstruction, not a brain transplant.
I do absolutely believe the chip personalities are real in their own right. Once the chip exists and contains digital brain code, it becomes the person whose brain it scanned. From there, we can debate its level of humanity and identity as an AI that thinks it’s human (and maybe the limits of what we consider humanity need to be reassessed), and of course who even gets to decide what’s real — because if Prime Kane feels real, and Abby believes he’s real, does that not make him real? It’s not like o.g. Kane can argue his side. All of this is super interesting to me.
It’s just that I’m not totally sure we’re not ‘just’ supposed to consider this a slightly supernatural, magical soul transfer thing that makes the concept of immortality a legitimate reality and not something that’s up for ethical debate. And I struggle to do that, because based on the information we’ve been given, these chips no more extend the owner of the original brain’s life than a clone would extend the life of the person they were cloned from (just as was the case for Boomer and Athena in Battlestar Galactica).
To me, the Prime implants are for all intents and purposes ‘real’ at the point of their creation, and in their own understanding of their selves, they are continuing the life of the brain they came from. But the original people whose memories it stored are still dead, just as is the case for the Commanders inside the Flame, and just as the people uploaded to the City of Light who died in real life didn’t actually ‘live on’ in there.
This entire storyline sends my mind spiralling with questions about what defines humanity and personhood in the age of artificial intelligence, and obviously makes me think even more about the different ways we talk about ‘eternity’ as a concept, so I balk at having to put a lid of all that and just taking the bodyswap premise at face value.
(But listen, if the story needs me to accept that a Prime chip transfer is just an unambiguous continuation of a life and that the moral dilemma comes from the fact that they are bodysnatchers, then that’s fair. It smells like magic to me, but I’ll try.)
Having said all that, now that I’ve actually watched a digital resurrection storyline play out on the show, I dare say I feel a little better about it, because, whether or not the show is asking me to suspend my disbelief about transferable souls, I certainly don’t think I’m supposed to like it. We’re not meant to be relieved or happy that Abby did this to Kane. This is a very overt perversion of his life and humanity; Raven is horrified, and obviously so is ‘Kane’.
Because whether or not this is the real, original, authentic Marcus Kane, it’s Kane now, and he has to live through being exorcised from his own body, which now lies rotting, and getting stuck inside a reanimated corpse whose strings he pulls with his implant brain. Whatever he does with this body is inherently a violation of the host it belonged to; however he lives, it cannot truly be life. He’s essentially a corporeal ghost.
Of course some characters might disagree with that assessment. The Primes, of course, consider him alive; their entire existence depends on believing that computer chips are alive and that other people’s bodies can become theirs. Abby, in her haze, fully considers (or wants to consider) Kane real and alive. She saved him. She is the doctor who beat death. She gave him his second chance.
But the clincher, and why I actually really like that they’re telling this story with Kane specifically, is that if any character on the show was going to vocalize the inhumanity of the Primes and what Abby has done to him, and bring some of these philosophical/scientific debates to the forefront, it would be Kane.
Losing and gaining humanity and wanting to do better have been cornerstones of Kane’s arc since the beginning, and to have Abby ultimately rob him of his own humanity by making him an immortal being is sort of the ultimate denouement the narrative could give them both. (If I know Kane, he’s going out the airlock before the season is over.)
I should of course note that this was obviously not the story I hoped for, for either of them. Especially not for Abby, who has been battling with her own sense of failure and inhumanity since she abandoned her DNR oath in Becca’s lab and seemed, finally, on track to reclaim some value and humanity for herself this season when she stepped back into a leadership role.
But what I want and what the story challenges me to consider are two different things (except for the digital soul thing lol sorry). It makes perfect sense that this is where Abby’s spiral has taken her. Not all stories end happily, and not all characters learn to do better.
And I cannot deny that it is a grotesquely brilliant full circle moment: these two characters have been exchanging “now we get our humanity back”s back and forth for six years, and now, Abby has taken Kane’s humanity from him forever, and has discarded her own in the process.
She is Doctor Frankenstein, and Kane is her monster.
RIP Marcus Kane, long live…?
Whether or not we believe in cyborg souls, I do want to take a moment to say goodbye to o.g. Kane, the character who used to be one of my absolute favorites. Considering that his body looked very, very dead, this seems like a goodbye to Kane as played by Henry Ian Cusick. (Even if I hope we see him somehow, maybe through new Kane’s eyes?) Which is sad. It’s been a while since a character death had me this bummed, and he isn’t even exactly dead!
For me, Kane’s journey on the show, particularly seasons 1-4, was one of the most engaging and rewarding to watch. I will never forget his incredibly satisfying moment of triumph in the season 4 episode “The Chosen” when he managed to convince Jaha to save their people. It was the moment his entire arc had been building to: where everything he had fought for had finally allowed him to foster real change.
Kane was often the only voice of reason fighting against broken system after broken system. He only ever wanted peace, and if any character embodied the season 6 mantra “do better”, it was him. He deserved that second chance, I’m with Abby there.
And Henry Ian Cusick was, undeniably, a phenomenal presence on The 100. Incidentally, he was the reason I became a fan, because I picked up the pilot by mistake thinking it was another show, and only kept watching because I recognized him from Lost. (So thanks, and also, here we are?)
But actors get other jobs sometimes. It happens. I sincerely hope that The Passage gets picked up for a second season somewhere, because it had a great start and shows a lot of promise. I wish Cusick all the best, and I wish we could have kept his Kane a bit longer. And there’s always the inside of his mind, right?
But I will say this: if anybody was going to make me believe in Kane 2.0, it would be Grayston Holt. Once again, I gotta give it up for the casting department, because it’s kind of a genius choice. He’s clearly done his homework, because even in that one short scene, his mimicry and the expression in his eyes could easily make me believe I was watching Kane through a distorting mirror.
I know Holt from Alcatraz and Bitten and have been quietly fangirling about him joining The 100 ever since the news broke. A part of me is very curious about his take on the character!
And of course it isn’t certain that Kane refuses to live in this body. Maybe he, like Gabriel, finds it hard to resist his ‘second chance’ once he has it. Maybe we’ll see him struggle with the intellectual understanding that he isn’t fully real and the ethical minefield of him operating someone else’s body, yet finding that he feels real and finds it hard to resist thinking about the body as his.
This could be the beginning of a whole new Kane story, for all we know. And I am as always keeping an open mind about storylines I haven’t actually seen yet.
Oh, the humanity
Oh, Abby. She has always been a complex character because of her morality and because of how far she was willing to go to do ‘the right thing.’ She’s made decisions that not many other characters would have been able to. She’s repeatedly picked the many over her one, and she’s done it unflinchingly, in the name of moral humanity.
Her purpose, as she defined it in the pilot, in direct opposition to Kane’s cold pragmatism, was to “make sure that we deserve to stay alive.” Ironically, whatever the personal cost. (I mean, she began her journey by turning her husband in to the council and sending her daughter to the ground.)
But somewhere along the way, those decisions sent her spiraling down an increasingly slippery moral slope, leading her to what was now obviously her point of no return: when she broke her DNR oath and engaged in human trials to make Nightblood in season 4.
In that moment, she lost herself, as the episode underscored when she proceeded to break the machine to save Clarke and doom humanity as a whole in the process. It was a heartbreaking catch-22: to save humanity, she had to do something that would make her lose her own humanity, which in turn would make her lose faith in humanity as a whole.
Doing the Nightblood trials would give humanity a way to stay alive. But in doing so, they no longer deserved it. Abby had sacrificed and sacrificed for this ideal, only to find that she herself had shattered it, and all she had left was to fight for the few people she loved.
And then she didn’t even get the dignity of dying so that others may live and build a better world. Kane ‘saved’ her, and forced her to experience the horrors in the bunker. Having abandoned her purpose of making sure humanity deserved to stay alive (that was now Kane’s objective), there were no more moral lines.
From then on, whatever it took to keep humanity* alive, she would do it. She would help make her first monster in Octavia; she would advocate cannibalism; she would take all the darkness onto her own soul because it was already forfeit. It hurt — the pills are proof of how much Abby struggled to live with herself — but she would do it. She would, in other words, bear it so Kane wouldn’t have to.
(*At this point, Kane had come to represent the humanity Abby believed she, and everyone else in the bunker, had lost. Abby’s last shred of faith in humanity and redemption lies in Kane, who in so many ways became who she was in season 1 while her arc went in the opposite direction. Kane and Clarke have come to embody the ‘humanity’ she was always ready to risk everything to save.)
You might even say that for all he embodied humanity, he stopped being fully human in her mind, with all the flaws and moral grey areas that would entail. Instead Kane became some kind of symbol of salvation, a light that used to be inside her and was now an external, corporeal flame that she had to keep burning at all costs.
So of course she can’t let him go now; her own life and humanity was forfeit a long time ago, and nothing matters but that he survives and gets his humanity back, for both of them. Which is obviously the part of all this that is terrible and twisted and tragic, because his humanity is what Abby has just robbed him of.
Kane was supposed to be her redemption, but in this episode, he becomes her creation. Kept artificially alive, first in the cryo pod and then in a flash drive. Refused the dignity of his own free will — Abby rebirths him because she needs him to live, knowing perfectly well that she isn’t doing it for him, but for herself — Kane has been made a literal god as per the Primes’ self-definition, which is probably no less than what Abby thinks he deserves, but which will probably make Kane feel less than human.
My god. I’m horrified, but also impressed. Because what a story to tell. And there are so many ways it could go, for both Abby and Kane.
Finishing each other’s sandwiches
OH MY GOD! Xavier is Gabriel!
Nah, we don’t have time for this. We been knew. The trickster god was among them all along, just like Supernatural’s, uh, Gabriel.
Octavia and Diyoza bicker like an old married couple, an exchange that could only be made better by Diyoza literally saying “we’re like an old married couple.”
The Octavia-Diyoza duo has just been golden. The sniping mixed with genuine tender understanding was so great to watch. It honestly might be the most ingenious pair-up since Murphy and Jaha, and I really hope there’s more to come.
Gabriel explains about his tragic origin story — he left Sanctum behind to escape the system of false gods, only to end up a false god for the children of the forest. His adopted null son resurrected him against his will, and Gabriel killed him in “a fit of rage” (foreshadowing?). So much death for eternal life. And yet Gabriel is still here. Still searching for… what? Redemption? Humanity? A second chance to do the right thing?
They go into the Anomaly, Gabriel has visions of Josephine — his greatest fear and deepest desire — and Octavia, heartbreakingly, sees Bellamy bound on the ground like he was in the arena. She nearly has a panic attack, and my heart just clenches for her. I’m ready for a Blake reunion now (and I think we might get one!).
The one thing about this episode that feels a little weird to me is Diyoza following the (very well cast) Hope projection into the Anomaly. I think I needed a little more explanation for why the show’s most pragmatic, level-headed character abandons all logic when she sees something she has just been told is a vision intended to manipulate her and which surely she must realize could hurt the Hope that is inside of her stomach?
But I suppose the plot is calling her name, and so Diyoza skedaddles into the Anomaly, and Octavia of course follows her, because this is Octavia and even at death’s door she is still fighting for her people.
They leave Gabriel shouting about how nobody who has gone in has ever gone out, but honestly, what did he expect? He literally led them to it on purpose with the specific directive to find out what it wants. I’m with Anomaly-Josephine on this one.
Of course the Anomaly has never met Octavia Blake (what is it but just a big green wind, anyway?), because she emerges like a second later, fully healed but looking absolutely shell-shocked by whatever she experienced in there.
Diyoza, however, doesn’t emerge. I am afraid™. I don’t want to lose Diyoza, especially after her unceremonious tumble into the Anomaly. (But whatever happens to her, I do think this is probably how Hope will emerge not-a-baby.)
If/when we lose Diyoza though, we have to follow her and Octavia into the Anomaly first to find out what actually happened! What the Anomaly is and what makes it ‘sentient’ is a mystery I’m very invested in. Literally anything could happen in there, I’m so stoked for the next episode.
Emori forever
Okay, let’s get to this absolute winner of a storyline: every single thing involving Emori in this episode.
Emori has been one of my favorite characters for a while now. I’ve never expected the show to give her much screen time (Luisa d’Oliveira remains elusively off the main credits), but I have appreciated the emotional complexity they’ve given her, particularly in season 4 and early season 5.
I’ve always been a big fan of Murphy and Emori’s relationship. But what I like most about Emori is how she’s grown outside of her relationship with Murphy. She was brought in to be his love interest, and on The 100, love interests sometimes aren’t allowed to exist independently of the character they exist for.
But Emori transcended her label, sometimes seemingly on her own, as though the love interest box simply couldn’t contain her. She demanded to be her own person. She got to have a backstory, she got to have personal victories that had nothing to do with romance, and she got to find a family in SpaceKru that mattered to her — not more than Murphy, but in a different and equally significant way. In fact, at times, Emori was the only character who made SpaceKru feel like a real family.
So I was honestly disappointed when she and Murphy got back together in season 5, because it felt like a way to box her up again. And it was too fast; there was too much unresolved baggage from space, with Murphy openly admitting that he punished her for forming human connections outside of himself and Emori calling him out on it, only for the whole issue to seemingly get dropped when war happened and — just as Emori had predicted — Murphy found a way to function again.
By the time she wanted to stay behind and die with him in the finale (one of three women who made this decision), I was just very annoyed with the whole storyline.
But what this episode manages to do, which I wasn’t expecting and which frankly kind of floors me, is to find a way to keep them together and strengthen their bond independently of Emori staking a claim on her own agency and making choices for her family and Clarke and the general right thing.
In fact, she even acts directly against Murphy’s interests and even puts his life at stake, because she knows as well as the audience (and Bellamy) that Murphy made his own choice — without consulting Emori — and that he can deal with the consequences without also getting to decide for Emori who she wants to be.
Her actions don’t erase or excuse Murphy’s complicated morality; just because she chooses to do the right thing doesn’t change Murphy’s mind. He found out Clarke was alive, but only for a few more hours; he weighed his options and bet on Josephine to save himself and as many of his loved ones as he could, until his life was as good as forfeit, and only then did he (once again) weigh his options and decided to save as many as his loved ones as he could.
Emori knows who Murphy is, and loves him for it, as she always has. The difference this episode makes is that she now also demands that he loves her on her terms and respects her as an independent agent whose choices are her own. And then she agrees to marry him.
This is Emori’s way of signaling to him (and us, and herself) once and for all that choosing to be with someone doesn’t mean renouncing your own identity or compromising your ideals, and that you as a person is more than your relationship.
This is honestly better than my best case scenario for her, which was that she dumped Murphy and chose SpaceKru (Echo specifically, which I almost believed she might for a glorious second). But no, she chose BOTH. Emori is complex AF.
And I love that this episode plays with the idea of assumed agency (or lack of same) for ‘Murphy’s love interest’ in really smart and deliberate ways. Bellamy dismisses Emori because he assumes she’s with Murphy. Murphy doesn’t let her speak for herself when they’re with Josephine. Emori can only pull off her sleight of hand because she knows everyone assumes she’s Murphy’s accessory and is incapable of acting independently of him.
The result is that Emori is free to dictate the entire course of the episode. Emori looks forward to Murphy and back to Echo and makes a choice. There are two possible futures ahead of her, and she falters between them for a moment, but everything she is and everything that has led her to this moment informs who she wants to be, and in this moment, that is who she becomes.
This is what we mean by character-driven storytelling. And that it is Emori’s choice, building on years of character work and thoughtful acting choices by Luisa d’Oliveira, only makes it better and more satisfying.
“The Old Man and the Anomaly” manages to land the Memori relationship in a genuinely good place by giving Emori full autonomy over her own life and ideologies, which delights me. Because when Murphy initially proposed — after I squealed, I’m only human — I honestly felt a little icky about it. It seemed manipulative and sudden and they still hadn’t dealt with the very pressing and uncomfortable issue of him not wanting her to have her own friends.
But by the end of the episode, after Emori had done the right thing and saved her people, choosing to love and be with Murphy but on her own terms and refusing to put him first, I was genuinely happy that she said yes.
It’s a healthy, complex, and genuinely different type of love story than I feel like we’ve seen before, certainly on this show. It brings them together in a way that doesn’t undermine her other relationships, which is so important, because it’s not like Murphy has ever been emotionally shackled to her the way she has to him. And that Miranda Kwok managed to land them here in only one episode is incredibly impressive.
Looking ahead, if they make it through this, I really hope for more content between Emori and Echo, because this episode made a big deal of Emori singling Echo out specifically as someone she wasn’t willing to betray, and I think there’s a lot of untapped potential here about them both maybe needing SpaceKru more than SpaceKru needs them — because unlike Bellamy, Murphy and Raven, they don’t have any other family or allegiances. Maybe they’ll end up being each other’s family. I would love to see that.
Of course things aren’t looking so good right now for Mr. and Mrs. Cockroach, because they — along with Miller and Jackson — are currently being held captured by an angry mob of Primes. I’m just going to venture a wild guess and say we aren’t getting a double wedding next week, though a girl can dream.
PS. I noted in last week’s review that Jackson and Emori happen to have City of Light chips in their heads, so at least if they get wiped we know they can be saved right? Small comforts.
Mad Madi: Faster and Furiouser
You know what the opposite of a Save the Cat moment is? A Stab the Green.
Madi, fueled by grief and rage and revenge, has hatched a plan with Sheidheda to kill the Primes and take their compound. Madi, that is so Mount Weather.
She is genuinely scary in this episode, the way she is so pragmatically presents her mass murdery plan to her completely nonplussed companions. Bellamy clearly has his head elsewhere, but I like how he just flat-out denies her plan. (I also kind of like that she just does it anyway.)
Making Madi the Commander in season 5 had some people worried she would be the unchallenged child queen, but it was never going to be that black and white. Not for Skaikru anyway, and especially not for Jordan, who certainly never agreed to let himself be ruled by her.
My heart breaks for Jordan. This kid has grown up with stories about these people and an expectation that they would be his peers and family. And yet nobody has taken a particular interest in him or his well-being (except maybe Clarke). Their story really isn’t about him.
The only person he really bonded with and who wanted to hear his story was Delilah, and when she was wiped, nobody took his concerns seriously. And now, Bellamy refuses to even prioritize saving her.
When Jordan says “You only care about Clarke,” he’s implying a lot more than just how much he knows Bellamy cares about Clarke. By not including Delilah as part of the group whose safety he values, Bellamy is implicitly excluding or underprioritizing Jordan, too.
It’s funny, because Maya popped up in Clarke’s head last week to remind her of doing just such a thing to Jasper in Mount Weather, and we all remember how bitter Jasper became towards her after that.
Right now, Jordan’s loyalty is to Delilah only, and honestly, I don’t blame him. A clan or a society isn’t something he necessarily has a reason to need; he’s used to being on his own. SpaceKru+ hasn’t been particularly loyal to Jordan or really paid much attention to him at all, so Jordan doesn’t have a particular reason to be loyal to SpaceKru in return.
It’s a tragedy in the making, because as far as we know, Delilah really is gone forever, and there is a real danger that the Primes are going to manipulate him into believing otherwise. (Is it completely impossible that Delilah could come back? It is, right? Unless there’s a loophole we haven’t been made aware of yet.)
It’s already tragic though, because when Madi goes to stab Priya, Jordan ends up jumping in front of her, and Madi stumbles away shocked at her (accidental) action. Priya, luckily, is grateful enough to Jordan that she wants to save him, so I expect he’ll recover… but where his loyalties lie after that is anyone’s guess.
Whoa, though, right? Here we all thought Madi and Jordan were going to be BFFs. I really hope Clarke gets her body back soon, not just because her time is running out, but because Madi needs a Sheidheda intervention STAT! (And an extraction team.)
We leave everyone inside Sanctum in a bit of a precarious situation. Bellamy ran off into the woods with Clarke, leaving the rest of his people unprotected and leaderless (priorities, right?).
Jackson, Miller and Emori have been captured; Murphy and Jordan are gravely injured; Madi has been caught red-handed murdering Primes… and Russell is out for blood.
Echo looks like she evaded capture though, and will hopefully turn out to be the secret weapon our heroes need. Because even if Bellamy finds Gabriel (and Octavia!?) in time and saves Clarke… the war for which faction gets their second chance to live (forever) has only just begun.
For your consideration
- If Josephine and Murphy’s plan had gone a little differently…
- When Bellamy said “do you think we care about that traitor”, do we think he was bluffing, or does he genuinely feel that way after Murphy made a deal with the Primes? (And/or does he just not care who gets in his way now that he has a way to save Clarke?)
- I really like how ride or die for Clarke Echo is this season. Some of it obviously has to do with wanting to help Bellamy, but I definitely think Echo wants to extend the same forgiveness and inclusion to Clarke that she experienced on the Ring, and she probably feels a little bit like she took Clarke’s place there (which she did, but obviously not on purpose). I hope we eventually get to see them interact with each other again, because last time, they really weren’t in a good place.
- “Stay safe.” “Save Clarke.” Fun tongue twister.
- Those interactions with Murphy, Emori and Josephine were HILARIOUS.
- I’m very interested to see how Clarke reacts to the Kane and Abby situation. She has been a host herself, and knows exactly how much of a violation it is. (Clarke also knows exactly how the hosts and nulls have been treated by the Primes, so she’ll understand that Kane’s body donor was brainwashed and coerced.)
- Seriously, who do I have to bribe to get more scenes with Echo and Emori, my new favorite found family duo? I’ll even promise to stop being mad about the Pauna thing!
- Hold the damn phone, Jackson is a NEUROSURGEON???
- Raven’s sympathy for Abby in this episode is touching. “I couldn’t save my mother, but I can save you” is a sweet sentiment, even if she’s assisting Abby in what she herself classifies as murder. All she can do at this point is minimize the damage.
- Listen. I kind of regret that rant about the show finding a way to avoid actor scheduling conflicts. This isn’t what I MEANT!
- So you’re telling me that Bellamy is looking for Gabriel and Gabriel is currently with Octavia and Octavia might help Bellamy save Clarke!!?? No, I’m sorry, this just sounds way too good to be true.
- Gabriel tried to escape the Primes’ broken system, only to end up becoming a false God to the outcasts instead. Guess he and Octavia have something in common after all. (Y’all, I’m right. I’m right, right? I’m so right. #XtaviaEndgame)
- Nice touch cutting from Josephine’s twitching hand to Madi’s, since they’ve both got invasive elements interfering with their brains.
- I was actually kind of touched by Russell having faith that Clarke would be forgiving if they made amends. But I suppose with “Do whatever it takes to bring my daughter home,” Russell made his choice.
- *rasps* *thumps empty water bottle* *squints at the sun* It has been … 320 ish minutes give or take commercials … since Indra … was last seen on The 100 … this might … my last transmission … bzzzttt frrrr flup
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