The 100 5x11 Thoughts
Jul. 30th, 2018 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaThe Dark Year
This episode made me wish once again that this season had been 16 episodes. Just three more episodes would have helped so much. Another Wonkru flashback, a Spacekru flashback, maybe even an Eligius flashback so we actually care about any of them.
Griffin Family
+ This week's theme is choice - both choosing between two evils and taking choice away from others. It's interesting then to watch Clarke - she chooses McCreary over Octavia and then refuses to listen to either Madi or Abby and makes the choice for all three of them to help McCreary. I'm not sure what the show is trying to say about Clarke with this. Clarke tells Madi that she's not a hero, and this season she hasn't been. Is that her arc this season? Making her slow way back to widening "her people" to include everyone else, and becoming that hero again?
I love Clarke, and I love her this season but these last few episodes have been a little difficult. I, for the most part, absolutely get where she's coming from in her overall viewpoint. Clarke isn’t a leader any more. She’s a mom who is just trying to keep her daughter alive and safe. She’s someone who lived in alone in peace with her daughter for six years and the first time people show up it’s with violence and once again she’s dragged back into the horrible world, and headspace, of survival that was seasons 1 – 4. I can see why she’s so determinedly concentrating on just Madi. She has her own trauma informing her decisions. But I'm having a harder time with some of her most recent choices.
+ Clarke so easily switching her plan from working with Diyoza to working with McCreary that's a really big difference! Even thinking that Octavia's first act after securing the valley would be to kill Madi Clarke's choice to help McCreary feels not well thought out. I hope that she has some plan to deal with him.
+ It annoyed me, and I found it confusing, that she brough Madi with her to find Abby. It would have been so much safer for Madi to leave her in the cave so I don't get why Clarke would do that when her entire motivation is keeping Madi safe! It's much the same with her reasoning for leaving the Flame inside Madi's head. I need a better textual reason for leaving it in than Lexa when placed against Madi's safety.
+ Also while I love her "you're my people" to Madi I do wonder at the way she has cut literally everyone else out of that with seemingly little self-doubt. Madi was her people alone for six years but once Bellamy et al returned, especially her mother, you'd think she'd have more internal issues at keeping it to simply Madi. Is it because everything changed so much for everyone else and they created new bonds? If Abby had stayed around with her instead of leaving so quickly after their reunion would that have changed it for her?
+ "She's acting like she can make the decision for you. She decides who lives and who dies." I mean, Abby's not completely wrong though more often than not it's more like Clarke is forced into a situation where she can't take a poll and it is her choice. Except here Abby is right. Neither Abby nor Madi want to help McCreary. They may not be on Octavia's 'side' but for them McCreary is absolutely not the right choice. But with both of them Clarke overrules their choice. We don't see her convince Abby that she's right so it feels kind of like her taking advantage of Abby's detox/guilt/current weakness to push her into something Abby doesn't want to do. At the height of Abby's withdrawals she still refused to help McCreary! I really wish we had gotten that talk.
Then with Madi, taking away her choice and not listening to her opinion has been a pretty consistent thing since the first episode. Back then it was Madi not wanting to kill/torture people and Clarke doing it anyway. Most recently it's been Clarke's refusal to accept the Flame being in Madi's head. And now in this episode it's Clarke refusing to listen at every turn to Madi about the war.
+ "How can you still be against Octavia, after what your mom said went on down there?" This is so worrying to me! It seems like what Madi took from Abby's story was "poor Octavia". That her choice then was the right one, that she 'bore it so they didn't have to' (thus connecting it to Clarke), and that that made her a hero. Then extrapolating from that she went straight to if was right back then she must also be right now. Which - uhhhh.
I get the sympathy for Octavia because I'm feeling it too but this isn’t a situation where one side has to be right. Neither McCreary nor Octavia are the right choice. This feels like it's leading to Madi switching sides to save/join Octavia which is making me sad. [Though also a little excited to see how Clarke reacts to that.]
+ "Bellamy, Raven, Octavia, Murphy... they were always the heroes. When all along it was you. Until now. I'm ashamed of you." As with above it feels like a very 12 year old take on things. Clarke was a hero in a lot of cases. It makes sense to me that she would highlight everyone else over herself, especially when she carries so much trauma over her choices, but also because it was never just her. It was almost always several people, or everyone, working together. Madi found Murphy disappointing based on her stories, Octavia turned out to be scary and tried to kill her mom, and now Clarke, after everything else, has disappointed her by not living up to the 'hero' she was.
I'm certain that Madi is going to run straight to Octavia to help her since Clarke won't let her kill McCreary. I wonder if the inevitable place this is is going to end is with Madi realising that Octavia is not a 'hero' anymore and then being the one to take Octavia down/out? What I want is Madi realising that neither choice is the right now and creating a third option (much like her mother used to do) that will lead everyone on a new, perhaps more hopeful, path.
+ "I love you Clarke. But we're on the wrong side of this war." - Madi. ♥ She said she loves her! It makes me think again of the Flamekeeper's "love is weakness". Madi grew up knowing that was wrong, first with her birth family and then with Clarke and I really hope this has some affect on the situation going forward.
+ I don't disagree with Madi that they're on the wrong side but I feel like maybe the 'right' side isn't either of them. The 'right' side is some third option - Monty's refusal to fight, or maybe Madi as Heda, or Clarke somehow pulling out one of her patented third ways.
+ I loved Madi defending Clarke after detoxing Abby went after her about choice. For a second I thought it might get to her seeing how Clarke has been overriding Madi's choices.
+ I loved that small moment of Clarke, with a little smile, watched Madi sleep.
+ It was nice to see Abby/Clarke together again and their concern for each other. I liked Abby tearfully telling her "If I die you'll never forgive yourself".
+ "Well, I guess you both get to watch your daughters die." That's bad, yes, but once again I'm just so glad to have Madi acknowledged as Clarke's daughter.
Spacekru
+ Echo called them Spacekru. ♥ There were a lot of great little moments between them this episode and it was wonderful. I wish we could have gotten a Spacekru flashback episode too.
+ Murphy and Raven's back and forth banter was fun. I love them.
+ I love that Harper is the one to point out that Echo is speaking Trig for a reason. That whole radio call was great and I loved everyone's reactions to Clarke being on team McCready.
+ "Man, I never get the gun." - Murphy. Ha! I love Emori giving him the Big Ass Space Gun. She knows him well.
+ Bellamy/Monty's fireside chat was lovely. The smiles! I miss them all smiling. Monty making the offer to fight with him was such a big choice and I love that Bellamy refused.
+ I loved the little Echo/Emori moment and just the fact that Emori saw Echo looking upset and went over, put her arm around her and gave her comfort.
+ I find myself a little annoyed about how much of Raven's screen-time is now about Shaw. On the one hand, I want her to finally have someone in her life again. I want her to have love and happiness. On the other, I just don't ship Raven/Shaw for some reason. It works on paper but leaves me 'eh, okay' when watching and because of that I'd much rather have Raven more involved in plot things and interacting with the rest of Spacekru.
+ I continue to like the Diyoza/Kane friendship.
+ I found Shallow Valley Spacekru being so incautious when they went after the guns really unbelievable. They are all smarter than that! Echo is so much better than that that it almost feels like character assassination so Shaw could have a hero moment. Not impressed.
Wonkru
+ I'm continuing to find Octavia really sympathetic. I think one of the most interesting reveals of the flashbacks is that two years on, even after the bloodbath Wonkru ultimatum of 5x02, Octavia is still noticeably Octavia. It seems like she did manage a relative peace until the the Dark Year and that's what started her on the road to Blodreina. It makes it all the sadder that the Dark Year broke her so much that she got to a point where she burned down the farm to protect her power. I can understand her not wanting to put her faith in the Farm again but that wasn't what Monty was even asking for. I think if there was ever anything that Octavia did that was inexcusable it was that. At this point she really needs to be taken out of power for her and everyone else's good only now I actively want her to survive and heal and find a way past this into a better future in a way I haven't before.
One of my main issues with Octavia has always been the way she judges other leaders of their choices but has never stepped up herself. Now she has and like Clarke and others before her she finds herself making those hard choices. Her going through with their only option and then taking that first bite of human flesh is something I respect. None of that was easy but it needed to be done. I felt for her when she was pleading with Wonkru to eat the rations even when she pulled the gun and started shooting people. You could see how devastating it was for her.
Was it necessary to go that far? Eehhh. Why didn’t they call a meeting of Wonkru and explain to them why everyone needed to eat. Lay it out like Abby did for Octavia. This situation reminded me of the Culling. They were afraid to tell everyone the truth, Abby did anyway and everyone came together with a solution. Why not give Wonkru that same option before resorting to killing people? Abby seemed as shocked as everyone when Octavia pulled her gun. I wonder what she was expect Octavia to do with her advice?
+ I so want an Abby/Octavia scene now and I regret we didn’t really see them interact at all before this. We got both Kane and Indra interacting with Octavia and referencing that time and yet in that oh so important second meeting neither of them were there. It was Abby alone leading Octavia down the path they needed to survive, Abby being ruthlessly practical but then stepping back and letting Octavia do it. Honestly it was Abby more than anyone who created Blodreina which I find fascinating. What was their relationship like after that? Octavia clearly carries some anger at Indra for not stepping up more to help her but we never get to see how she thinks of Abby?
+ Abby as a character this season with her addiction and brokenness makes so much more sense now. I absolutely understand it now.
+ "I'm not fighting for you. I'm fighting to get back to my family." - Bellamy to Octavia. OUCH! Wow. That was so brutal. That was maybe the harshest thing ever said on this show. Definitely the cruellest thing Bellamy ever said to Octavia. ): I felt so bad for her and how devastating it obviously was for her to hear that. I was with Bellamy the first time he went off on Octavia [totally fair! Go Bellamy!] and everything up to this line [yay, reasonableness] but this felt too mean.
+ "It should be once the crime rate rises. And it will." - Abby. Yikes. This was probably the creepiest line of the episode for me. I wonder if Octavia's inner circle ever had to 'encourage' people into crime in order to keep their fighting pit numbers up?
+ I’m really curious about why they chose that method to serve people. Why little jello squares, alone on the tray? I know the Doylist reasoning because it was definitely attention getting and gross but on the Watsonian side wouldn’t trying to make it more palatable, even if everyone knows, be a better option? Make soup and add it in? Or the ration bars they end up with in the current time are an improvement. Almost literally anything but that.
+ I wish we had gotten more about Miller and Niylah. I was hoping for some hint of explanation about why they went full Octavia stanning. Even after everything Miller is still unbreakably loyal to Octavia.
+ I liked Indra's "Bellamy..." when he went off on Octavia as the reason everyone was going to be killed. They're going through a rough patch right now but Indra still loves her so it was nice to see her being protective of Octavia.
+ Bellamy ignoring Miller hurt a lot. ): I mean Miller's being a drag and I don't blame Bellamy but still, sad.
This episode made me wish once again that this season had been 16 episodes. Just three more episodes would have helped so much. Another Wonkru flashback, a Spacekru flashback, maybe even an Eligius flashback so we actually care about any of them.
Griffin Family
+ This week's theme is choice - both choosing between two evils and taking choice away from others. It's interesting then to watch Clarke - she chooses McCreary over Octavia and then refuses to listen to either Madi or Abby and makes the choice for all three of them to help McCreary. I'm not sure what the show is trying to say about Clarke with this. Clarke tells Madi that she's not a hero, and this season she hasn't been. Is that her arc this season? Making her slow way back to widening "her people" to include everyone else, and becoming that hero again?
I love Clarke, and I love her this season but these last few episodes have been a little difficult. I, for the most part, absolutely get where she's coming from in her overall viewpoint. Clarke isn’t a leader any more. She’s a mom who is just trying to keep her daughter alive and safe. She’s someone who lived in alone in peace with her daughter for six years and the first time people show up it’s with violence and once again she’s dragged back into the horrible world, and headspace, of survival that was seasons 1 – 4. I can see why she’s so determinedly concentrating on just Madi. She has her own trauma informing her decisions. But I'm having a harder time with some of her most recent choices.
+ Clarke so easily switching her plan from working with Diyoza to working with McCreary that's a really big difference! Even thinking that Octavia's first act after securing the valley would be to kill Madi Clarke's choice to help McCreary feels not well thought out. I hope that she has some plan to deal with him.
+ It annoyed me, and I found it confusing, that she brough Madi with her to find Abby. It would have been so much safer for Madi to leave her in the cave so I don't get why Clarke would do that when her entire motivation is keeping Madi safe! It's much the same with her reasoning for leaving the Flame inside Madi's head. I need a better textual reason for leaving it in than Lexa when placed against Madi's safety.
+ Also while I love her "you're my people" to Madi I do wonder at the way she has cut literally everyone else out of that with seemingly little self-doubt. Madi was her people alone for six years but once Bellamy et al returned, especially her mother, you'd think she'd have more internal issues at keeping it to simply Madi. Is it because everything changed so much for everyone else and they created new bonds? If Abby had stayed around with her instead of leaving so quickly after their reunion would that have changed it for her?
+ "She's acting like she can make the decision for you. She decides who lives and who dies." I mean, Abby's not completely wrong though more often than not it's more like Clarke is forced into a situation where she can't take a poll and it is her choice. Except here Abby is right. Neither Abby nor Madi want to help McCreary. They may not be on Octavia's 'side' but for them McCreary is absolutely not the right choice. But with both of them Clarke overrules their choice. We don't see her convince Abby that she's right so it feels kind of like her taking advantage of Abby's detox/guilt/current weakness to push her into something Abby doesn't want to do. At the height of Abby's withdrawals she still refused to help McCreary! I really wish we had gotten that talk.
Then with Madi, taking away her choice and not listening to her opinion has been a pretty consistent thing since the first episode. Back then it was Madi not wanting to kill/torture people and Clarke doing it anyway. Most recently it's been Clarke's refusal to accept the Flame being in Madi's head. And now in this episode it's Clarke refusing to listen at every turn to Madi about the war.
+ "How can you still be against Octavia, after what your mom said went on down there?" This is so worrying to me! It seems like what Madi took from Abby's story was "poor Octavia". That her choice then was the right one, that she 'bore it so they didn't have to' (thus connecting it to Clarke), and that that made her a hero. Then extrapolating from that she went straight to if was right back then she must also be right now. Which - uhhhh.
I get the sympathy for Octavia because I'm feeling it too but this isn’t a situation where one side has to be right. Neither McCreary nor Octavia are the right choice. This feels like it's leading to Madi switching sides to save/join Octavia which is making me sad. [Though also a little excited to see how Clarke reacts to that.]
+ "Bellamy, Raven, Octavia, Murphy... they were always the heroes. When all along it was you. Until now. I'm ashamed of you." As with above it feels like a very 12 year old take on things. Clarke was a hero in a lot of cases. It makes sense to me that she would highlight everyone else over herself, especially when she carries so much trauma over her choices, but also because it was never just her. It was almost always several people, or everyone, working together. Madi found Murphy disappointing based on her stories, Octavia turned out to be scary and tried to kill her mom, and now Clarke, after everything else, has disappointed her by not living up to the 'hero' she was.
I'm certain that Madi is going to run straight to Octavia to help her since Clarke won't let her kill McCreary. I wonder if the inevitable place this is is going to end is with Madi realising that Octavia is not a 'hero' anymore and then being the one to take Octavia down/out? What I want is Madi realising that neither choice is the right now and creating a third option (much like her mother used to do) that will lead everyone on a new, perhaps more hopeful, path.
+ "I love you Clarke. But we're on the wrong side of this war." - Madi. ♥ She said she loves her! It makes me think again of the Flamekeeper's "love is weakness". Madi grew up knowing that was wrong, first with her birth family and then with Clarke and I really hope this has some affect on the situation going forward.
+ I don't disagree with Madi that they're on the wrong side but I feel like maybe the 'right' side isn't either of them. The 'right' side is some third option - Monty's refusal to fight, or maybe Madi as Heda, or Clarke somehow pulling out one of her patented third ways.
+ I loved Madi defending Clarke after detoxing Abby went after her about choice. For a second I thought it might get to her seeing how Clarke has been overriding Madi's choices.
+ I loved that small moment of Clarke, with a little smile, watched Madi sleep.
+ It was nice to see Abby/Clarke together again and their concern for each other. I liked Abby tearfully telling her "If I die you'll never forgive yourself".
+ "Well, I guess you both get to watch your daughters die." That's bad, yes, but once again I'm just so glad to have Madi acknowledged as Clarke's daughter.
Spacekru
+ Echo called them Spacekru. ♥ There were a lot of great little moments between them this episode and it was wonderful. I wish we could have gotten a Spacekru flashback episode too.
+ Murphy and Raven's back and forth banter was fun. I love them.
+ I love that Harper is the one to point out that Echo is speaking Trig for a reason. That whole radio call was great and I loved everyone's reactions to Clarke being on team McCready.
+ "Man, I never get the gun." - Murphy. Ha! I love Emori giving him the Big Ass Space Gun. She knows him well.
+ Bellamy/Monty's fireside chat was lovely. The smiles! I miss them all smiling. Monty making the offer to fight with him was such a big choice and I love that Bellamy refused.
+ I loved the little Echo/Emori moment and just the fact that Emori saw Echo looking upset and went over, put her arm around her and gave her comfort.
+ I find myself a little annoyed about how much of Raven's screen-time is now about Shaw. On the one hand, I want her to finally have someone in her life again. I want her to have love and happiness. On the other, I just don't ship Raven/Shaw for some reason. It works on paper but leaves me 'eh, okay' when watching and because of that I'd much rather have Raven more involved in plot things and interacting with the rest of Spacekru.
+ I continue to like the Diyoza/Kane friendship.
+ I found Shallow Valley Spacekru being so incautious when they went after the guns really unbelievable. They are all smarter than that! Echo is so much better than that that it almost feels like character assassination so Shaw could have a hero moment. Not impressed.
Wonkru
+ I'm continuing to find Octavia really sympathetic. I think one of the most interesting reveals of the flashbacks is that two years on, even after the bloodbath Wonkru ultimatum of 5x02, Octavia is still noticeably Octavia. It seems like she did manage a relative peace until the the Dark Year and that's what started her on the road to Blodreina. It makes it all the sadder that the Dark Year broke her so much that she got to a point where she burned down the farm to protect her power. I can understand her not wanting to put her faith in the Farm again but that wasn't what Monty was even asking for. I think if there was ever anything that Octavia did that was inexcusable it was that. At this point she really needs to be taken out of power for her and everyone else's good only now I actively want her to survive and heal and find a way past this into a better future in a way I haven't before.
One of my main issues with Octavia has always been the way she judges other leaders of their choices but has never stepped up herself. Now she has and like Clarke and others before her she finds herself making those hard choices. Her going through with their only option and then taking that first bite of human flesh is something I respect. None of that was easy but it needed to be done. I felt for her when she was pleading with Wonkru to eat the rations even when she pulled the gun and started shooting people. You could see how devastating it was for her.
Was it necessary to go that far? Eehhh. Why didn’t they call a meeting of Wonkru and explain to them why everyone needed to eat. Lay it out like Abby did for Octavia. This situation reminded me of the Culling. They were afraid to tell everyone the truth, Abby did anyway and everyone came together with a solution. Why not give Wonkru that same option before resorting to killing people? Abby seemed as shocked as everyone when Octavia pulled her gun. I wonder what she was expect Octavia to do with her advice?
+ I so want an Abby/Octavia scene now and I regret we didn’t really see them interact at all before this. We got both Kane and Indra interacting with Octavia and referencing that time and yet in that oh so important second meeting neither of them were there. It was Abby alone leading Octavia down the path they needed to survive, Abby being ruthlessly practical but then stepping back and letting Octavia do it. Honestly it was Abby more than anyone who created Blodreina which I find fascinating. What was their relationship like after that? Octavia clearly carries some anger at Indra for not stepping up more to help her but we never get to see how she thinks of Abby?
+ Abby as a character this season with her addiction and brokenness makes so much more sense now. I absolutely understand it now.
+ "I'm not fighting for you. I'm fighting to get back to my family." - Bellamy to Octavia. OUCH! Wow. That was so brutal. That was maybe the harshest thing ever said on this show. Definitely the cruellest thing Bellamy ever said to Octavia. ): I felt so bad for her and how devastating it obviously was for her to hear that. I was with Bellamy the first time he went off on Octavia [totally fair! Go Bellamy!] and everything up to this line [yay, reasonableness] but this felt too mean.
+ "It should be once the crime rate rises. And it will." - Abby. Yikes. This was probably the creepiest line of the episode for me. I wonder if Octavia's inner circle ever had to 'encourage' people into crime in order to keep their fighting pit numbers up?
+ I’m really curious about why they chose that method to serve people. Why little jello squares, alone on the tray? I know the Doylist reasoning because it was definitely attention getting and gross but on the Watsonian side wouldn’t trying to make it more palatable, even if everyone knows, be a better option? Make soup and add it in? Or the ration bars they end up with in the current time are an improvement. Almost literally anything but that.
+ I wish we had gotten more about Miller and Niylah. I was hoping for some hint of explanation about why they went full Octavia stanning. Even after everything Miller is still unbreakably loyal to Octavia.
+ I liked Indra's "Bellamy..." when he went off on Octavia as the reason everyone was going to be killed. They're going through a rough patch right now but Indra still loves her so it was nice to see her being protective of Octavia.
+ Bellamy ignoring Miller hurt a lot. ): I mean Miller's being a drag and I don't blame Bellamy but still, sad.
