The 100 6x09 Thoughts
Jul. 11th, 2019 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaWhat You Take With You
Good emotional episode.
Alpha
+ Really excellent Clarke/Bellamy episode. I loved them. I loved getting to see Josie react to their relationship (and use it to needle Bellamy because of course) and Bellamy reacting to that. I loved their reunion.
- "I won't let you die." ♥♥ I love the intensity of his feelings in his voice, I love that it takes him several seconds before he can say it and then afterwards he has to look away. I love that how emotional he is when he says this stops even Josephine from saying something snarky or cutting. She in fact has to look away from him. Is that Clarke bleeding through, or Josephine reacting to how Clarke feels hearing that, or is hearing that remind her of Gabriel and their relationship (and what Gabriel did to save her?) It was an interesting reaction.
Bellamy leaving Clarke behind on Earth clearly left deep marks on his psyche and the fact that Bellamy is devoted to Clarke and cares for her deeply has always been obvious. But a part of me can't help but wonder if this is all leading somewhere specific. Clarke's 'death'/body-snatching has been so centred on Bellamy's reactions over everyone else and I wonder if it's because they want to reveal something new, perhaps having Bellamy (and others) realising/confronting that his feelings for Clarke are much deeper than he shows?
There were a bunch of lines this episode that made me go hmmm. "The people you care about are in trouble. I guess you just care about her more." Which reminded me a lot of Lexa calling Clarke on caring about Bellamy more than others in season 2. Bellamy has no answer to this but he did leave most of his people in the enemy's hands to try and save Clarke. He also has no answer when Josephine questions: "Is Clarke really worth all that? (Though his expression to me says yes.) The way Bellamy says "I told you I won't let that happen" (Clarke being killed) or the way the camera brings Bellamy into the foreground when Josie says "love" at the end of her lamenting Russell destroying everything to save her, or "One look at you and he should have known how it would end" wouldn't feel any different then what we've seen of Bellamy/Clarke previously but all together it feels like there's intent there. But perhaps I'm reading too much into it.
- I loved Clarke telling Bellamy "I won't leave you". I loved the way he held her hands in his when he urged her to go. And I love that this time when she left him it was with the keys to his escape.
- I love how gentle Bellamy was with Josie after her seizure and the soft way he wiped the blood from her nose.
- I was very amused by Bellamy's "Tell me about it" when Josephine stated that his and Clarke's relationship was 'exhausting'.
+ Bellamy cutting himself and wiping blood on Clarke's forehead was clever.
+ I am so happy to have Clarke back, hopefully permanently from this point on. I've missed her. That last scene between her and Josie was great. I loved Clarke's triumphant expression when she revealed she knew how to ride the motorcycle and then spoke Chinese.
+ I'm very curious what the breakdown of the wall between Clarke and Josephine and the fact that they can access each other's memories and knowledge will mean for the future. Along with the memories do they get the emotions attached to them? Are they able to choose the memories they want to see or are they just randomly hit with new ones. If Clarke can pick up a physical skill like riding the motorcycle does that mean Josie can pick up fighting? Will they keep these new skills and knowledge? I'm also very interested in how seeing each others memories (and perhaps feeling them) will change their views on each other, if it does.
+ Clarke morse-coding "Boo Hoo" to Josephine was hilarious.
+ I love that Josie gave up their body so Clarke could kick ass and save their lives. I love that Clarke's return involved her killing a bunch of people (to save her life) which felt very true to form (even if it didn't necessarily conform to the whole "do better" idea.)
+ I enjoy Josephine so much. She's terrible but honestly delightful and I love her. She's great with Clarke, with Bellamy (they were fun this ep), with Murphy. I like her with basically everyone tbh. I'm going to miss her a lot when she's eventually killed. A part of me really wants her and Clarke to set up a time share. Jo is fun, Jo and Clarke are fun together and I feel like this could be a winning combination for future comedy and drama. I just want her to stick around.
+ I love that Josephine is incapable of not being snarky and provoking even when surrounded by enemies who want to kill her.
+ Pike as Octavia's subconscious redemption guide was brilliant! When her terrible past memories were flashing through her head and it included her killing Pike I was so happy that the show acknowledged it... and then he showed up. It was a great surprise and I think he was perfect person for Octavia to see. Lincoln would seem the obvious choice but it was Pike who killed Lincoln and started her down her dark path, he was also part of the Ark system that kept her under the floor for most her life, he was a teacher and in fact the only class Octavia took on the Ark (emergency Earth Skills) was taught by Pike, and he was working on his own attempt at redemption when she killed him - a fact that he calls her on which I really loved.
Then we have Pike telling Octavia that "we are what we've done and what's been done to us" - Pike was 'done to her' when he killed Lincoln and arguable the first major choice Octavia 'did' was when she murdered Pike in revenge. At the end of season 3 Octavia faced a choice - let Pike live or kill Pike. She chose to kill Pike and that started her down a dark path that lead to Skairipa, that lead to Blodreina. There's nothing Octavia could have done to save Lincoln but how she chose to react to Pike, that was a choice. By killing him she eventually became something worse than him. So her seeing him and letting herself make the other choice this time really worked for me especially as a symbolic gesture showing that Octavia does want to take a different path, to be better. Honestly at every level this all worked for me.
Okay, well, except the Lincoln death flashback. I'm still not certain how I feel about that.
+ I'm glad that we got to see Octavia realising that she wanted redemption and that it was something she had to earn, to work towards, and the new attitude she emerged from her subconsciousness with. She started the scene with her maintaining her stubborn unapologetic denial that she's been clinging to since last season so we needed to see her letting go of that. Her killing Blodreina and renouncing her was the start of her letting go of the fear and violence she's been clinging to for so long, and taking a new path forward. I'm hopeful about where her story is going from here.
+ Octavia and Bellamys upcoming reunion is exciting but I'm actually most excited for the Octavia/Clarke reunion. These two have been at odds more often then not, Octavia often judged Clarke choices, Clarke left Octavia to die several times and Octavia tried to kill Clarke and her daughter but they've also been longtime allies and share a love for Bellamy and desire to protect their people. They have a complicated relationship. What's exciting for me is that both of them have changed a lot and I really want to see how that impacts their interactions with each other. Clarke was recently confronted with her continuing guilt over leaving Octavia to die and she desperately wants to be better. Meanwhile Octavia between her past as Blodreina (experience as a leader making her own hard/terrible choices and mistakes) and her new redemption oriented path has to view Clarke in a far different way. If they meet first Clarke is going to be Octavia's first test on her new road.
After hearing Clarke’s message Octavia states that “her people” are in trouble, seemingly not including Clarke within that group. Going forward all I want is for Octavia and Clarke to get to a place where they not only make peace but consider themselves each others people to the extent that they will fight for each other, friendship optional. Though after six seasons I still have a smidgen of hope for them to have a real friendship.
+ As with Bellamy the show completely avoids Madi and how that informed Clarke's choices last season with regards to Octavia too, and it's continuing to annoy me. Clarke's apologised to Bellamy for leaving him to Octavia in Polis but there's still no mention about how he betrayed her by locking her up and sticking the Flame in Madi. Now with Octavia we had Clarke confronting her guilt over leaving Octavia to die twice but there was nothing from Octavia about her decision to try and murder Madi (and Clarke). I hope both of those things get brought up at some point.
Eligius
+ I really wasn't expecting them to kill Kane off permanently, or at least not so soon. I'm sad to lose him and that this is how the Kane/Abby storyline ends. I do wish they'd kept the Kane 2 actor around longer and let it play out more. Killing him immediately after he gains the new body felt really premature.
I'm not sure what I think about his decision. Was it really necessary? Couldn't he have been more help alive, not only as a 'moral' centre but as someone who could tell the Sanctumites the truth about their gods? Wouldn't that have done more good overall? If it was about Gavin's death at this point killing himself won't make up for Gavin's sacrifice, it would just make it for nothing, and wouldn't a better to live and stop it from happening to someone else?
I get that he was really struggling with the alienness of the body, the sense of violation and disconnect from it and I loved his slightly plaintive "but they were a part of me" about his scars. The show should have emphasised that, the alien terribleness of the new body, a bit more. I think at the very least Kane should have taken more than a day to decide if he could live with it. Space the black blood, lock up the Sanctumites, and take a couple days to actual breathe and absorb everything that has happened. There isn't a significant time crunch here that they know of. They easily could have done that.
Having thought about it as I wrote this review where I'm at: it was an emotional and really well done scene, it did to a degree feel in character for Kane (I knew he would never be happy or accepting of what Abby did) but how he choose to react didn't entirely work for me. I think it was the wrong choice on his part and more selfish than honourable and I struggle with how it happened. As with Raven's choice in the last episode the worst has already been done so why not make the best of it moving forward? Gavin is dead and Kane killing himself isn't going to change that. It just wastes Gavin's sacrifice and Kane's death isn't leaving anyone in a better position. If this played out where Kane was going to destroy the nightblood serum and gave his life to make sure that happened rather than killing himself it might have worked better for me.
+ Kane's death was wonderfully done. That whole scene was heart-breaking and made me cry. So much love for them bringing back Ian for Kane's final scene. It was Indra who really got to me. Her goodbye in both Skaikru and Trikru tradition and her grief were wonderful poignant and heartrending.
+ I like that Kane did understand why Abby did what she did and didn't condemn her for it. That he wasn't angry at her and with his last words was trying to help her move forward afterwards.
+ I love that Kane's first action upon learning the truth is to immediately wake up bestie Indra. I'm very happy and relieved that they got to say goodbye.
+ Indra's reaction to the Primes was great. It makes complete sense that she would react like that because Indra has always been supremely pragmatic. At the same time her choosing to follow Kane's lead and help him also worked for me because her other main characteristic is how fiercely loyal she is and her choosing to support Kane because of that loyalty and her love for him was also great.
+ "Then why did I help Abby?" - Raven. Because Gavin was already dead and there was no taking that back. If she hadn't acted then there would be three people dead. Her choice saved Abby and it saved Kane, giving him his own choice in his fate. I have no problems with that choice of hers. She was making the best of a terrible situation.
+ "You've always know what's right." Eh. Kane passing the 'moral' torch to Raven didn't work for me. For one thing, Kane is not actually the perfect moral authority the image of Abby's been clinging to this season. Last season he made his own mistakes. Second, Raven is still refusing to accept her own culpability in things that have happened, nor the things she has done that were wrong, and so her judging others is - eh. No thanks.
+ I really wish that it had been Raven who had pulled the lever to open the airlock. Pulling levers has been an important reoccurring image for Clarke and Raven's biggest issue with Clarke has been these impossible choices she keeps making, but that Raven rarely does. Her pulling the lever, making that choice, would have felt a lot more symbolic than Indra doing it.
+ I liked Raven this episode more than I have since the beginning of the season. Her being team Kane and helping was great. I loved her concern for Abby and that she gave in and let her go to the airlock to say goodbye. And I loved Raven stepping forward and holding grieving Abby afterwards.
+ Oh, man, Abby losing Kane via airlock was painful. I'd like to think that Abby can move on from this but it's definitely a hard blow made in the most pointed and painful way possibly. I really hope Abby's story is about redemption and hope and moving forward after this but I'm not actually sure and that has me worried. I'm hoping that Clarke and Abby's love for her is enough for Abby to choose to keep going on, to try and be better. It would be nice to see Abby fighting for Clarke in the latter half of the season as hard as she fought for Kane and perhaps in the process begin to find herself again. (Maybe Octavia can hook her up with Gabriel and his fun concoction.)
+ Kane's body is now floating in space complete with Mind Drive so theoretically at some point in the future someone could retrieve it and if another more ethically sourced body was found he could be brought back to life. Just sayin'. I hope they kept his former body on ice for potential future cloning possibilities.
+ I thought the new actor for Kane 2 did a great job at making him feel like Kane.
+ I'm sad that Diyoza, Bellamy and Octavia never got final scenes with Kane before his death. Especially Octavia considering their last meeting.
Good emotional episode.
Alpha
+ Really excellent Clarke/Bellamy episode. I loved them. I loved getting to see Josie react to their relationship (and use it to needle Bellamy because of course) and Bellamy reacting to that. I loved their reunion.
- "I won't let you die." ♥♥ I love the intensity of his feelings in his voice, I love that it takes him several seconds before he can say it and then afterwards he has to look away. I love that how emotional he is when he says this stops even Josephine from saying something snarky or cutting. She in fact has to look away from him. Is that Clarke bleeding through, or Josephine reacting to how Clarke feels hearing that, or is hearing that remind her of Gabriel and their relationship (and what Gabriel did to save her?) It was an interesting reaction.
Bellamy leaving Clarke behind on Earth clearly left deep marks on his psyche and the fact that Bellamy is devoted to Clarke and cares for her deeply has always been obvious. But a part of me can't help but wonder if this is all leading somewhere specific. Clarke's 'death'/body-snatching has been so centred on Bellamy's reactions over everyone else and I wonder if it's because they want to reveal something new, perhaps having Bellamy (and others) realising/confronting that his feelings for Clarke are much deeper than he shows?
There were a bunch of lines this episode that made me go hmmm. "The people you care about are in trouble. I guess you just care about her more." Which reminded me a lot of Lexa calling Clarke on caring about Bellamy more than others in season 2. Bellamy has no answer to this but he did leave most of his people in the enemy's hands to try and save Clarke. He also has no answer when Josephine questions: "Is Clarke really worth all that? (Though his expression to me says yes.) The way Bellamy says "I told you I won't let that happen" (Clarke being killed) or the way the camera brings Bellamy into the foreground when Josie says "love" at the end of her lamenting Russell destroying everything to save her, or "One look at you and he should have known how it would end" wouldn't feel any different then what we've seen of Bellamy/Clarke previously but all together it feels like there's intent there. But perhaps I'm reading too much into it.
- I loved Clarke telling Bellamy "I won't leave you". I loved the way he held her hands in his when he urged her to go. And I love that this time when she left him it was with the keys to his escape.
- I love how gentle Bellamy was with Josie after her seizure and the soft way he wiped the blood from her nose.
- I was very amused by Bellamy's "Tell me about it" when Josephine stated that his and Clarke's relationship was 'exhausting'.
+ Bellamy cutting himself and wiping blood on Clarke's forehead was clever.
+ I am so happy to have Clarke back, hopefully permanently from this point on. I've missed her. That last scene between her and Josie was great. I loved Clarke's triumphant expression when she revealed she knew how to ride the motorcycle and then spoke Chinese.
+ I'm very curious what the breakdown of the wall between Clarke and Josephine and the fact that they can access each other's memories and knowledge will mean for the future. Along with the memories do they get the emotions attached to them? Are they able to choose the memories they want to see or are they just randomly hit with new ones. If Clarke can pick up a physical skill like riding the motorcycle does that mean Josie can pick up fighting? Will they keep these new skills and knowledge? I'm also very interested in how seeing each others memories (and perhaps feeling them) will change their views on each other, if it does.
+ Clarke morse-coding "Boo Hoo" to Josephine was hilarious.
+ I love that Josie gave up their body so Clarke could kick ass and save their lives. I love that Clarke's return involved her killing a bunch of people (to save her life) which felt very true to form (even if it didn't necessarily conform to the whole "do better" idea.)
+ I enjoy Josephine so much. She's terrible but honestly delightful and I love her. She's great with Clarke, with Bellamy (they were fun this ep), with Murphy. I like her with basically everyone tbh. I'm going to miss her a lot when she's eventually killed. A part of me really wants her and Clarke to set up a time share. Jo is fun, Jo and Clarke are fun together and I feel like this could be a winning combination for future comedy and drama. I just want her to stick around.
+ I love that Josephine is incapable of not being snarky and provoking even when surrounded by enemies who want to kill her.
+ Pike as Octavia's subconscious redemption guide was brilliant! When her terrible past memories were flashing through her head and it included her killing Pike I was so happy that the show acknowledged it... and then he showed up. It was a great surprise and I think he was perfect person for Octavia to see. Lincoln would seem the obvious choice but it was Pike who killed Lincoln and started her down her dark path, he was also part of the Ark system that kept her under the floor for most her life, he was a teacher and in fact the only class Octavia took on the Ark (emergency Earth Skills) was taught by Pike, and he was working on his own attempt at redemption when she killed him - a fact that he calls her on which I really loved.
Then we have Pike telling Octavia that "we are what we've done and what's been done to us" - Pike was 'done to her' when he killed Lincoln and arguable the first major choice Octavia 'did' was when she murdered Pike in revenge. At the end of season 3 Octavia faced a choice - let Pike live or kill Pike. She chose to kill Pike and that started her down a dark path that lead to Skairipa, that lead to Blodreina. There's nothing Octavia could have done to save Lincoln but how she chose to react to Pike, that was a choice. By killing him she eventually became something worse than him. So her seeing him and letting herself make the other choice this time really worked for me especially as a symbolic gesture showing that Octavia does want to take a different path, to be better. Honestly at every level this all worked for me.
Okay, well, except the Lincoln death flashback. I'm still not certain how I feel about that.
+ I'm glad that we got to see Octavia realising that she wanted redemption and that it was something she had to earn, to work towards, and the new attitude she emerged from her subconsciousness with. She started the scene with her maintaining her stubborn unapologetic denial that she's been clinging to since last season so we needed to see her letting go of that. Her killing Blodreina and renouncing her was the start of her letting go of the fear and violence she's been clinging to for so long, and taking a new path forward. I'm hopeful about where her story is going from here.
+ Octavia and Bellamys upcoming reunion is exciting but I'm actually most excited for the Octavia/Clarke reunion. These two have been at odds more often then not, Octavia often judged Clarke choices, Clarke left Octavia to die several times and Octavia tried to kill Clarke and her daughter but they've also been longtime allies and share a love for Bellamy and desire to protect their people. They have a complicated relationship. What's exciting for me is that both of them have changed a lot and I really want to see how that impacts their interactions with each other. Clarke was recently confronted with her continuing guilt over leaving Octavia to die and she desperately wants to be better. Meanwhile Octavia between her past as Blodreina (experience as a leader making her own hard/terrible choices and mistakes) and her new redemption oriented path has to view Clarke in a far different way. If they meet first Clarke is going to be Octavia's first test on her new road.
After hearing Clarke’s message Octavia states that “her people” are in trouble, seemingly not including Clarke within that group. Going forward all I want is for Octavia and Clarke to get to a place where they not only make peace but consider themselves each others people to the extent that they will fight for each other, friendship optional. Though after six seasons I still have a smidgen of hope for them to have a real friendship.
+ As with Bellamy the show completely avoids Madi and how that informed Clarke's choices last season with regards to Octavia too, and it's continuing to annoy me. Clarke's apologised to Bellamy for leaving him to Octavia in Polis but there's still no mention about how he betrayed her by locking her up and sticking the Flame in Madi. Now with Octavia we had Clarke confronting her guilt over leaving Octavia to die twice but there was nothing from Octavia about her decision to try and murder Madi (and Clarke). I hope both of those things get brought up at some point.
Eligius
+ I really wasn't expecting them to kill Kane off permanently, or at least not so soon. I'm sad to lose him and that this is how the Kane/Abby storyline ends. I do wish they'd kept the Kane 2 actor around longer and let it play out more. Killing him immediately after he gains the new body felt really premature.
I'm not sure what I think about his decision. Was it really necessary? Couldn't he have been more help alive, not only as a 'moral' centre but as someone who could tell the Sanctumites the truth about their gods? Wouldn't that have done more good overall? If it was about Gavin's death at this point killing himself won't make up for Gavin's sacrifice, it would just make it for nothing, and wouldn't a better to live and stop it from happening to someone else?
I get that he was really struggling with the alienness of the body, the sense of violation and disconnect from it and I loved his slightly plaintive "but they were a part of me" about his scars. The show should have emphasised that, the alien terribleness of the new body, a bit more. I think at the very least Kane should have taken more than a day to decide if he could live with it. Space the black blood, lock up the Sanctumites, and take a couple days to actual breathe and absorb everything that has happened. There isn't a significant time crunch here that they know of. They easily could have done that.
Having thought about it as I wrote this review where I'm at: it was an emotional and really well done scene, it did to a degree feel in character for Kane (I knew he would never be happy or accepting of what Abby did) but how he choose to react didn't entirely work for me. I think it was the wrong choice on his part and more selfish than honourable and I struggle with how it happened. As with Raven's choice in the last episode the worst has already been done so why not make the best of it moving forward? Gavin is dead and Kane killing himself isn't going to change that. It just wastes Gavin's sacrifice and Kane's death isn't leaving anyone in a better position. If this played out where Kane was going to destroy the nightblood serum and gave his life to make sure that happened rather than killing himself it might have worked better for me.
+ Kane's death was wonderfully done. That whole scene was heart-breaking and made me cry. So much love for them bringing back Ian for Kane's final scene. It was Indra who really got to me. Her goodbye in both Skaikru and Trikru tradition and her grief were wonderful poignant and heartrending.
+ I like that Kane did understand why Abby did what she did and didn't condemn her for it. That he wasn't angry at her and with his last words was trying to help her move forward afterwards.
+ I love that Kane's first action upon learning the truth is to immediately wake up bestie Indra. I'm very happy and relieved that they got to say goodbye.
+ Indra's reaction to the Primes was great. It makes complete sense that she would react like that because Indra has always been supremely pragmatic. At the same time her choosing to follow Kane's lead and help him also worked for me because her other main characteristic is how fiercely loyal she is and her choosing to support Kane because of that loyalty and her love for him was also great.
+ "Then why did I help Abby?" - Raven. Because Gavin was already dead and there was no taking that back. If she hadn't acted then there would be three people dead. Her choice saved Abby and it saved Kane, giving him his own choice in his fate. I have no problems with that choice of hers. She was making the best of a terrible situation.
+ "You've always know what's right." Eh. Kane passing the 'moral' torch to Raven didn't work for me. For one thing, Kane is not actually the perfect moral authority the image of Abby's been clinging to this season. Last season he made his own mistakes. Second, Raven is still refusing to accept her own culpability in things that have happened, nor the things she has done that were wrong, and so her judging others is - eh. No thanks.
+ I really wish that it had been Raven who had pulled the lever to open the airlock. Pulling levers has been an important reoccurring image for Clarke and Raven's biggest issue with Clarke has been these impossible choices she keeps making, but that Raven rarely does. Her pulling the lever, making that choice, would have felt a lot more symbolic than Indra doing it.
+ I liked Raven this episode more than I have since the beginning of the season. Her being team Kane and helping was great. I loved her concern for Abby and that she gave in and let her go to the airlock to say goodbye. And I loved Raven stepping forward and holding grieving Abby afterwards.
+ Oh, man, Abby losing Kane via airlock was painful. I'd like to think that Abby can move on from this but it's definitely a hard blow made in the most pointed and painful way possibly. I really hope Abby's story is about redemption and hope and moving forward after this but I'm not actually sure and that has me worried. I'm hoping that Clarke and Abby's love for her is enough for Abby to choose to keep going on, to try and be better. It would be nice to see Abby fighting for Clarke in the latter half of the season as hard as she fought for Kane and perhaps in the process begin to find herself again. (Maybe Octavia can hook her up with Gabriel and his fun concoction.)
+ Kane's body is now floating in space complete with Mind Drive so theoretically at some point in the future someone could retrieve it and if another more ethically sourced body was found he could be brought back to life. Just sayin'. I hope they kept his former body on ice for potential future cloning possibilities.
+ I thought the new actor for Kane 2 did a great job at making him feel like Kane.
+ I'm sad that Diyoza, Bellamy and Octavia never got final scenes with Kane before his death. Especially Octavia considering their last meeting.
