The 100 1x12 Review
Jul. 31st, 2014 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaThe Grounders, Part 1
This was a great episode.
• So I guess Clarke really is the true leader of the 100. For the truce talks Lincoln pinpointed her as the leader but this episode is what confirms it and shows that the 100 and even Bellamy himself consider that true.
Bellamy gives an impassioned speech to stay and people cheer. Clarke, immediately after, gives a short speech and then tells everyone to pack up because they're leaving. ...And then everyone immediately disperses to start packing up. No dissenting at all. Not even Bellamy's minions.
Even Bellamy himself doesn't go against her. He approaches her, essentially privately, to voice his disagreement but he then tries to convince her that she's wrong instead of arguing with her or trying to void her decision. I mean when he says it's a mistake and she replies "The decision's been made." he doesn't argue at all. He doesn't tell her it hasn't because he's their leader as well and he doesn't agree. He just continues to try and change her mind. And after she shoots him down the last shot of Bellamy is him starting to direct people as they great ready to leave. He accepts her decision and that it's her place to make that decision. Huh.
• "Crowds make bad decisions. leaders do what they think is right." - Bellamy
"I am." - Clarke
I really, really don't want this to prove to be a bad decision and yet I'm like 80% sure it will. If only because she's making this decision unilaterally and because this is The 100 so clearly it's all going to end in blood and tears. I'd be really happy if it's shown that this is basically a no win situation for them, stay or go, because it is. And I think leaving probably is the best choice. I just don't want this to backfire on her. I am really attached to competent leader Clarke.
At the same time I really love Clarke and Bellamy as co-leaders. I love the back-and-forth, their arguing, the understanding and trust they've slowly been creating with each other. Bellamy would make a great second-in-command if that's the route they go in but I think they actually work best as co-leaders. Bellamy is also turning into a really good leader and I think their different POV's on situations and how they negotiate their way through them to a decision works best. I'd miss them negotiating their way into a working partnership and co-leadership.
• "They actually look up to you. Almost as much as they look up to Clarke." - Murphy Okay, seriously, we need an episode just devoted to the random background 100 and what they think of their leaders and the shenanigans that go on. This is Murphy so you have to take what he says with a grain of salt and he could have just been needling Bellamy. But I think it is likely that he was speaking the truth here considering everything else happening in the episode. I love the idea that the 100 actually look up to/like Clarke and Bellamy at this point. I loved this line of Jasper's: "We lost Clarke. We can't lose Bellamy too."
- Bellamy trading himself for Jasper is certainly going to up his stock with the 100 even more.
• I loved Bellamy trading himself for Jasper. I love how his decision to let them hang Murphy once again ends up having consequences. I love that he realised that it was him that Murphy wanted and even knowing the danger it put him in he still suggested the trade. I love that it was how he's changed and grown as a leader, the loyalty he's inspired, that leads to his survival because people cared enough to save him. Actions have consequences and this show shows that so well.
• The scene where Lincoln rides with Clark to the signal fire was gorgeous. The way they move in and out of the moonlight through the trees; the whole screen going black as they move out of the light and how it represents Clarke slowly coming back to consciousness; the muffled sound; the way it changes when she becomes fully conscious; her kind-of disorienting view as they come upon the signal fire - all of it so well done.
• They seriously had better not kill off Raven. I will be so mad. She is awesome in basically everything she does. She built land-mines! She saved Bellamy! There is nothing she can't do.
• The two weak links of the 100 for me have always been Finn and Jasper. I keep going back and forth on them. They both really annoy me sometimes, other times I like them.
- Jasper was actually great. My favourite bit was him hugging Bellamy at the end. I literally went 'aww'. It was adorable. But honestly everything he did or said was excellent. Him calling out Bellamy on abandoning the others outside of camp. Him letting Bellamy know what Murphy did. His determination to save Bellamy. The fact that his first words to Clarke were to ask about Monty. I really liked him.
- Finn was... fine. Weirdly his badly timed confession of love has actually done a lot to combat my lingering disgust over the whole Raven/Clarke situation. The short time period since they were sent to Earth made me skeptical about the depth of their feelings, however if I accept that Finn really is in love with Clarke it makes me able to see things from his POV a bit easier. So he grew up with Raven, loved her but perhaps was never in love with her. He met Clarke, fell in love and then suddenly Raven was there and he didn't know what to do. Raven was his family and he didn't want to hurt her but he loved Clarke and wanted to be with her.
He's still an ass and he still handled basically everything with both of them in the worst way possible (and I'm not forgiving him for trying to keep things going with Clarke behind Raven's back) but I guess I'm over holding it against him. He's become one of the moral centres of the 100 and one of the biggest voices of reason. I do think he's a mostly good guy. So... bygones.
• "What my people are doing to yours is wrong." - Lincoln. I love this. I've always though Lincoln doing everything he was doing just for Octavia was pretty weak. Instead we learn that a large part of his reasoning is that he'd just a really decent and good person who's acting according to his convictions. Awesome. He's basically the Grounder version of Finn. Only sexier, tougher and less of an ass. I really hope nothing happens to him because he's great and I want more of him (especially more of him interacting with Clarke and his romance with Octavia.)
- Now I want Lincoln and Finn as Clarke's minions/enforcers/advisers since Bellamy has (or had?) his own set of minions. It's only fair!
• I loved the Lincoln/Clarke scenes. Okay, I basically love Clarke's interactions with almost everyone but her scenes with Lincoln in the tunnels were really great. I'd, not joking, love for him to become her Grounder advisor on living on Earth. I also loved the tension filled scene between Clarke and Anya even without one word spoken between them. Is it too much to ask for them to be forced to work together against a common enemy as reluctant allies?
• We got so much information about the Grounders. Actually I think we got more info this episode then we have in all the previous ones combined. The Reapers, a creepy cannibalistic group of humans of indeterminate intelligence, were not too big a surprise. It's a post-apocalyptic world so of course there needs to be a scary, animalistic group. What did surprise me was that Anya's people were just a unit of a larger group. I thought there were different mini-nations/tribes and she was the leader of one of them.
• I'm glad the Murphy survived.
• Ark stuff happened as well. I really liked Abby's OR breakdown about how Clarke will always hate her now and she'll never get the chance to make it right. The actress did a great job. Kid Wells and Clarke were adorable and sad. I liked that Kane refused to give up searching for a way to save them.
This was a great episode.
• So I guess Clarke really is the true leader of the 100. For the truce talks Lincoln pinpointed her as the leader but this episode is what confirms it and shows that the 100 and even Bellamy himself consider that true.
Bellamy gives an impassioned speech to stay and people cheer. Clarke, immediately after, gives a short speech and then tells everyone to pack up because they're leaving. ...And then everyone immediately disperses to start packing up. No dissenting at all. Not even Bellamy's minions.
Even Bellamy himself doesn't go against her. He approaches her, essentially privately, to voice his disagreement but he then tries to convince her that she's wrong instead of arguing with her or trying to void her decision. I mean when he says it's a mistake and she replies "The decision's been made." he doesn't argue at all. He doesn't tell her it hasn't because he's their leader as well and he doesn't agree. He just continues to try and change her mind. And after she shoots him down the last shot of Bellamy is him starting to direct people as they great ready to leave. He accepts her decision and that it's her place to make that decision. Huh.
• "Crowds make bad decisions. leaders do what they think is right." - Bellamy
"I am." - Clarke
I really, really don't want this to prove to be a bad decision and yet I'm like 80% sure it will. If only because she's making this decision unilaterally and because this is The 100 so clearly it's all going to end in blood and tears. I'd be really happy if it's shown that this is basically a no win situation for them, stay or go, because it is. And I think leaving probably is the best choice. I just don't want this to backfire on her. I am really attached to competent leader Clarke.
At the same time I really love Clarke and Bellamy as co-leaders. I love the back-and-forth, their arguing, the understanding and trust they've slowly been creating with each other. Bellamy would make a great second-in-command if that's the route they go in but I think they actually work best as co-leaders. Bellamy is also turning into a really good leader and I think their different POV's on situations and how they negotiate their way through them to a decision works best. I'd miss them negotiating their way into a working partnership and co-leadership.
• "They actually look up to you. Almost as much as they look up to Clarke." - Murphy Okay, seriously, we need an episode just devoted to the random background 100 and what they think of their leaders and the shenanigans that go on. This is Murphy so you have to take what he says with a grain of salt and he could have just been needling Bellamy. But I think it is likely that he was speaking the truth here considering everything else happening in the episode. I love the idea that the 100 actually look up to/like Clarke and Bellamy at this point. I loved this line of Jasper's: "We lost Clarke. We can't lose Bellamy too."
- Bellamy trading himself for Jasper is certainly going to up his stock with the 100 even more.
• I loved Bellamy trading himself for Jasper. I love how his decision to let them hang Murphy once again ends up having consequences. I love that he realised that it was him that Murphy wanted and even knowing the danger it put him in he still suggested the trade. I love that it was how he's changed and grown as a leader, the loyalty he's inspired, that leads to his survival because people cared enough to save him. Actions have consequences and this show shows that so well.
• The scene where Lincoln rides with Clark to the signal fire was gorgeous. The way they move in and out of the moonlight through the trees; the whole screen going black as they move out of the light and how it represents Clarke slowly coming back to consciousness; the muffled sound; the way it changes when she becomes fully conscious; her kind-of disorienting view as they come upon the signal fire - all of it so well done.
• They seriously had better not kill off Raven. I will be so mad. She is awesome in basically everything she does. She built land-mines! She saved Bellamy! There is nothing she can't do.
• The two weak links of the 100 for me have always been Finn and Jasper. I keep going back and forth on them. They both really annoy me sometimes, other times I like them.
- Jasper was actually great. My favourite bit was him hugging Bellamy at the end. I literally went 'aww'. It was adorable. But honestly everything he did or said was excellent. Him calling out Bellamy on abandoning the others outside of camp. Him letting Bellamy know what Murphy did. His determination to save Bellamy. The fact that his first words to Clarke were to ask about Monty. I really liked him.
- Finn was... fine. Weirdly his badly timed confession of love has actually done a lot to combat my lingering disgust over the whole Raven/Clarke situation. The short time period since they were sent to Earth made me skeptical about the depth of their feelings, however if I accept that Finn really is in love with Clarke it makes me able to see things from his POV a bit easier. So he grew up with Raven, loved her but perhaps was never in love with her. He met Clarke, fell in love and then suddenly Raven was there and he didn't know what to do. Raven was his family and he didn't want to hurt her but he loved Clarke and wanted to be with her.
He's still an ass and he still handled basically everything with both of them in the worst way possible (and I'm not forgiving him for trying to keep things going with Clarke behind Raven's back) but I guess I'm over holding it against him. He's become one of the moral centres of the 100 and one of the biggest voices of reason. I do think he's a mostly good guy. So... bygones.
• "What my people are doing to yours is wrong." - Lincoln. I love this. I've always though Lincoln doing everything he was doing just for Octavia was pretty weak. Instead we learn that a large part of his reasoning is that he'd just a really decent and good person who's acting according to his convictions. Awesome. He's basically the Grounder version of Finn. Only sexier, tougher and less of an ass. I really hope nothing happens to him because he's great and I want more of him (especially more of him interacting with Clarke and his romance with Octavia.)
- Now I want Lincoln and Finn as Clarke's minions/enforcers/advisers since Bellamy has (or had?) his own set of minions. It's only fair!
• I loved the Lincoln/Clarke scenes. Okay, I basically love Clarke's interactions with almost everyone but her scenes with Lincoln in the tunnels were really great. I'd, not joking, love for him to become her Grounder advisor on living on Earth. I also loved the tension filled scene between Clarke and Anya even without one word spoken between them. Is it too much to ask for them to be forced to work together against a common enemy as reluctant allies?
• We got so much information about the Grounders. Actually I think we got more info this episode then we have in all the previous ones combined. The Reapers, a creepy cannibalistic group of humans of indeterminate intelligence, were not too big a surprise. It's a post-apocalyptic world so of course there needs to be a scary, animalistic group. What did surprise me was that Anya's people were just a unit of a larger group. I thought there were different mini-nations/tribes and she was the leader of one of them.
• I'm glad the Murphy survived.
• Ark stuff happened as well. I really liked Abby's OR breakdown about how Clarke will always hate her now and she'll never get the chance to make it right. The actress did a great job. Kid Wells and Clarke were adorable and sad. I liked that Kane refused to give up searching for a way to save them.
