The 100 season 7, episode 5 is a thrilling hour of television that gives us a lot of answers… and even more questions.

Okay, NOW we’re talking.

I think most of us can agree that the first four episodes of this season were patchy, for all kinds of reasons. And now, let’s agree to move past that, because WOW. If “Welcome to Bardo” is an indication of what’s to come, season 7 might actually send The 100 off with a bang. (Too soon?)

“Welcome to Bardo,” written by Drew Lindo (who also penned the excellent and similarly emotional “Matryoshka”) and directed by Ian Samoil, is The 100 at (what I consider to be) its best: big, sci-fi setups and a story with real stakes and payoffs; grounded in emotion, with the outcome seeming uncertain because it hinges on how complex characters act and react under pressure, based on their experiences so far.

The A-story is anchored by the show’s (now pretty definitively) standout character Octavia Blake and earns its emotional oomph by drawing on her rich character history and equally rich relationships. The show understands who Octavia is and, more importantly, how her experiences have shaped her to feel about herself and the people around her.

The story also introduces an instantly loveable new character*, Levitt (Jason Diaz), who miraculously doesn’t die, which I’m guessing means he’s here to stay.

(*He’s no Dev, but I mean, who is?!)

The depth of Hope and Octavia’s relationship was so effectively established in “The Garden” and serves here to perfectly tie their two stories (and timelines) together. I felt every rush of emotion as they reunited, separated, and reunited again – helped along by the excellent work by both Marie Avgeropoulos and Shelby Flannery.

And even the Sanctum story, while still the weakest link, is starting to progress at a pace reminiscent of the show’s early seasons. Meaning: characters are intelligent and pro-active in ways that fit their personalities, not in ways that serve to unnecessarily prolong the plot.

Making Indra the primary POV of that storyline certainly doesn’t hurt either, and for the first time in a long time, I actually worried about the imminent safety of both her and Murphy. I’m positively surprised the Sheidheda secret is already out (and intrigued about where that story is going), and the way the characters have been divided up have left space for players like Jackson, Nelson and (presumably) Emori and Madi to shine in ways we haven’t seen before.

And… THAT CLIFFHANGER.

Let’s discuss The 100 season 7, episode 5 “Welcome to Bardo.”

Underworld

Poor Octavia. However much she grows up, she always ends up going down.

She finds herself in another under, running through familiar bunker/Ark-looking hallways and escaping into a wild forest/a much more effective underground farm than the one she once burned down.

People on Bardo live entirely underground, we learn, because the air on this planet isn’t breathable (and unlike on Earth, it doesn’t appear you can make yourself more surface-proof by dyeing your blood another color).

Later in the episode, the First Disciple Anders (Neal McDonough) tells a story about Bardo’s original inhabitants, who destroyed their planet and survived in the underground forests with engineered rain that are now occupied by the disciples.

(I am honestly a bit unsure how many different peoples he was referring to in this speech, as he claims in one breath that the native Bardoans were wiped out by ‘Gen 9’ and turned into “crystal giants” (which, wtf?), and immediately afterwards says they had gone extinct before the Shepherd and their people arrived. So was Gen 9 a different people altogether? Did the Eligius III crew factor in at any point?)

“They didn’t have faith,” he continues, and because of that, “they caused their last Great War. That same enemy is coming after us.” Hmm. Interesting.

We also learn that the disciples originally came from Earth through the Anomaly stone. We are led to assume that they were Second Dawn cult members, delivered by a Shepherd that surely must be Bill Cadogan.

Their society today is structured entirely around their tier-based religion system, where (we assume) all Bardo bees* are indoctrinated from birth and serve various cultish functions.

(*It caught on!)

There are warriors, teachers, memory lab technicians, medics; all of them live their lives believing they are training to fight for their people (clan?) in the last war (conclave?) humanity will ever wage. A speaker preaches that they have all learned to live without ‘lesser emotions’ in order to fight the Great War.

(Sidenote: I wouldn’t be surprised if the ‘last war’ is entirely the Shepherd’s invention, a lie perpetuated in order to keep their people’s obedience and to give them something to live and die for, since he was essentially leading them in to a giant version of Blodreina’s bunker with no hope of ever getting back to the surface – or like the Ark, without the incentive to keep the human race alive so that their children or grandchildren could be the generation of mankind that would get to go ‘home.’)

However, interestingly, this particular cult is very deliberately not portrayed as a mindless mob guided by a shared blind faith.

Much like the people inside Mount Weather, the show is making a point of showing the disciples of Bardo having empathy and being capable of independent thought – not just through curated interactions with Dev, Orlando and Levitt, but with small inserts like a woman reacting to Hope’s “love” speech, a random crowd guy seeming suspicious of Echo and co., and the believer so fervent that he’d blow himself up for the cause (against his leader’s orders).

It’s amazing that in just two episodes, we’re seeing the same level of nuance from one faction as we’ve seen from Wonkru, Eligius, the Sanctum believers and the Children of Gabriel combined. It definitely has the effect of making me a lot more interested in what goes on inside the Bardo fortress, because there could be a Finn hiding beneath any one of those Stormtrooper helmets.

(…While I did mean Star Wars-Finn, I would scream if Finn Collins showed up on Bardo.)

Of course the memory capture chamber (and the reason they use it on Octavia) is interesting all on its own. For the Bardo bees, discovering humans on Beta-Skyring-Penance has not only threatened their apparent domination of the Anomaly stones and their corresponding planets, but might give them a new path back to Earth. And in lieu of… idk, asking nicely, they go straight to the fun torture part to get some answers from Octavia.

Yeah, their people might have nuance, but en masse, the Bardo bees are straight up villainous.

Octavia, being Octavia, resists, with Levitt helpfully making sure her brain isn’t lobotomized – until he catches her off guard and stumbles on a memory of Hope. It is at once heartbreaking and heart-warming to see how deeply and completely Octavia loves Hope, and how much she is willing to give up (or even just the fact that she is willing to give up at all!) for her.

She makes a deal with Levitt, who is clearly just a good guy with a bad job, which lets her hide Hope even if she has to give up everything else. (Bear in mind: at this point nobody has bothered to tell her who they are, what they’re looking for, they just jump straight to the torture.)

Whatever the First Disciple is looking for, he seems to find it in Clarke, who is referred to as the “key.” In his speech, Anders further says of the key: “After hundreds of years, it was returned to us.”

As great as Clarke is, surely she herself cannot be this key. It must be about ALIE and the City of Light fragments that are still in Clarke’s head, right?? (Or is it? Gabriel still has Josephine’s chip, that was also in Clarke’s head, after all…)

Especially considering that the disciples are fighting to be ‘saved’ from the war, hoping to reach “Euphoria.” I wouldn’t be surprised if another ALIE is standing by ready to set up a bigger, more powerful grand illusion that they can transmit through the stones or something. (Hey, maybe the mysterious rogue mask-wearing person that shut down the Sanctum stone last episode did it to prevent such a thing from happening!)

And I bet the part of the Flame that survived in Sheidheda, and maybe in Madi, will come into play as well. In the war for all mankind, there might be more than one way to win.

As Levitt is watching the Octavia Blake show, amazingly, he begins rooting for her. When she kills Pike, he cheers (awkward way to make me like him, as I’m still upset that Pike was killed off like that, but okay). Octavia watches him watch her, in complete disbelief that anyone could see her for who she is and appreciate her because of it.

With the giant caveat that this is an extreme, horrifying violation (even if Octavia ‘agreed’ to it), under these circumstances and for this particular character, what an unexpected gift it is for Octavia to be known like this, to have someone see all the parts of herself she thinks are ugly and unlovable and to appreciate her all the more for them.

(Although Levitt’s little insightful speech into Octavia’s motivations and sacrifices did make me sweat a little. That’s supposed to be my job!)

Up until now, Octavia’s best chance at a happy ending was ‘penance’ – a life lived in solitude, in service of a child she loved, a peaceful if monotonous prison where she could do no harm and have no harm done to her.

Now, suddenly, there is a possibility of something else – something more alive.

I’ve made a similar argument for Clarke, but it holds equally true for Octavia: a romantic interest can represent something she wants, just for herself, especially if this romantic interest is someone she chooses just because she wants to, not because she thinks it’s what’s best for anyone else.

To see Octavia pursue such a ‘selfish’ thing as romance would be to see her believing that she deserved it. For herself. Not for a child, or a people, or a cause.

To have someone else love her is to accept that she deserves to be loved, and for her to start loving herself again.

While romance isn’t (or shouldn’t be) a necessary cog in the character development machine, I do think that for characters who have become so embroiled in self-hatred and guilt, as both Octavia and Clarke are, seeing them pursue romantic love — which they both did back when they were young and innocent and less weighed down by the world — would be a way to show them learning to love themselves again. And they’ve both earned that.

(If Octavia and Clarke had been the kinds of female characters who rested fully in their own power and confidence, like Diyoza, Indra and Hope (and, until recently, Echo), I wouldn’t necessarily make this pro-romance argument for them. But that’s not how they’ve been written. And I’m not a fan of self-flagellating female characters who don’t feel like they ‘deserve’ happiness and thus are denied it.)

Is it a little bit of a cheat that Octavia’s likely romantic endgame is someone who was basically just shoehorned in at the 11th hour and caught up on her history with a ‘previously on’ recap? Sure. But (aside from the glaringly obvious possibility of Diyoza) it’s not like Octavia has been in a position to get to know anyone else organically for the last several centuries, save Gabriel, and frankly, maybe she’s better off with someone a little younger and less genocidal.

And that a fragile hope of Octavia having a life and a future is born on a dead planet, in a sterile room devoted to studying the past, is a very nice touch of irony.

Tl;dr: I ship it. Levitavia maxima!

Octavia is rescued by Diyoza – the other Diyoza – and their reunion scene is just gorgeous. As I said in the intro, I am all in on this relationship, and Marie Avgeropoulos’ interactions with the different-aged Hopes have been incredibly moving.

All the emotions play on her face in this scene: her confusion that it wasn’t (Charmaine) Diyoza beneath the mask; her astonishment that Hope has aged, the love and joy she feels nonetheless at seeing her again; she horror that she’s on Bardo, her worry for her, her worry for Levitt, her tactical brain wiring up for escape, how impressed she is with Hope’s ruthlessness, it’s all there.

The episode (a bit perfunctorily) fills in the blanks of how Octavia got Hope’s code on her back and how Hope got her mission. At least we got to skip the part where Hope got caught, though.

Turns out Levitt was instrumental in all of it, the ‘inside man’ that Orlando could never be – because whatever allegiance he might have to his people, his compassion and kindness wins out. Individuals over the collective. His humanity over his people. (I imagine this way of life might be the actual key to winning the eventual war for peace.)

The only blank we still have left to fill is what the hell has happened to Diyoza. I think we have cause to be very worried about her: she doesn’t have anything to offer Bardo vis-à-vis their Clarke Griffin scrapbook, and she is unlikely to have been more cooperative than Octavia (who only complied because she happened to have a nice torturer).

I think our biggest clue as to her impending unfortunate fate is the shot from the promo of Hope screaming as she, Octavia and Clarke watch something happening through a window (though she might also have that reaction if something was happening to Echo).

It was always Diyoza’s plan to die first and leave Hope in Octavia’s care, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that is exactly what ends up happening. :(

Hi Bellamy! Bye Bellamy!

Okay, a disclaimer: writing reviews of a show like this as it’s airing is very hard, and it’s especially hard when you know for a fact that behind-the-scenes factors — that you are not privy to, and really have no business guessing at – have shaped what you see on screen to such an extreme extent as seems to be the case here.

We are all aware of the fact that certain aspects of season 7 just feel off (and not just the scenes that have Bellamy-shaped holes in them), but I’m not sure what to do with that in the context of these reviews, because there is frankly no way of knowing how many of the story choices I’ve taken issue with were made premeditatedly versus how many were last-minute fixes.

Some might say that shouldn’t matter. Critiquing the show in its final format is perfectly legitimate — the only way viewers really can criticize story is based on their experience with it — but there comes a point where I can’t keep repeating myself. We’ve said it, we get it. There is still a lot of story going on. And I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t enjoy that story.

All that to say: I think I’ve said enough. Bellamy is used sparsely in the first part of the season, but that’s just how it is. That doesn’t mean his endgame can’t and shouldn’t be satisfying, and I’ll be super disappointed if it’s not, but until then, I’m just going focus on what’s on screen, not what isn’t.

Besides, this episode actually utilized his absence for dramatic effect in a really clever way, so there isn’t much to actually criticize here! I especially liked how they cut from Octavia learning about his arrival to Octavia back in the room in present time, brokenly muttering her brain-protection phrase, really building up the suspense. This is how his absence should have been framed from the get-go, and I appreciate seeing it framed like that now.

Continuing his story from the premiere, Bellamy is captured by the Bardo soldiers, whom he (seemingly) quickly overpowers. Anders brings Octavia to calm him down and, considering herself a lost cause, she begs for him to be let go.

She barters with intel she has apparently still been holding back from Levitt, despite promising to cooperate if he’d keep Hope hidden – intel on Clarke, specifically — which is tantalizing enough that Anders seems ready to take the deal.

Through all this, Bellamy stands by, confused and overwhelmed and refusing to leave Octavia behind.

The Anomaly stone is programmed. (To Sanctum, we assume, though whether or not Anders really went along with Octavia’s deal so easily remains to be seen.)

And then a follower blows himself up at Bellamy’s feet, leaving a cloud of dust and a shut-off Anomaly stone behind. And… no Bellamy.

So, what now?

Well, the immediate effect is that Octavia now thinks she just saw her brother die, and almost loses her mind in an “I am not afraid” loop. (Avgeropoulos’ delivery: beyond chilling.)

I wouldn’t expect any viewer to think Bellamy is actually dead though (the “no body” rule might be a stretch for Orlando, but in this case, it’s 100% solid). I’d be more worried that wherever he got blasted to, he might not remember anything since he wasn’t wearing a helmet!

I still think the most likely twist is that he somehow ends up back in Sanctum as the mysterious suit-wearer who attacked Gaia and turned off the stone, but that would require him to be brainwashed and gain some kind of knowledge about what the stones do that he doesn’t currently have.

While that could happen during the seven days of Bardo-time he is still unaccounted for, there was something extremely fishy about this scene that suggests it was staged in an effort to trick and weaken Octavia. Anything could have happened to Bellamy between being captured on Sanctum and being brought here; it would be a very nice twist if he was already brainwashed and part of the setup at this point.

The mystery of what happened to Bellamy could be resolved in episode 6, or 8, or 16; right now, what matters is how his absence will affect the people who love him – Octavia and Echo, who already know, and Clarke, who makes it to Bardo eventually (as the promo with her, Octavia and Hope reveals).

As wrong as it feels to say, I’m kind of happy that all three of them will have to confront a reality in which Bellamy is dead (as long as he isn’t actually dead, obviously!), because Bellamy deserves to be missed and mourned the way he’s had to mourn Clarke and Octavia multiple times.

This is a great opportunity to really dig into what Bellamy means to them, and why he matters to the story as a whole, which would be a nice thing to explore, since Bellamy’s own stories so often revolve around saving and protecting other people and enabling them to have stories of their own.

(There is also an opportunity to have Clarke and Octavia bond over this shared loss, as Bellamy has always been the only thing they had in common and certainly the only excuse for either of them to call the other ‘friend’ as opposed to being outright enemies.)

I wouldn’t say I’d rather have a story about how sad it is that Bellamy isn’t there than a story where Bellamy actually just gets to be there (a mission where Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia and Raven are all working together, in the same place, on the same page? Imagine such a thing), but I’m happy to see that Bellamy’s absence will finally be used for emotional impact.

He is one of the only main characters who is still owed a miraculous resurrection, and I think (regardless of Hope’s demeaning ‘sensible women’ line that I can’t believe they actually repeated) the characters could stand to be reminded of just how much he means to them, as opposed to it always being Bellamy who has to prove how much he cares.

I think Echo having a murder spree meltdown would have landed better for me if she had shown restraint or mercy with Orlando’s friends in last week’s episode. (Although if we’re meant to compare it to Finn slaughtering Grounders, or contrast it with Bellamy restraining himself and not killing Russell, then it was very effective.)

While we are certainly seeing a more emotional, emotive Echo, she still builds her entire life and identity around a leader that she’s chosen to follow and love, so I think what’s interesting now isn’t so much that she reacts with the grief expected after spending five years of her life waiting to reunite with him, but what she does now, believing that she never will.

Like with Octavia and Clarke, I’m super stoked that Echo currently thinks Bellamy is dead. Because maybe, just maybe, we’ll get some introspection from her as to who she can be without him. When the rage dies down, she’s still on a mission (right?), she still has a people (right?), but no ultimate do-it-for-him end goal to guide her choices.

Survival of the fittest

The episode’s absolute best transition is Murphy walking to his near-certain death and the show cutting to a memory of his old, cockroach self saying “I’ll survive.” An absolutely brilliant writing/editing choice that utilizes Murphy’s evolution and history for emotional impact and lends such gravitas to his current predicament.

Unlike in “False Gods”, where I had zero worries that Murphy and Emori were ever in any actual danger because such a random, contrived death would have been so far below either of their dignities, the fact that this episode made a point to show how far he’s come almost made me believe that this was as far as he’d ever go.

And if that had been the case… I mean, wow, would he have gone far.

John Murphy, walking into the lion’s den for the greater good (and/or so Emori wouldn’t do it)? Losing his cool and putting himself directly in harm’s way when he realizes that they are going to hurt children? John Murphy, leading doomed children to safety, as he might wish someone had done when he himself was a doomed child? That’s what we call growth!

The real star of the Sanctum storyline is Indra though, who effortlessly steps in for Clarke and wrangles the warring factions to the best of her (or anyone’s) abilities. She’s got no army, no real allies to speak of — but she’s Indra kom f’ing Trikru, y’all. She’s got this.

I’m so thankful that Adina Porter has been a part of The 100 for so long, and that the show finds ways to bring Indra more and more to the foreground. Her acting in this episode was amazing; tears of worry and frustration are threatening to spill over at any time, even as she keeps her body as steady and stoic as ever.

Because she has no choice – she’s all they’ve got. With the A-team all off on adventures, Indra is now the de facto keeper of the peace (I think they should just put her in charge, permanently).

She wrangles the factions as they all threaten to wipe each other out, and as much as I’ve complained about the repetitiveness of this storyline – and the problematic aspects of the show acting like the native Sanctum peoples are incapable or unworthy of fighting their own battles – this episode handles the multi-faceted conflict with more deftness.

In the war for peace, one has to decide what is meant by that word, and from Indra (and the audience)’s perspective, the kind of “peace” the Sanctum believers want is no longer possible because a) the Primes are gone, and b) their peace was oppression. While there seem to be Sanctonites who are less devout (like my beloved Cookie Man and Cookie Woman), the True Believers don’t have anyone’s best interest in mind — not even their own.

There is certainly an argument to be made that someone needs to step in and think clearly, even if I’m still baffled that democracy seems to have been just… taken off the table completely.

Instead of a more political story focusing on compromise and debate, once again, we are confronted with the season (show)’s demonization of faith, this time with a distinction made here between ‘good’ faith and ‘bad’ (= blind) faith.

The Prime worshipers are very deliberately shown to be completely unhinged, almost like children, lost sheep without their shepherd (hah). They weaponize their own lives in order to try to force Indra to give them what they want. There is no compromise to be made here, or debate to be had.

However, we are treated to at least a modicum of more nuance from the Children of Gabriel, led by Nelson, who is more horrified by the faithful’s self-immolation display than anyone, and even tries to stop it.

(By the way, I’m so relieved Nelson finally has an interesting role to play, Lee Majdoub deserves it.)

But does that make him less blind in his faith? While the show is concerned with faith in terms of religion and works hard to dismantle the false belief systems that twist people’s minds, I would argue that a lot of characters, including Nelson, still suffer from an equally blinding devotion to the church of Our People.

The faithful might be fanatical in service of the Primes, but through the show’s history, the majority of the most heroic and villainous acts have been done in the service of an “us”, not a “he” or even an “all” — it has been a blind devotion to ‘my people’ that manifested in ruthless, destructive behavior towards anyone not a part of that people.

And that doesn’t seem to me to be much better, or different, than heroic or horrific acts done in the name of false or real gods. Just look at Wonkru, who made their decidedly godless unity into a faith more blind than almost any other (aside from the almost cartoonish Prime worshipers).

If we’re still on the ‘transcending tribalism’ track – which of course Clarke once pioneered, although that’s probably not why the Bardo people want her, as they are just as consumed with our peopleism as the rest of the factions – then I’d like to see the show break with not just the ‘faith’ part of ‘blind faith’, but the blindness that comes with devoting yourself wholly to an “us” that excludes the “them”s.

One of the many reasons Indra is great to have around is that she is a flexible thinker, and while very devoted to her people, her idea of people is constantly shifting and expanding.

Overall, she is one of the show’s most intelligent characters, and she is rarely thrown the idiot ball to unnecessarily delay plot progression, which means that you can usually feel ‘safe’ in the knowledge that when she is in a scene, the best/logical points of view will be at least brought up.

I’m thrilled that she figured out Sheidheda’s identity so quickly — and based on her own past experiences, no less. (Seriously, this episode plays to so many of the show’s core strengths, building on its own rich history, weaving backstory exposition into present-day plot developments.)

Already suspicious of Russell’s changed behavior, and with Murphy’s charade planting the seed that people pretending to have Primes in their heads could be lying, Indra recognizes Sheidheda’s speech as one she heard as a child, when he conquered Trikru and told them to kneel.

(It’s easy to forget that it was Lexa who united the clans in peace, and that the Commanders (even if Sheidheda was the only ‘Dark’ one) traditionally ruled as the champion of their clan. The idea of peace was foreign to past Commanders, again making us wonder what Becca’s chip actually did and how early Commanders might have shaped its use.)

I’m a little disappointed Sheidheda is so recent, only because I would have liked him to be connected to the Second Dawn cult more directly— but maybe we’re about to find out that the most devout cultists didn’t stay on Earth to become Grounders at all!

For a moment, I was terrified that Indra would be killed before she could pass her revelation on to anyone else; thankfully that wasn’t the case. She calls him out with Trigedasleng immediately and quickly ropes her new inner circle – expanded to include Nelson and a very vengeance-driven Jackson – into a plan of action: remove the chip and let Sheidheda die in the body he is now stuck in.

(I’m not totally sure why that would work, as I’d assume the Sheidheda ‘file’ was on the chip itself, not inside the Russell-body’s brain..?? But I’ve given up trying to schmience it.)

But as J.R. Bourne is still a regular, I’ll bet he is Sheidheretostay, and it’s probably only a matter of time until he turns Wonkru to his side and the superteam of Indra, Murphy, Emori, Madi and Jackson have to work to gain the allegiance of the various factions.

You know what, I’m into it. Sanctum storyline = no longer the worst. Except for the Prime followers. They can die.

(What? I’ve been watching this show for a quarter of my life. It’s hardened me.)

For your consideration

What did you think about The 100 7×05 “Welcome to Bardo”?