The 100 season 7 premieres on The CW in less than two weeks! Here’s a preview of the first four episodes and a breakdown of the extended trailer.
“Same world, different problems.”
Who would have known that in The 100’s final season, Indra kom Trikru would be on the frontlines of the war for peace – and losing? Indra never loses. Things must be really grim.
After waiting for what feels like five years, The 100 season 7 trailer has finally dropped online, giving fans plenty to process and theorize about… for a whole *checks calendar* 12 days before the first episode airs!
Opening with “From The Ashes,” the seventh and final season of The CW series premieres on May 20th, airing at 8/7c on The CW.
Last season, Clarke and her friends arrived on the distant moon Sanctum after spending 125 years in cryosleep en route from a burning Earth.
Instead of a new home and a second chance for peace, they found new threats and enemies, somehow managing to get in the middle of an ongoing civil war between the Primes – Earthborn explorers rebooting themselves in new bodies using memory chip technology – and outcasts refusing to live as slaves in a dictatorship disguised as a utopia.
A little girl asked if Clarke and her friends were there to take them home (answer still pending), a bunch of other stuff happened, and by the time the season was over, Sanctum was on fire; Abby, Kane and almost all the Primes were dead; Murphy and Emori had gotten engaged; Clarke had been body-and-un-body-snatched by an evil Prime; Madi had been possessed-and-un-possessed by an evil Commander, the Flame had been destroyed… and, oh yeah, a giant mysterious green swirl called the Anomaly had swallowed up Octavia, spit her back out, only for Diyoza’s daughter Hope to show up and stab her out of existence.
If I have one piece of advice for you, it’s to rewatch the last few episodes of season 6 before May 20, because The 100 season 7 begins pretty much exactly where the finale left off and doesn’t spend much time catching viewers up on what happened before pummelling onwards.
In this piece, we’ll break down some of the biggest reveals in the trailer and preview the first four episodes, which Hypable has been fortunate enough to watch in advance. Enjoy, and don’t forget to share your own theories and observations in the comments!
Fire and blood
Things just go from bad to bad to bad in Sanctum, huh?
In the trailer, devastation and violence seems to be permanently raining down on that cursed place, its poor inhabitants fighting and killing and dying like flies. (Maybe they should just move!)
Russell tells Clarke that they want the same thing — peace — yet later in the trailer, Clarke stands above the Sanctumnians promising that Russell will burn for his crimes, looking very Daenerys Targaryen-esque in her fury.
“We are the last of the human race,” Clarke declares to the masses. “We’ve all made mistakes. Tomorrow, Russell Prime dies for his.”
“I want death,” we hear Russell say.
“Is this what you want?” Clarke yells angrily, pointing a gun at someone (maybe Russell? Maybe trick editing?).
Yikes.
Throughout the trailer, there are hoards of angry mobs, crowds that have been violently butchered, decayed skeletons, burned bodies, dead astronauts popping out of the ground… and Jordan, stating the obvious yet necessary: “The answer to all this violence isn’t just more violence.”
Or, as paraphrased by John Murphy: “Have we learned nothing?”
Maybe Jordan and Murphy should lead humanity for a while, see how that works out. Can’t get any worse, right?
The last war mankind will ever wage
But wait! It seems, perhaps, there might actually be an end to all this violence?
If we are to trust the word of the random unknown man with the face tattoos, anyway (and who wouldn’t?), who tells Clarke and her friends: “You are the key to winning the last war mankind will ever wage.”
After all this time, some kind of lasting peace sure sounds like a nice change of pace, but you know, unless humanity is finally wiped out for good or they set up a new City of Light, any war being the definitive “last” seems… unlikely?
Call me a pessimist, but if there is one thing The 100 has taught me, it is that mankind left to its own devices will inevitably find a way to divide itself into us’es and thems and find a patch of green grass to squabble over.
Maybe more interesting are the questions of why this man thinks there can ever be a ‘last’ war, who exactly they are waging war against, and why Clarke and/or her people are supposedly the key to winning it.
Into the unknown
Intriguingly, the trailer seems to give away a lot about the Anomaly and even hints at who might be traveling through it.
The trailer reveals Clarke, Raven, Gaia, Miller, Niylah and Jordan (what a dream team!) standing in front of the Anomaly stone, seemingly having discovered its purpose: Raven explains that the Anomaly is a wormhole, that apparently leads “everywhere”; there are various shots of unknown characters in hexagonal helmets that we can assume are connected to the Anomaly and the places one might use it to go.
Where the season will eventually take us is of course still a mystery, but the trailer does show us several interesting new locations that don’t appear to be on Sanctum, including a landscape full of snow (does Sanctum have poles?).
One of the most heavily featured new locations is a white, sterile laboratory-like place that many fans have pointed out looks eerily like Mount Weather, with scientist-like men and big pieces of machinery that does who-knows-what to whomever is unfortunate enough to get trapped in there.
In one shot, we see Octavia strapped to a chair being hooked up to wires. (What are they going to do to her? And who are they?!)
In another, Echo-with-the-new hair is inside the room, screaming her newly tattoo’ed head off.
And finally, we have Hope, Octavia and Clarke — an intriguing constellation of characters — looking in through a circular window, clearly witnessing something terrible happening inside.
Hope seems particularly affected by whatever it is, but Octavia and Clarke are clearly both crestfallen as well.
…But I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.
Clarke and the girls
The trailer is fairly action-packed, but we get some quieter moments as well, particularly with Clarke, who gets to reflect on the nature of humanity and who she wants to be, now that it seems she is finally in a position to do more than just survive.
Gaia is by her side both as she tearfully says goodbye to her mother Abby – whom the trailer seems particularly intent on paying homage to, as we see glimpses of her death interspersed with Clarke burying her wedding ring – and as she ponders the age-old question of whether she can ever be the good guy (which, ironically, she once pondered with Abby).
“I used to think fight is what we do. Now I worry that fighting is what we are,” Clarke says, that same familiar hopeless anguish in her voice she has every time she voices a variant of this dilemma. (Please let it finally be leading to some kind of change.)
Clarke and Raven also share a few scenes, with Raven crying and asking if where it ends, and Clarke assuring her that it’s not “here” (wherever that is).
The context of this scene isn’t clear from the trailer at all; they could be talking about anything, but for a lot of fans, the fact that it’s Raven and Clarke sharing a moment of reflection for once should be hype enough!
Much to think about
Another noteworthy moment in The 100 season 7 trailer is Diyoza holding Octavia down saying, “Your brother left you to die, why are you so eager to run back to him? Why aren’t we enough?” An emotional moment out of context, which of course will be made infinitely more emotional by the scene’s actual context.
There is also plenty of violence to get excited about (if, you know, that’s what gets you hyped): we glimpse new character Nikki, played by Alaina Huffman, beating up somebody. In another glimpse, Murphy has a gun to his forehead. In yet another, Clarke punches some guy in the face.
Raven tells Murphy and Emori that “this place is a powder keg”; two characters (one you might recognize) scream in agony as their faces burn off; Russell smears (what must be somebody else’s) red blood on Madi’s face; a woman sets herself on fire.
Seriously, people of Sanctum: just move!
Finally, the trailer also gives us a good look at one of the masked and mysterious Anomaly men, wearing his hexagon mask and whipping out a snazzy, shiny villain blade. We don’t know anything about this new branch of humanity yet, other than the fact that they are clearly very fashionable.
Also cluing us in to what the Anomaly is all about, the shot of Jordan at the top of the article shows us a bunch of symbols with a green line running through them, presumably some kind of path.
These symbols of course also show up in the opening credits for season 7, and should be assumed to be significant for the story.
Phew! It sure seems like The 100 season 7 will be full of new adventures and mysteries for us to speculate about one last time.
But will it all be new adventures, or will the final season spend some time looking backwards?
After all, the last thing left to talk about in The 100 season 7 trailer are the flashbacks — or memories — of the 100 being sent to the ground, Octavia as Blodreina, Bellamy desperately trying to bring peace, and Clarke pushing her mother’s bodysnatcher out the airlock.
Can we assume this is merely a dose of nostalgia before the final season? Or are these events that will prove key in what’s to come…?
I can’t wait to find out.
Previewing ‘The 100’ season 7
Fans of The 100 eager for the final season should view this trailer as a very good indicator of the action-packed adventure season 7 is sure to be. But there are of course surprises that the trailer can’t give away. (Even I was surprised, as there were bits in there I haven’t seen yet!)
In fact, one word I expect to use a lot in my reviews of the first four episodes is soft — something that I’d be hard-pressed to say about any part of the trailer.
(Unless I was like, “wow, Echo’s hair looks super soft.” Which it does. Girl, who is your stylist?)
But of course, as the trailer narration implies, this show always has been, and will continue to be, about fighting, surviving, and trying and failing to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
As they have every season, the characters ponder if this is the year they’ll break the cycle; as with every year for the past 132, the odds aren’t in their favor.
The first four episodes of the season effectively position the pieces on the board and set the stage for what is certain to be one last great adventure, as Clarke Griffin and her friends once again embark on their Sisyphean quest for peace while desperately trying to keep all of their loved ones in one piece and in one place at the same time.
As usual, the show pairs up old and new protagonists in exciting, surprising ways, and the first four episodes will certainly provide a lot of fodder for what I am sure will be passionate, lively debates in The 100’s fan community.
(And what is this show, if not an inspiration for passionate debates?)
Viewers should expect to get intimately acquainted with Hope Diyoza, played by newcomer Shelby Flannery, who is infinitely interesting and watchable and definitely earns her place as one of season 7’s standout players.
Personally, I also find Octavia Blake’s story a particular highlight of the first four episodes, and characters like Indra, Gabriel, Gaia and Echo all have opportunities to show fun new sides of themselves.
Significantly, The 100 season 7 also looks set to shine the spotlight on a few characters that were arguably underserved in season 6, specifically Raven and Jordan, who both step up and take control of their own stories.
All in all, there is a lot of variety in perspective, and I daresay almost all groups of fans will find something to enjoy, even as the story continues to metamorphose and speed forward.
The 100 season 7 might be the wrap-up season for the series, but the first four episodes do a lot to expand the worlds of the show and their various collections of hero-adjacent inhabitants.
You wouldn’t know this was the last season by watching its beginning; the story only keeps getting bigger and more densely populated, expanding its potential for offshoots in a dozen different directions. If you’re like me and enjoy exploring the rich mythology of the show’s storyworld, I expect you won’t be disappointed by what season 7 has to offer.
But of course, if you’re like me, you are first and foremost holding out to see how the seventh season wraps up the arcs of the remaining delinquent+’s that made you fall in love with this story in the first place: Clarke Griffin, Raven Reyes, Octavia Blake, John Murphy, and – of course, last but never least — Bellamy Blake.
Those characters are what gives this story its soul. Everything else is just delicious green icing on the galaxy cake.
‘The 100’ season 7 premieres Wednesday, May 20 at 8/7c on The CW
The wait is gonna be such a drag, am I right?
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