The 100 7x13 Thoughts, Part 1
Sep. 13th, 2020 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaBlood Giant
Clarke started the episode asking "What the hell happened here?" and I ended the episode saying basically the same thing. Just - what? WHAT?!
THAT Thing
I honestly don't even know what to say or feel. Mostly I'm just very perplexed and ???? and WHAT???!!! I'm not even sad or upset. It hasn't hit emotionally at all. This, everything about how that played out, came so out of left field that there is nothing. I'm just - huh. okay that happened. huh. what even. HUH. I am so deeply confused about the direction this took.
+ On Bellamy's death - well, it was on-screen but I honestly don't believe that this is the end of him. It literally makes no sense to me. It makes no sense for his character arc or his place as male lead for seven years or what's been happening with his current storyline and relationships. Or even for how this episode itself played out - Doucette dying (killed by Clarke) and telling Bellamy to keep faith, his talk with Cadogan telling him they are the same, Murphy's parting shot hoping that his new faith is worth it. How does death fit in with all this? Both narratively and character-wise it's a such a massively mind-boggling stupid choice to make with the character that I literally can't buy it.
And if it is true - why? Why would you do it this way? I don't get it. This show can be really excellent at deaths and this is very much... not. I don't understand killing him, I don't understand having Clarke killing him in this way, I don't understand killing him at this point in the story, how does this fit at all? I've honestly been expecting Clarke and/or Bellamy to die by the end of the season but this... I'm so baffled by this.
So as far as Bellamy goes any feelings I have about his 'death' are on pause until episode 16 ends and he still hasn't been revealed alive. I don't even know what explanation I believe here. Perhaps he is somehow saved from being shot; or maybe this isn't his real body and is a clone or his real one is back in the cave; or maybe time gets rewound (Clarke getting a redo?) or idk, we get actual time travel or he literally ascends a la Daniel Jackson or transcends or whatever. But I refuse to believe that there isn't more going on here.
+ Moving on to Clarke - and her shooting and killing Bellamy in order to try and protect Madi, whoa boy. There is so much with this I don't even know where to start. Bellamy's 'death' is currently a confused '??' but Clarke is definitely leaving me emotional but in a way where I'm all over the place - while also left going ???? because what the fuck!? How does this make any sense??
So, so many callbacks to previous episodes and moments between Clarke and Bellamy, something I love. Clarke holding Bellamy at gunpoint with the two of them on opposite sides of a decision a la S4. Bellamy making a choice affecting Madi's potential safety overconfident that he can protect her, pushing him and Clarke on opposite sides a la S5. Clarke's extreme overprotectiveness of Madi rearing up and having her turn on Bellamy to protect her daughter a la S5. Monty's wish for them "to do better" and how that became a refrain and goal for them in S6. All of which also brought to mind the scene in 6x04 with Clarke's heartfelt apology for leaving Bellamy behind to die in order to save Madi and telling him "You're my family too". It was a decision that haunted her and the scene ended with her promising Bellamy that she would 'never forget that again' because he 'was too important to her'. Awesome, great, I love callbacks and allusions to past episodes and continuity in relationships.
Except having this all brought back to mind and then having it end on Clarke shooting and killing Bellamy (to protect Madi) is such a WTF direction to take Clarke. Because we've watched Clarke struggle and change and honestly it playing out like this just does not work. Clarke's already been here and done that with trying to protect Madi at the cost of Bellamy, she regretted it deeply and she apologised and vowed to never do it again. So her doing it again needs a hell of a lot more build-up or reasoning than we have here. Like Bellamy actively trying to sacrifice Madi or something. What we got as reasoning simply doesn't work.
Clarke says "So much for together", okay, true enough. But also not. The failure of ‘together’ here isn’t Bellamy only it’s also Clarke. It’s been like a day (!) since Bellamy returned from death as a new man, loyal to Cadogan and his cult, and yes his betrayal of them (her) hurt but that’s not a reason to completely wash your hands of him! He appears to have been inducted into a cult. How is abandoning him to it ‘together’? Together comes from more than one side. Not to mention that ‘together’ could be more than just Bellamy and Clarke, but of Earthkru as a whole. The remnants of Spacekru and Wonkru’s leadership and Clarke & Madi. Together could be all of them coming together to save Bellamy.
To be fair to Clarke, Bellamy once again putting Madi in danger while reassuring Clarke that he’ll keep her safe has to feel like being trapped in an old nightmare. And she was put on the spot, rushed, emotional – and fell back on old habits, repeating old mistakes. Mistakes and impossible choices that she has been trying to move past. I’m trying to understand this choice (in show and in character) and I’m having a hard time. How does this fit with Clarke vowing to never forget that Bellamy was her family (and then him risking everything to save her?) How does this fit with her talks with Gaia at the beginning of the season, or her desire to do better, or her mantra to 'never lose anyone else'? How does it make any sense that after only a day or so of turned Bellamy (even ignoring the potential brainwashing) Clarke would react in such a final way against him?
I'm just finding Clarke choosing to kill Bellamy really hard to swallow. As with Bellamy's death I don't get it. I think both could have maybe been done well if the show had bothered to build it/set it up properly but they didn't. So much so I'm left wondering if this wasn't planned from the start but a last minute decision. (Did Bob need to leave again?) They weren't even a focus of the episode!
I can see the appeal of wanting a repeat of the 4x11 bunker confrontation - Clarke holding a gun on Bellamy with the fate of others potentially at stake except where last time she couldn't shoot him this time she does. There's an interesting symmetry there. Except they're basically repeating 5x09 with no regard to anything that happened after and I don't buy that Bellamy's betrayal this season would be enough to lead Clarke back to making this choice after everything that has happened. Nor does the threat to Madi make it work either - Madi is safe off planet, Cadogan (the only one who knows where they went) is their prisoner, Madi would likely survive MCAT even if they did capture her... just there isn't enough of an immediate threat to make killing Bellamy the only option here. In my refrain for this post - it doesn't make sense. Not with the reasoning set out, not after season 6. They even specifically make it clear Bellamy cares and about and wants to help/save his family. So it's all just dumb and aggravating and WTF.
In the end, regardless if Bellamy does return, the fact that Clarke shot him, that she shot to kill him, will always be there. And I have no idea what to do about that except that it makes me really sad.
+ The other aspect of all this is Bellarke of course. I've shipped them from season 1 and love them a lot, perhaps even love them best of all the pairings, but I've also shipped a bunch of other pairings (including Clexa) and really my true OTP is Clarke/Happiness. So I would have loved for them to get together but it wasn't necessary for me to make a happy ending. I'd have been fine with ending them as platonic soulmates/best friends or even them dying if it was done well. But to take their relationship and end it this way, to take those six years of build-up and emotion and closeness and protectiveness of each other - and have Clarke murder Bellamy, and in such an unsupported and frankly haphazard way, after a season of their relationship barely being a part of the show (and honestly the two of them as characters being so backgrounded) is honestly insulting and infuriating and feels like a big fuck you. (Which honestly everything about this choice is starting to feel like.) That relationship damn well deserved better than this.
+ Ah – she shot him in the heart - because he’s the heart of the show and 'Head and Heart' is them. So clever and funny /s. Does this mean we get to look forward to Clarke shooting herself, or someone else shooting her, in the head just to complete that ‘heart and head’? Meh.
+ Once again Bellamy manages to keep himself in check, maintaining a calm (if pained) demeanour, until he gets into a confrontation with Clarke and then suddenly he's teary-eyed, and emotional and eventually crying.
+ It's kind of infuriating that they had Clarke do that and then had her forced to leave the book behind anyway. Totally invalidating what she literally just did for it. MEH.
+ In the logic of the scene I get why Clarke shot to kill instead of wounding Bellamy - he already said he would tell Cadogan the truth regardless of whether she got the book or not and his previous betrayal/behaviour showed he would make that betrayal; on top of that the anomaly was about to close at any time, risking closing her off from everyone else, which meant she couldn't incapacitate/hide his away/take him out of the equation in a non-lethal way - but I wonder why she didn't try shooting the other Disciples first before going lethal on him?
+ In season one Bellamy taught Clarke how to shoot and in season 7 she shoots him. Ouch.
+ I have more thoughts on Bellamy: specifically if he really is dead and this is the end of the character on the show I am going to be PISSED. So angry. What the hell kind of death was that? We know that this show can do emotional and beautiful deaths that complete a character's story arc (Diyoza's death this freaking season, Monty/Harper's choice) or are otherwise deeply devastating and/or well done (Finn, Jasper, Abby and Kane's actual death scenes) and this was none of that. You have the male lead (the heart of the show) gone for most of the season and returning only two episode previously but as someone now devoted to their enemy and working against Earthkru (while also trying to protect them), be shot by the female lead/his best friend and die alone??? WTF kind of death is that? How utterly disappointing and depressing and unsatisfying. If that is Bellamy's death I have no problem in saying that it was the worst executed death on this show. Okay, now I'm done.
No, wait, I lied: Bellamy dying here and like this makes no sense for his character which is why I'm so confused and stuck in denial because seriously, how does this work with any of the build up of his story in the last two episodes, and then I realised that if he really is dead and this is his end then the only answer is that it's not actually about him and that his death is being used for Clarke's story and character, as if he were a secondary character sacrificed to push her along. It's something that's been done many times with many different levels of characters on this show but if that's what's happening here it will be infuriating. Especially because in context of Clarke's story it still doesn't make much sense to me, and it makes everything with him this season pointless.
Clarke started the episode asking "What the hell happened here?" and I ended the episode saying basically the same thing. Just - what? WHAT?!
THAT Thing
I honestly don't even know what to say or feel. Mostly I'm just very perplexed and ???? and WHAT???!!! I'm not even sad or upset. It hasn't hit emotionally at all. This, everything about how that played out, came so out of left field that there is nothing. I'm just - huh. okay that happened. huh. what even. HUH. I am so deeply confused about the direction this took.
+ On Bellamy's death - well, it was on-screen but I honestly don't believe that this is the end of him. It literally makes no sense to me. It makes no sense for his character arc or his place as male lead for seven years or what's been happening with his current storyline and relationships. Or even for how this episode itself played out - Doucette dying (killed by Clarke) and telling Bellamy to keep faith, his talk with Cadogan telling him they are the same, Murphy's parting shot hoping that his new faith is worth it. How does death fit in with all this? Both narratively and character-wise it's a such a massively mind-boggling stupid choice to make with the character that I literally can't buy it.
And if it is true - why? Why would you do it this way? I don't get it. This show can be really excellent at deaths and this is very much... not. I don't understand killing him, I don't understand having Clarke killing him in this way, I don't understand killing him at this point in the story, how does this fit at all? I've honestly been expecting Clarke and/or Bellamy to die by the end of the season but this... I'm so baffled by this.
So as far as Bellamy goes any feelings I have about his 'death' are on pause until episode 16 ends and he still hasn't been revealed alive. I don't even know what explanation I believe here. Perhaps he is somehow saved from being shot; or maybe this isn't his real body and is a clone or his real one is back in the cave; or maybe time gets rewound (Clarke getting a redo?) or idk, we get actual time travel or he literally ascends a la Daniel Jackson or transcends or whatever. But I refuse to believe that there isn't more going on here.
+ Moving on to Clarke - and her shooting and killing Bellamy in order to try and protect Madi, whoa boy. There is so much with this I don't even know where to start. Bellamy's 'death' is currently a confused '??' but Clarke is definitely leaving me emotional but in a way where I'm all over the place - while also left going ???? because what the fuck!? How does this make any sense??
So, so many callbacks to previous episodes and moments between Clarke and Bellamy, something I love. Clarke holding Bellamy at gunpoint with the two of them on opposite sides of a decision a la S4. Bellamy making a choice affecting Madi's potential safety overconfident that he can protect her, pushing him and Clarke on opposite sides a la S5. Clarke's extreme overprotectiveness of Madi rearing up and having her turn on Bellamy to protect her daughter a la S5. Monty's wish for them "to do better" and how that became a refrain and goal for them in S6. All of which also brought to mind the scene in 6x04 with Clarke's heartfelt apology for leaving Bellamy behind to die in order to save Madi and telling him "You're my family too". It was a decision that haunted her and the scene ended with her promising Bellamy that she would 'never forget that again' because he 'was too important to her'. Awesome, great, I love callbacks and allusions to past episodes and continuity in relationships.
Except having this all brought back to mind and then having it end on Clarke shooting and killing Bellamy (to protect Madi) is such a WTF direction to take Clarke. Because we've watched Clarke struggle and change and honestly it playing out like this just does not work. Clarke's already been here and done that with trying to protect Madi at the cost of Bellamy, she regretted it deeply and she apologised and vowed to never do it again. So her doing it again needs a hell of a lot more build-up or reasoning than we have here. Like Bellamy actively trying to sacrifice Madi or something. What we got as reasoning simply doesn't work.
Clarke says "So much for together", okay, true enough. But also not. The failure of ‘together’ here isn’t Bellamy only it’s also Clarke. It’s been like a day (!) since Bellamy returned from death as a new man, loyal to Cadogan and his cult, and yes his betrayal of them (her) hurt but that’s not a reason to completely wash your hands of him! He appears to have been inducted into a cult. How is abandoning him to it ‘together’? Together comes from more than one side. Not to mention that ‘together’ could be more than just Bellamy and Clarke, but of Earthkru as a whole. The remnants of Spacekru and Wonkru’s leadership and Clarke & Madi. Together could be all of them coming together to save Bellamy.
To be fair to Clarke, Bellamy once again putting Madi in danger while reassuring Clarke that he’ll keep her safe has to feel like being trapped in an old nightmare. And she was put on the spot, rushed, emotional – and fell back on old habits, repeating old mistakes. Mistakes and impossible choices that she has been trying to move past. I’m trying to understand this choice (in show and in character) and I’m having a hard time. How does this fit with Clarke vowing to never forget that Bellamy was her family (and then him risking everything to save her?) How does this fit with her talks with Gaia at the beginning of the season, or her desire to do better, or her mantra to 'never lose anyone else'? How does it make any sense that after only a day or so of turned Bellamy (even ignoring the potential brainwashing) Clarke would react in such a final way against him?
I'm just finding Clarke choosing to kill Bellamy really hard to swallow. As with Bellamy's death I don't get it. I think both could have maybe been done well if the show had bothered to build it/set it up properly but they didn't. So much so I'm left wondering if this wasn't planned from the start but a last minute decision. (Did Bob need to leave again?) They weren't even a focus of the episode!
I can see the appeal of wanting a repeat of the 4x11 bunker confrontation - Clarke holding a gun on Bellamy with the fate of others potentially at stake except where last time she couldn't shoot him this time she does. There's an interesting symmetry there. Except they're basically repeating 5x09 with no regard to anything that happened after and I don't buy that Bellamy's betrayal this season would be enough to lead Clarke back to making this choice after everything that has happened. Nor does the threat to Madi make it work either - Madi is safe off planet, Cadogan (the only one who knows where they went) is their prisoner, Madi would likely survive MCAT even if they did capture her... just there isn't enough of an immediate threat to make killing Bellamy the only option here. In my refrain for this post - it doesn't make sense. Not with the reasoning set out, not after season 6. They even specifically make it clear Bellamy cares and about and wants to help/save his family. So it's all just dumb and aggravating and WTF.
In the end, regardless if Bellamy does return, the fact that Clarke shot him, that she shot to kill him, will always be there. And I have no idea what to do about that except that it makes me really sad.
+ The other aspect of all this is Bellarke of course. I've shipped them from season 1 and love them a lot, perhaps even love them best of all the pairings, but I've also shipped a bunch of other pairings (including Clexa) and really my true OTP is Clarke/Happiness. So I would have loved for them to get together but it wasn't necessary for me to make a happy ending. I'd have been fine with ending them as platonic soulmates/best friends or even them dying if it was done well. But to take their relationship and end it this way, to take those six years of build-up and emotion and closeness and protectiveness of each other - and have Clarke murder Bellamy, and in such an unsupported and frankly haphazard way, after a season of their relationship barely being a part of the show (and honestly the two of them as characters being so backgrounded) is honestly insulting and infuriating and feels like a big fuck you. (Which honestly everything about this choice is starting to feel like.) That relationship damn well deserved better than this.
+ Ah – she shot him in the heart - because he’s the heart of the show and 'Head and Heart' is them. So clever and funny /s. Does this mean we get to look forward to Clarke shooting herself, or someone else shooting her, in the head just to complete that ‘heart and head’? Meh.
+ Once again Bellamy manages to keep himself in check, maintaining a calm (if pained) demeanour, until he gets into a confrontation with Clarke and then suddenly he's teary-eyed, and emotional and eventually crying.
+ It's kind of infuriating that they had Clarke do that and then had her forced to leave the book behind anyway. Totally invalidating what she literally just did for it. MEH.
+ In the logic of the scene I get why Clarke shot to kill instead of wounding Bellamy - he already said he would tell Cadogan the truth regardless of whether she got the book or not and his previous betrayal/behaviour showed he would make that betrayal; on top of that the anomaly was about to close at any time, risking closing her off from everyone else, which meant she couldn't incapacitate/hide his away/take him out of the equation in a non-lethal way - but I wonder why she didn't try shooting the other Disciples first before going lethal on him?
+ In season one Bellamy taught Clarke how to shoot and in season 7 she shoots him. Ouch.
+ I have more thoughts on Bellamy: specifically if he really is dead and this is the end of the character on the show I am going to be PISSED. So angry. What the hell kind of death was that? We know that this show can do emotional and beautiful deaths that complete a character's story arc (Diyoza's death this freaking season, Monty/Harper's choice) or are otherwise deeply devastating and/or well done (Finn, Jasper, Abby and Kane's actual death scenes) and this was none of that. You have the male lead (the heart of the show) gone for most of the season and returning only two episode previously but as someone now devoted to their enemy and working against Earthkru (while also trying to protect them), be shot by the female lead/his best friend and die alone??? WTF kind of death is that? How utterly disappointing and depressing and unsatisfying. If that is Bellamy's death I have no problem in saying that it was the worst executed death on this show. Okay, now I'm done.
No, wait, I lied: Bellamy dying here and like this makes no sense for his character which is why I'm so confused and stuck in denial because seriously, how does this work with any of the build up of his story in the last two episodes, and then I realised that if he really is dead and this is his end then the only answer is that it's not actually about him and that his death is being used for Clarke's story and character, as if he were a secondary character sacrificed to push her along. It's something that's been done many times with many different levels of characters on this show but if that's what's happening here it will be infuriating. Especially because in context of Clarke's story it still doesn't make much sense to me, and it makes everything with him this season pointless.
