Saturday, April 23, 2016

The 100, Season Three: Episode Twelve: Demons


I guess this is horror show week on The 100.  First, we have Miller Telling and Harper and Brian a horror story about a first generation member of the ark. It feels very much like a campfire story. When Miller heads outside he is taken down.  Bryan goes to check on his boyfriend and disappears.  Harper no longer thinks the the story is amusing and she believes the guys are playing a practical joke with their sudden disappearance but of course finds out that this is no practical joke when she gets attacked by a large masked man.

After failing to make contact with Harper, Bryan and Miller, the crew decides to head back to Arkadia to grab supplies and Lincoln's map.  The first thing they see when they enter Arkadia is a pool of Lincoln's blood. The plan is to get out as quickly as possible though Arkadia looks abandoned with half eaten food abandoned on the table. Monty is still feeling the weight of having to kill his mother last week. He questions if Hannah is still alive in the City of Light and Raven responds that it depends on his definition of alive.

It seems that Raven has been reading Rebekah's journal.  Raven reveals that ALIE is the one who destroyed the world because she believed that the problem was over population.  As a way to atone for what ALIE did, Rachel created ALIE 2.0 but it required a genetic mutation which changed the colour of her blood.  It seems that this mutation is something which has been inherited by the rulers of each generation.  This is why nightbloods exist.  Clarke is absolutely determined to get the ALIE 2.0 to Luna so that they can access and stop ALIE 1

Octavia heads straight to what was once Lincoln's room and she is overcome with memories and sadness.  I am glad that mourning the loss of Lincoln is taking some time because it gives the character some amount of respect.  Octavia starts to cry and Jasper tries to be empathetic by telling Octavia that "it's okay to fall apart a little." Yeah, I guess with his manpain, Jasper would be the expert at that. Octavia however is too much of a warrior for that and  is adamant that a warrior doesn't mourn until after the war is over. Naturally, this is when the masked man who took Harper, Bryan, and Miller, shows up. He knocks out Octavia and Jasper.

Raven, Clarke, Monty and Sinclair are completely engrossed with the chip. Raven thinks that she can activate the chip and asks Clarke to think of a phrase which Lexa said repeatedly, explaining that Lexa didn't know that A.I was a part of her body because the chip has become degraded.  Clarke thinks for a moment and says, "blood must have blood," but the chip stays dormant. Monty tries, "seek higher things", which is written on Rebekah's journal but once again, the chip remains dormant. Raven says that the chip could respond to Latin and it's Sinclair to the rescue since he took a little Latin. Sinclair says, "ascende superius", and this time tendrils shoot of the chip.  Raven is immediately captivated and starts to move closer to the chip, only to be pulled back by Clarke. Clarke explains that anyone who isn't a Nightblood, who takes the chip inside them dies.  Clarke once again reminds everyone that the task is to find Luna.

It's time to find the rest of the group and Clarke and Monty head off to find Jasper and Octavia. Monty once again brings up his mother and points out that if Clarke is successful, she will get her mother back but Hannah will be dead.  They head down the hallway and hear a music box playing a child's lullaby.  Monty pauses to suggest that it's not a good idea to follow the music but of course, Clarke forges ahead. Look, I know this was meant to be horror show freaky but it cracked me up. It's always the blonde chick in the horror film who gets killed because people of colour know better than to go in the basement, head somewhere alone, or to check out a strange noise. When they get to the carousel, Clarke picks it up and on the bottom is written the name Aaron.  Red gas is shot into the hallway and Clarke pretends to be overcome by it. When the man goes to check Clarke's pulse,Clarke pulls up his mask and reveals his identity as Emerson, before managing to escape.

Clarke runs outside and finds Bellamy. She quickly fills him in on the situation and is full of guilt for not killing Emerson when they were both at Polis. They radio Raven and Sinclair about the danger and warn them to shut down the hanger. Unfortunately for them right after closing the doors, they realise that Emerson is in the hanger with them. The hanger is pitch dark but Emerson has night vision goggles. Sinclair tries to manually open the doors and tells Raven to stay in the rover. Sinclair does get the door open but is stabbed by Emerson for his trouble. Raven runs to Sinclair, though he begs her to get into the rover.  Raven tries to take care of his injuries, as once again Sinclair pleads with his dying breathe for Raven to get in the rover. Sinclair succumbs to his injury and Raven is grabbed from behind by Emerson.

Clarke and Bellamy make it back to the hanger to find Sinclair dead.  Clarke grabs the radio and tells Emerson that they need to talk.  Emerson orders Clarke to meet him at the airlock alone and without any weapons.  Clarke is ready to comply to save her friends and because of the guilt she feels for not killing Emerson when she had the chance.  Clarke tries to give Bellamy the chip so that he can complete their mission but he refuses, saying that Clarke sacrificing herself won't get them anywhere and just like that, Clarke and Bellamy are team mates again.  Bellamy is always better when he is acting as Clarke second.

Clarke makes her way to the airlock with Bellamy staying hidden but Emerson is to smart to fall for their little ruse.  He starts to hurt Octavia to force Bellamy to show himself and disarm.  Bellamy then enters the airlock and handcuffs himself.  Emerson steps out of the airlock and seals it, causing those inside to begin to suffocate.  Clarke starts to beg but it seems that Emerson will not be satisfied with her death when he can kill Clarke and give her the pain of watching her friends die first.  Emerson talks about all the people he loved who died on the mountain. Emerson grabs Clarke, forcing her to watch as her friends begin to suffocate.  Clarke reaches into her pocket grabs the chip, says the magic latin phrase and slams the chip into Emerson's neck.  Emerson promptly starts to claw at his neck and ends up dying from loss of blood, as Clarke gets the airlock open and saves her friends.

Free of Emerson the group is gathered outside and Bellamy joins them with Lincoln's body in his arms. Octavia cries over Lincoln's body.  When next we see them, the group has created a funeral pyre.  Raven pauses to say that she hopes she sees Sinclair again.  Octavia lights the fire and is immediately ready to get going.

The next day, Raven announces that she is staying behind because as injured as she is, she believes that she would just slow them down. Because ALIE downloaded a part of herself into the ARK, Raven feels that if she stays behind, she just might be able to take her down.  Monty, Miller, Bryan and Harper agree to stay behind to help and protect Raven and Monty if necessary.  Japser is up for the danger and when he tries to say goodbye to Monty, Monty turns his back on him.  Clarke, Jasper, Octavia and Bellamy better get moving because things in Polis don't look good.

Murphy is now officially a part of Ontari's entourage in his role as flamekeeper and is following her down the street when he runs into Emori.  Murphy stops to chat with her and when called on his actions by Ontari, Murphy lies and claims he just stopped to taste the rat Emori is selling.  Murphy gives Emori a location to meet him at and scurries away. When Murphy meets up with Emori, after making love, he tells her everything that has happened since they last met, including that Ontari doesn't actually have the chip inside her and that he has been forced into being her sex slave. The reunion doesn't last long because Murphy is called away and so asks Emori to wait there for him because she will be safe.


Residents of Polis are petitioning Ontari because she is Heda now.  Cue the entrance of Jaha, who is quick to inform Ontari that she doesn't have to be a false Heda.  This causes Ontari to demand that everyone leave the room as Murphy tries desperately to warn Ontari that she shouldn't trust Jaha. Murphy denies telling Jaha anything but Emori enters the room and it quickly becomes clear that she told Jaha everything. Belatedly, Murphy realises that Emori took the City of Light chip.  When Emori admits that she not only knows Murphy but that they are lovers, Ontari moves to kill him.  Jaha steps in and warns Ontari that he if she kills Murphy, he will not help her and adds that Murphy could be useful later.  Ontari orders Murphy taken away, even as he calls out that she cannot trust Jaha.  Jaha pulls the chip out promising Ontari power and wisdom.

Later Emori enters the throne room and bows at what would appear to anyone who has not taken the chip to be an empty throne.  Jaha and Ontari are each standing on one side of the throne and of course, ALIE is sitting on the throne, having taken over a leadership position.  Emori announce that the gates of Polis are open.

At this point, more than any other character on The 100, I really feel for Monty.  He knows that he has to get rid of ALIE for the good of the human race but that effectively means that he will be killing his own mother twice.  No other character on this series has had this kind of burden. It disturbs me that out of all the characters, no one has really taken the time to empathize with him are speak to him about his feelings. Everything has been pushed to the side to deal with ALIE.  Yes, Hannah didn't mean anything to anyone other than Monty but they should care enough about Monty to at least recognise that he is hurting. It's interesting that Jasper could find space in his heart to empathise with Octavia but not Monty who has been his best friend since they were all on the Arc.

Though I am not overly a fan of Octavia, given her appropriation of Grounder culture, it's worth noting that Marie Avgeropoulos is really killing it when it comes to acting out Octavia's pain and the loss of Lincoln.

We finally lost Sinclair, who I must admit lasted much longer than I thought he would given that he is a side character at best.  I did very much like that they bothered to show that he mattered by having Raven grieve for him.  They would have worked closely over the years together.  With the loss of Finn, I suppose that Sinclair would have been the closest person to her and he died defending her life. It's nice to see someone make Raven as a person a priority rather than her technical skills being the most valuable thing about her.

We have to talk about Murphy and Ontari.  When explaining what has been going on in Polis to Emori, Murphy simply says that Ontari has taken a liking to him, suggesting that he is willingly trading sex for favors.  What happened between Ontari and Murphy was not consensual sex but rape. I know that there's a lot going on in The 100, but if they are going to include a sexual assault, they should have the courage to label it as such.  The very fact that Murphy was forced into this act under threat of death and seems to be having no psychological issues with it is a problem to say the least.

Finally, can we get moving with this ALIE storyline already. I am so tired of it. Let's get rid of the damn tech and finally kill Jaha. Please just kill Jaha.