DOWNLOAD THE 100 SEASON 5, EPISODE 10 BELOW… FIRST, ALITTLE RECAP
This episode of The 100 came the closest this season has in a long while to showing what we’ve needed to see all along: Octavia struggling with these tough choices, the secret tears, the heartbreak and hesitation that no one else sees. This episode still didn’t go quite far enough when it comes to getting inside her head – I’m still not all that sold on why Octavia is doing some of these more drastic things, other than that the plot requires her to.
Everything in this episode is about layers. Indra’s only weakness is the old wound Pike inflicted on her back when Bellamy was being The Worst. Madi sees what looks like the Mountain Men in her commander vision. Octavia reminisces about when Indra asked her to be her second. Even O’s challenge to Monty that he should be cooking up a scheme to break Bellamy out of prison, feels like something from a simpler time.
Bellamy still sees things in turn of lifting the burden from Octavia, calling her rule silly and storybook, infantilizing her, rather than understanding where she’s coming from and respecting her choices, the way he has with Clarke, Kane and others. It’s hard to hear, “there’s no coming back from this,” from the guy who forgave kane for spacing his mom. Or the guy who took Pike’s side, helping with a massacre and allowing Lincoln’s execution to happen.
Bellamy and Indra’s relationship continues to be one of the most interesting, further cementing Indra’s position at the center of the show. They both love Octavia very much and are willing to die for her, but are also more or less willing to kill her to protect her if necessary. They’ve forgiven themselves and each other of so much, making them the kind of people who can head into the arena knowing they must fight and still somehow shake hands after wards, no harm, no foul.
Often on The 100, it feels like characters are trapped on a collision course with a terrible fate. When done well, it’s like there’s a tractor beam pulling them in, and every decision they make leads them closer to an inevitability. When it’s bungled, characters ignore obvious ways around danger to keep the stakes artificially high. Tonight’s episode did a great job of repeatedly raising the stakes and then allowing characters to find creative ways out, only to be foiled and brought back onto that treacherous path again and again. Gaia did it when she threw the spear at Octavia, and Monty did it twice with his plants, trying to use the truth to prevent war. These moves were refreshing, especially in contrast to some of Octavia’s more confuse actions that don’t feel very character-driven at all.
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