The 100 6x08 Thoughts
Jun. 26th, 2019 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaThe Old Man and the Anomaly
Hmm. It was okay though my least favourite episodes this season. I think a combination of the last episode being so good and hitting all the right emotional notes combined with me wanting and hoping for specific things that this episode didn't give me left me a little disappointed.
Good
+ Emori was amazing. When she told Bellamy that Clarke was alive I literally went 'YES!' I love her character growth over the seasons. Season 4 Emori would have taken the deal but this Emori who spent six years building a family, six years being accepted and loved for who she was, six years being useful and needed is not the same person. This Emori puts loyalty to family and doing the right thing over survival and it's so great. She's living up to Monty's request that they do better! I loved her confession scene - her clear guilt while talking to Bellamy, her shared looks with Echo, her initial hurt that they didn't tell her and then acceptance that they were right not to, and the fact that she went full force to help fix it. I loved that when Echo told her to set the EMP she did it even though Murphy had a knife to his throat.
+ Murphy choosing, in the end, to help Spacekru save Clarke by telling them about Gabriel was great. I loved his struggle with his guilt this episode. That moment when he realises that Clarke is still in there and closes his eyes was sooo good. But he keeps on with the plan because he's Murphy and honestly I love that. Him asking Josephine if Clarke could hear him, and the tightness in his voice when he said "I'm not (okay with it)" were great little moments too.
+ Murphy/Emori were excellent. I loved Murphy's proposal to Emori. It was a perfect mix of sweet ('you make me want to be', aww) and messed up (the Mind Drives). Very fitting for this show and for Murphy. I loved her accepting loving him forever at the end and that she refused to leave him. I loved him trying to get Josephine to apologise to Emori too.
+ I loved Emori's "They killed Clarke. How can we be okay with that?" The two of them never really got to have a relationship. Soon after meeting, Clarke was going to experiment on Emori only to then save her life three times in quick succession (taking the nightblood instead, giving up her helmet, praimfaya) and they didn't really meet again until after Clarke betrayed everyone and then helped save them all again. That's a wild ride! So Emori caring just makes me want them to get that friendship they so clearly could have.
+ I'm pleased that Bellamy's plan included taking Murphy and Emori with them even if it involved doing it by force. No leaving anyone behind.
+ Echo was great. I liked her easily subduing Josephine. I liked her sending Bellamy off with Jo and choosing to stay behind (excitement for next week! Fingers crossed that she meets up with Gaia and causes shenanigans). I liked her reassuring Bellamy that "we got this" and then telling him to save Clarke. I love how much trust it shows that Bellamy has with Echo that he would leave saving their people to her while he left to save Clarke.
+ I love how Josephine keeps bring Clarke into things: "Brain surgery in a machine shop. It's very Clarke actually." and "Which brings us to another episode of 'No Good Choices'. Clarke would love this."
+ I very much enjoyed Josephine listing off the ways this wouldn’t work and then Bellamy and Echo immediately answering with a solution
+ Jordan calling Bellamy on only caring about Clarke was great. And not just on a Bellarke level but on a wider level of confronting what "my people" means. Because I do agree with Jordan that Bellamy and the other probably didn't think about Delilah or what this could potentially mean for the other hosts.
+ Octavia/Diyoza were wonderful, and I ship it a bit now. "Old married couple"; agreement on murdering; Diyoza being so gentle with a freaking out Octavia and the little smile and "good girl" (♥ I loved this exchange so much); her softness with Octavia; Octavia immediately running into the Anomaly after Diyoza. Yup, sold.
+ Dizoya basically calling her hands deadly weapons was great.
+ I loved Octavia seeing bound Bellamy and how upset she was over it. She cried! I wish there was some way we could see into her head too.
+ Raven choosing to do the spacewalk to save Abby was a wonderful moment. I loved her reasoning. Also despite my issues with Raven I did like her interactions with Abby and her refusing to let Abby off the hook. She was right and I just wish she'd gotten through to Abby.
MEH
I had an issue with 3 characters and their plots this episode. I think the series's terminal issue of expending itself too far and not developing character choices well enough hit this episode hard. Pacing can be a bit of an issue and in this case I feel like the Madi/Sheidheda storyline really needed another episode of build. Plus it would have been nice to see Echo saving Jade which also could have given both of them a nice character moment. Then with Abby and Raven I'm having a hard time following what the show is doing with them.
+ Madi and the Sheidheda storyline is very meh. I think it needed a lot more development and time spent than it got. Madi herself confused me. She was in control... ish, when we last saw her. Not killing Gaia and ordering Sheidheda around and dealing with her grief by wanting revenge. All good. I was excited to see what chaos she'd get up to. Then we got this and it was a disappointment. Madi advocating killing everyone is very extreme and I don't buy it. Especially not after she learns that Clarke is alive. [Which we don't even see her learn or deal with.] Instead of concentrating on saving Clarke Madi is distracted with revenge which felt very off. Maybe we're supposed to assume Sheidheda is in control? If so we needed another episode with them, if not we really needed more episodes building to this.
+ I'm really disappointed in Abby and the direction her storyline has gone. I'd convinced myself that she suspected something was wrong with Clarke and that she wasn't so lost that she wouldn't realise that what she was doing was so very wrong. After Abby put Kane in cryo and rejected the pills it felt like a step forward for her and then it very much wasn't. I am having a hard time understanding how Abby can spin 'murdering people to steal their bodies' (no matter how nicely gift-wrapped) as "getting their humanity back" and the right choice?
Also I really thought at the end of last episode Abby had realised there was something wrong with Clarke. That's what her reaction said to me. Jo was very unClarke-like and Abby clearly clocked that. And with Raven on the ship with her and the knowledge they have between them it seemed so obvious that they would figure it out. And then the show didn't go there at all and that made the disappointment even worse. It was just so obvious that's where it was going! :(
This does lead to a potentially interesting, certainly heartbreaking, realisation when Abby does learn that Clarke was killed for Josephine when Abby herself just did that to Gavin to save Kane. Russell 'killed' her daughter but now that's something Abby herself has done. I don't even know how that's going to affect her. Hopefully it won't break her but could this be the thing to push her out of her downward spiral somehow? What I'm hoping though is that Abby has to confront this horrifying truth at first without the knowledge that Clarke can be saved.
+ "Until you went full Mount Weather on Luna. Turning her into a monster. Now it's your turn." I feel like this line really encapsulates my issues with Raven this season. The issue here specifically is that Raven was there too! I don’t remember Raven doing anything to stop what happened in Becca’s lab. She registered her discomfort, she was upset but they didn't have to restrain her or lock her up. She stood there and let everything happen. Which ties neatly into now – she told Abby it was wrong, she argued with her, but then she went to her room to sulk. She could have gathered Niylah and the others to put a stop to it, or since it's Raven taken complete control of the ship. But this is Raven so she steps back, she refuses to take any responsibility herself. She’s just there registering her disapproval but doing nothing to stop what's happening in front of her. As far as Luna becoming a monster if Abby had a hand in it so did everyone else in that room, including Raven. It wasn't just Abby, it was all of them ganging up to forcibly take her marrow, and no one, not even Raven, stepping forward to help her. And that's the problem.
It takes her usually righteous opinions and turns them self-righteous. She judges other people while at the same time ignoring her own lack of action, and especially the times she herself has done something wrong. She’s absolutely not wrong to be against what Abby is doing here and to refuse to help her. What Abby is doing is evil and I don’t think Raven would do it. Not for Shaw, or Sinclair, or even Finn. Not this specific thing. But she acts like she would never do anything terrible to protect other people - like say torturing Lincoln to save Finn or plan to kill Lexa and start a war for Finn or help kill Grounders/Mount Weather to save the delinquents, etc. So she’s in the right here and yet with this line I am mentally sighing in annoyance at her. I hate that my reaction to Raven this season is basically 'ugh Raven' all the time.
+ I was super disappointed that we didn't get to see Bellamy tell anyone that Clarke was alive. Especially Madi and Jordan. We didn't even get Jordan's reaction to Clarke being dead/stolen! This season has been doing so well with the emotional moments, the human connections, so this was a big failure on their part. More than Bellamy's reactions to Clarke matter. And with Jordan especially I've been disappointed that so much of his time has been about Delilah instead of creating bonds with Earthkru. Clarke also being murdered by the Primes would have been a really interesting thing to see Jordan deal with.
+ I'm sad that Kane's body was killed in the mind transfer and Henry Ian Cusick is officially off the show. I knew it was a possibility but was hoping that they'd keep his body on ice to transfer him back into. I mean they even introduced healing tree sap! Boo.
+ "Clarke was willing to put you in an oven, remember that?" - Murphy. SIGH. And then instead she did it to herself. And then gave Emori her helmet, and then saved them all from Praimfaya. And, hey, guess who else was in that room - Raven! And Abby and Miller and Jackson. And Murphy certainly had no problems with other people going in that 'oven' to save himself. So, nope, shut it Murphy. Can this be the last time?
Other
+ The plus side of Murphy helping to kill Clarke is that he won’t be able to use Clarke's past actions to rag on her anymore. Hopefully.
+ I'm a little worried about Murphy but not a lot right now. I feel like if he was going to be killed off they'd do it at the end of the season. That said his super power is to be an injury magnet apparently and Emori should probably wrap him in bubble wrap for his own safety.
+ I'm also not very worried about Jordan. Killing Monty and Harper's innocent son so soon? Nope.
+ I loved Clarke/Bellamy and this season has been amazing for them to the point that I'm actually sincerely questioning if the show is finally going to go there with them. But I am so torn because always in the background you have Echo and she's great and Echo/Bellamy are lovely even if I don't really ship them and they are still together. I am not interested in cheating (NO) or Bellamy dumping Echo for Clarke (ugh) so it leaves things at an impasse that I'm not sure how the show can get around in a way that would make me happy.
+ "I'm not doing it for me." - Abby. Except that she really, really is because she isn't able to let go of Kane. I really hope Kane confronts her with this next episode.
+ Poor Kane. How do you even deal with something like this?
+ As far as new Kane goes, eh. We haven't seen a lot so I'm trying not to judge too much yet. That said I wish they'd gotten a more known actor, someone on the level of HIC, because it would have made it easier. Like if they'd gotten Josh Holloway or Daniel Dae Kim or Naveen Andrews (yes I'm on a Lost theme, Oded Fehr would also be acceptable) it would have made me a lot more amenable to this new Kane.
+ "I’m the commander." She says to a group of people she's not actually the Commander of. Echo was the only one who ever followed a Commander but even then her main loyalty was to Nia/Roan and now it's to Spacekru. Miller and Jackson followed Blodreina not Heda. Jordan doesn't care. Her biggest supports, Gaia and Clarke, are both gone. The people who want to follow her are still on ice. The authority she carries because of the Flame has never felt more paper thin. I am interested to see where the show is going to end up with this.
+ Everyone at that table fails hard - Echo, Miller, Jackson, and Jordan. They only had to keep track of one murderous 12 year old and they failed.
+ I loved the way Octavia didn't hesitate to follow Diyoza into the anomaly but at the same time it also very sad? They've really only known each other for what, a week tops? Before that they were enemies. And yet Octavia has lost absolutely everything and Diyoza is (seemingly) the only person who believes in her, and has been the only person trying to help her. Of course Octavia would follow her into the unknown. At this exact time Diyoza was all she had.
+ Xavier being Gabriel isn't a surprise. I wish they'd managed his backstory better than an exposition dump. At the moment I'm mostly neutral about him as a character.
+ Dare I hope that the radio tree means Bellamy will hear one of Clarke's radio calls to him?
+ Russell wanting to do right and give Clarke her body back is good and all but I'm with Josie and her incredulous "are you out of your mind". He's swallowed his own Prime nonsense so completely.
+ I did love Priya running to Jordan's side and her genuine concern for him and then that contrasted against her only worry about Russell killing Clarke being that he cut the line.
Hmm. It was okay though my least favourite episodes this season. I think a combination of the last episode being so good and hitting all the right emotional notes combined with me wanting and hoping for specific things that this episode didn't give me left me a little disappointed.
Good
+ Emori was amazing. When she told Bellamy that Clarke was alive I literally went 'YES!' I love her character growth over the seasons. Season 4 Emori would have taken the deal but this Emori who spent six years building a family, six years being accepted and loved for who she was, six years being useful and needed is not the same person. This Emori puts loyalty to family and doing the right thing over survival and it's so great. She's living up to Monty's request that they do better! I loved her confession scene - her clear guilt while talking to Bellamy, her shared looks with Echo, her initial hurt that they didn't tell her and then acceptance that they were right not to, and the fact that she went full force to help fix it. I loved that when Echo told her to set the EMP she did it even though Murphy had a knife to his throat.
+ Murphy choosing, in the end, to help Spacekru save Clarke by telling them about Gabriel was great. I loved his struggle with his guilt this episode. That moment when he realises that Clarke is still in there and closes his eyes was sooo good. But he keeps on with the plan because he's Murphy and honestly I love that. Him asking Josephine if Clarke could hear him, and the tightness in his voice when he said "I'm not (okay with it)" were great little moments too.
+ Murphy/Emori were excellent. I loved Murphy's proposal to Emori. It was a perfect mix of sweet ('you make me want to be', aww) and messed up (the Mind Drives). Very fitting for this show and for Murphy. I loved her accepting loving him forever at the end and that she refused to leave him. I loved him trying to get Josephine to apologise to Emori too.
+ I loved Emori's "They killed Clarke. How can we be okay with that?" The two of them never really got to have a relationship. Soon after meeting, Clarke was going to experiment on Emori only to then save her life three times in quick succession (taking the nightblood instead, giving up her helmet, praimfaya) and they didn't really meet again until after Clarke betrayed everyone and then helped save them all again. That's a wild ride! So Emori caring just makes me want them to get that friendship they so clearly could have.
+ I'm pleased that Bellamy's plan included taking Murphy and Emori with them even if it involved doing it by force. No leaving anyone behind.
+ Echo was great. I liked her easily subduing Josephine. I liked her sending Bellamy off with Jo and choosing to stay behind (excitement for next week! Fingers crossed that she meets up with Gaia and causes shenanigans). I liked her reassuring Bellamy that "we got this" and then telling him to save Clarke. I love how much trust it shows that Bellamy has with Echo that he would leave saving their people to her while he left to save Clarke.
+ I love how Josephine keeps bring Clarke into things: "Brain surgery in a machine shop. It's very Clarke actually." and "Which brings us to another episode of 'No Good Choices'. Clarke would love this."
+ I very much enjoyed Josephine listing off the ways this wouldn’t work and then Bellamy and Echo immediately answering with a solution
+ Jordan calling Bellamy on only caring about Clarke was great. And not just on a Bellarke level but on a wider level of confronting what "my people" means. Because I do agree with Jordan that Bellamy and the other probably didn't think about Delilah or what this could potentially mean for the other hosts.
+ Octavia/Diyoza were wonderful, and I ship it a bit now. "Old married couple"; agreement on murdering; Diyoza being so gentle with a freaking out Octavia and the little smile and "good girl" (♥ I loved this exchange so much); her softness with Octavia; Octavia immediately running into the Anomaly after Diyoza. Yup, sold.
+ Dizoya basically calling her hands deadly weapons was great.
+ I loved Octavia seeing bound Bellamy and how upset she was over it. She cried! I wish there was some way we could see into her head too.
+ Raven choosing to do the spacewalk to save Abby was a wonderful moment. I loved her reasoning. Also despite my issues with Raven I did like her interactions with Abby and her refusing to let Abby off the hook. She was right and I just wish she'd gotten through to Abby.
MEH
I had an issue with 3 characters and their plots this episode. I think the series's terminal issue of expending itself too far and not developing character choices well enough hit this episode hard. Pacing can be a bit of an issue and in this case I feel like the Madi/Sheidheda storyline really needed another episode of build. Plus it would have been nice to see Echo saving Jade which also could have given both of them a nice character moment. Then with Abby and Raven I'm having a hard time following what the show is doing with them.
+ Madi and the Sheidheda storyline is very meh. I think it needed a lot more development and time spent than it got. Madi herself confused me. She was in control... ish, when we last saw her. Not killing Gaia and ordering Sheidheda around and dealing with her grief by wanting revenge. All good. I was excited to see what chaos she'd get up to. Then we got this and it was a disappointment. Madi advocating killing everyone is very extreme and I don't buy it. Especially not after she learns that Clarke is alive. [Which we don't even see her learn or deal with.] Instead of concentrating on saving Clarke Madi is distracted with revenge which felt very off. Maybe we're supposed to assume Sheidheda is in control? If so we needed another episode with them, if not we really needed more episodes building to this.
+ I'm really disappointed in Abby and the direction her storyline has gone. I'd convinced myself that she suspected something was wrong with Clarke and that she wasn't so lost that she wouldn't realise that what she was doing was so very wrong. After Abby put Kane in cryo and rejected the pills it felt like a step forward for her and then it very much wasn't. I am having a hard time understanding how Abby can spin 'murdering people to steal their bodies' (no matter how nicely gift-wrapped) as "getting their humanity back" and the right choice?
Also I really thought at the end of last episode Abby had realised there was something wrong with Clarke. That's what her reaction said to me. Jo was very unClarke-like and Abby clearly clocked that. And with Raven on the ship with her and the knowledge they have between them it seemed so obvious that they would figure it out. And then the show didn't go there at all and that made the disappointment even worse. It was just so obvious that's where it was going! :(
This does lead to a potentially interesting, certainly heartbreaking, realisation when Abby does learn that Clarke was killed for Josephine when Abby herself just did that to Gavin to save Kane. Russell 'killed' her daughter but now that's something Abby herself has done. I don't even know how that's going to affect her. Hopefully it won't break her but could this be the thing to push her out of her downward spiral somehow? What I'm hoping though is that Abby has to confront this horrifying truth at first without the knowledge that Clarke can be saved.
+ "Until you went full Mount Weather on Luna. Turning her into a monster. Now it's your turn." I feel like this line really encapsulates my issues with Raven this season. The issue here specifically is that Raven was there too! I don’t remember Raven doing anything to stop what happened in Becca’s lab. She registered her discomfort, she was upset but they didn't have to restrain her or lock her up. She stood there and let everything happen. Which ties neatly into now – she told Abby it was wrong, she argued with her, but then she went to her room to sulk. She could have gathered Niylah and the others to put a stop to it, or since it's Raven taken complete control of the ship. But this is Raven so she steps back, she refuses to take any responsibility herself. She’s just there registering her disapproval but doing nothing to stop what's happening in front of her. As far as Luna becoming a monster if Abby had a hand in it so did everyone else in that room, including Raven. It wasn't just Abby, it was all of them ganging up to forcibly take her marrow, and no one, not even Raven, stepping forward to help her. And that's the problem.
It takes her usually righteous opinions and turns them self-righteous. She judges other people while at the same time ignoring her own lack of action, and especially the times she herself has done something wrong. She’s absolutely not wrong to be against what Abby is doing here and to refuse to help her. What Abby is doing is evil and I don’t think Raven would do it. Not for Shaw, or Sinclair, or even Finn. Not this specific thing. But she acts like she would never do anything terrible to protect other people - like say torturing Lincoln to save Finn or plan to kill Lexa and start a war for Finn or help kill Grounders/Mount Weather to save the delinquents, etc. So she’s in the right here and yet with this line I am mentally sighing in annoyance at her. I hate that my reaction to Raven this season is basically 'ugh Raven' all the time.
+ I was super disappointed that we didn't get to see Bellamy tell anyone that Clarke was alive. Especially Madi and Jordan. We didn't even get Jordan's reaction to Clarke being dead/stolen! This season has been doing so well with the emotional moments, the human connections, so this was a big failure on their part. More than Bellamy's reactions to Clarke matter. And with Jordan especially I've been disappointed that so much of his time has been about Delilah instead of creating bonds with Earthkru. Clarke also being murdered by the Primes would have been a really interesting thing to see Jordan deal with.
+ I'm sad that Kane's body was killed in the mind transfer and Henry Ian Cusick is officially off the show. I knew it was a possibility but was hoping that they'd keep his body on ice to transfer him back into. I mean they even introduced healing tree sap! Boo.
+ "Clarke was willing to put you in an oven, remember that?" - Murphy. SIGH. And then instead she did it to herself. And then gave Emori her helmet, and then saved them all from Praimfaya. And, hey, guess who else was in that room - Raven! And Abby and Miller and Jackson. And Murphy certainly had no problems with other people going in that 'oven' to save himself. So, nope, shut it Murphy. Can this be the last time?
Other
+ The plus side of Murphy helping to kill Clarke is that he won’t be able to use Clarke's past actions to rag on her anymore. Hopefully.
+ I'm a little worried about Murphy but not a lot right now. I feel like if he was going to be killed off they'd do it at the end of the season. That said his super power is to be an injury magnet apparently and Emori should probably wrap him in bubble wrap for his own safety.
+ I'm also not very worried about Jordan. Killing Monty and Harper's innocent son so soon? Nope.
+ I loved Clarke/Bellamy and this season has been amazing for them to the point that I'm actually sincerely questioning if the show is finally going to go there with them. But I am so torn because always in the background you have Echo and she's great and Echo/Bellamy are lovely even if I don't really ship them and they are still together. I am not interested in cheating (NO) or Bellamy dumping Echo for Clarke (ugh) so it leaves things at an impasse that I'm not sure how the show can get around in a way that would make me happy.
+ "I'm not doing it for me." - Abby. Except that she really, really is because she isn't able to let go of Kane. I really hope Kane confronts her with this next episode.
+ Poor Kane. How do you even deal with something like this?
+ As far as new Kane goes, eh. We haven't seen a lot so I'm trying not to judge too much yet. That said I wish they'd gotten a more known actor, someone on the level of HIC, because it would have made it easier. Like if they'd gotten Josh Holloway or Daniel Dae Kim or Naveen Andrews (yes I'm on a Lost theme, Oded Fehr would also be acceptable) it would have made me a lot more amenable to this new Kane.
+ "I’m the commander." She says to a group of people she's not actually the Commander of. Echo was the only one who ever followed a Commander but even then her main loyalty was to Nia/Roan and now it's to Spacekru. Miller and Jackson followed Blodreina not Heda. Jordan doesn't care. Her biggest supports, Gaia and Clarke, are both gone. The people who want to follow her are still on ice. The authority she carries because of the Flame has never felt more paper thin. I am interested to see where the show is going to end up with this.
+ Everyone at that table fails hard - Echo, Miller, Jackson, and Jordan. They only had to keep track of one murderous 12 year old and they failed.
+ I loved the way Octavia didn't hesitate to follow Diyoza into the anomaly but at the same time it also very sad? They've really only known each other for what, a week tops? Before that they were enemies. And yet Octavia has lost absolutely everything and Diyoza is (seemingly) the only person who believes in her, and has been the only person trying to help her. Of course Octavia would follow her into the unknown. At this exact time Diyoza was all she had.
+ Xavier being Gabriel isn't a surprise. I wish they'd managed his backstory better than an exposition dump. At the moment I'm mostly neutral about him as a character.
+ Dare I hope that the radio tree means Bellamy will hear one of Clarke's radio calls to him?
+ Russell wanting to do right and give Clarke her body back is good and all but I'm with Josie and her incredulous "are you out of your mind". He's swallowed his own Prime nonsense so completely.
+ I did love Priya running to Jordan's side and her genuine concern for him and then that contrasted against her only worry about Russell killing Clarke being that he cut the line.
