After I threatened to never speak of Jasper again in last week’s recap, he earned his keep this week, starting with the screen cap above. Yep, Jaha finally got floated. While I’m starting to feel like I need to post a Talking Dead-style “Who Did We Lose This Week and How?” montage every February and May, unfortunately Jaha wasn’t one of this week’s losses. He’s this series’ archvillain/cockroach, that guy they can never quite get rid of, and always want to find a way to redeem, because they see themselves in him. Or Isaiah Washington has an excellent contract lawyer whom the rest of the cast should hire immediately.
Instead, we lost another series-long recurring character this week, and the loss was barely acknowledged. I’ll look at that in more detail after the episode summary.
Once everyone’s done chuckling over the prank, and Jasper reassures Jaha that whatever drugs he used to keep Jaha asleep were ultimately harmless, it’s back to work on repairing the Ark. Clarke is worried that Bellamy’s hunting party hasn’t checked in, and feels useless since she didn’t get to go on the mission to Becca’s island to look for information on recreating a nightblood serum. That’s right, they remembered that Becca’s island exists, with technology and other possibly useful things like a fallout shelter. Clarke was left behind as medical back up, while Raven, Abby and Jackson went as engineers and geneticists to work in Becca’s lab. Jaha told them where to find it on the island.
A storm comes, and everyone except Jasper runs inside, fearing black rain. It turns out to be okay, but he just used up all of the good will from his earlier prank, especially since Monty ran out into the rain to try to save him.
Kane calls Octavia into the Trikru embassy to lecture her about unnecessary killing, but he loses her when he lists Pike among the mistakes. He tells her she’s off of his security detail and being sent back to Arkadia. The horse Helios has been saddled for her. Octavia plans to talk to Indra before she leaves. King Roan sends a messenger for Kane.
Abby, Jackson, Raven, Miller, Luna, Nyko, Murphy, Emori, and a few others take the boat across the lake to Becca’s island. Luna feels like a prisoner because Skaikru wants to use her for her blood like everyone else. She doesn’t believe she’d be allowed to say no or leave. Nyko tries to reassure her that he trusts them, so she should, too and that Skaikru is trying to save everyone. Luna is so mentally ill at this point that she assumes everyone is lying to her and using her solely for their own gain.
They reach the border on the beach that those with genetic defects weren’t allowed to cross. Emori stops, because she’s never been past it. Murphy encourages her past, saying he’s never met a line he wouldn’t cross. Just as everyone crosses into Becca’s territory, drones appear in the sky and start shooting at the group. Nyko grabs Luna to protect her as they run through a clearing, and is killed instead. Not feeling a lot of respect for Luna right now. Or the writers. It’s unlikely that the grounders of TRIKRU would be the ones who couldn’t figure out how to find cover amongst the trees and would just stand still in a clearing to be shot. They lived near Mount Weather, guns shouldn’t make them panic. Raven, with her bum leg, made it to cover no problem; twice as fast, in fact. But, just like that, Nyko is gone. Miller shoots the drone down, and Luna manages to finally find cover.
The team splits up into smaller groups to look for Luna. Raven stays behind because of her leg, and because she intends to work on the drone.
Roan wants to know about Skaikru’s plan to survive the radiation. Kane tries to put him off again, but there’s a reason Echo wasn’t in last week’s episode. She’s been spying on Skaikru, as promised, and captured Bellamy’s hunting party. The red shirt with Bellamy spilled his guts and told Echo and Roan everything. Echo slits his throat, because he’s an unworthy warrior.
Roan tells Kane that if Skaikru were on the level they would have told him what was going on. He’s got a point. Kane can say that shoring up the Ark is just a back up plan, but it doesn’t change fact that their resources are obviously being poured into that, with little to nothing going to help grounders. Roan takes Bellamy and Kane hostage, and orders everyone in the Trikru embassy killed, except Octavia and Indra. They are to be brought to him.
Monty and Jasper break into Clarke’s quarters for another prank. Jasper sits down at Clarke’s desk, and notices her list of the new 100. He pulls it out and gets predictably critical of Clarke once he realizes what it is. Monty explains what he knows of the situation. Clarke arrives and panics. Guards have arrived following the prank, so she grabs a tazer from one, tazes Jasper, and then has him locked up.
Octavia checks back at the Triku embassy for Indra. She’s not there, but everyone inside has been slaughtered by Azgeda. A dying man tells her that Roan plans to attack Arkadia. Octavia gallops away to warn them.
Clarke explains to Monty that he’s not on her list of 100 because Raven and Jaha are better engineers. Monty tells her that he’s not upset about himself. He’s upset about her continuing to lie and make important decisions on her own that should be opened up to the group. Clarke responds that it’s too risky, too many people would panic. Monty reminds her that she’s doing the exact same things as Jaha used to do, for the exact same reasons. He takes matters into his own hands, and reveals to everyone that there’s only room for 100 over the camp radio, then reads out Clarke’s list.
Emori tells Murphy that there’s scary stuff on the island beyond the drones, and they should stock up his bunker, then hide there. Yay, someone remembered it exists! Abby interrupts them before he can answer.
Meanwhile, back on the island, Luna continues her self-righteous death wish speechifying from last season while the team risk their lives to keep her alive. Let’s assume she couldn’t handle the childhood training to be Commander and her mind snapped. All that talk about being able to beat Lexa was delusional, judging by her skills in this episode. Raven talks Luna down from trying to leave the island or drown herself or whatever, then elicits her help in disarming the drones.
The Arkadians are upset about the list. Clarke explains her priorities, which make a certain amount of sense, but you’ve got to question a system that puts Jaha over Monty. Jaha swoops in and takes over the discussion. He promises a lottery system to determine who will be inside the Ark when the radiation comes, based on how much work each person puts into the repairs. He explains to Clarke that this gives them some sense of hope and control. Actually, a compromise plan that included some people chosen for their skills and some chosen by lottery is probably ideal.
Echo and her troops catch up with Octavia on the edge of a cliff over a river. Octavia easily kills Echo’s soldiers. Echo tells Octavia that Roan wants her taken alive, she doesn’t have to die. Octavia looks over the edge of the cliff several times, and you can see her thinking that if Oliver Queen, Aragorn and Bucky Barnes can survive that kind of fall, so can she. She practically stops fighting and walks forward onto Echo’s sword, to make sure that it enters her abdomen in a spot that looks bad, but misses vital organs, then throws herself backwards over the edge.
Echo’s shocked face is priceless. She doesn’t know what the heck just happened. Octavia should not have gone down that easily, and now she’s going to have to answer to Roan, and have an even harder time getting into Bellamy’s pants.
Clarke frees Jasper and apologizes to him. He earns his keep again,telling her, “If you think you have the best idea, you have to convince people, not lie to them. Not lock them up…When Jaha’s looking reasonable, it’s time to reassess.”
The island gang finds the lab. Abby tells Luna she’s sorry about Nyko. Raven and Murphy share a moment. Murphy wonders what ALIE was protecting the lab from. No one answers, but Emori stands very still and tense, and looks very scared. Is it Voldemort, so she can’t say the name? Inside, the lab is still functional, pristine, and fully stocked. I’m feeling cynical today, so I wonder how long before Luna or whatever’s outside blows it up like Mt. Weather.
Kane and Bellamy are in the Polis jail. Bellamy feels like all he ever does is fight wars. Roan and Echo come in to get them, ready to march to war with Skaikru. Roan is going to take the Ark from Skaikru to ride out primefire. Bellamy warns him that Octavia will get there first with a warning. Roan and Echo freeze, as Roan signals to a sick looking Echo to break the news to Bellamy.
Echo takes Octavia’s knives out of her clothing, and Bellamy realizes immediately what it means. Roan tells him that Octavia wouldn’t be taken alive. Echo says it was a good death, as Bellamy collapses in tears, screaming, “No, no.” Octavia has always been the center of his emotional world. It’s rude of the show to put him through this fake out death while ignoring Nyko’s actual death.
Because, yes, as we all expected, the next shot is of Octavia, washed up on the riverbank, with Helios the miracle horse there to lick her fingers until she wakes up. Octavia drags herself onto the horse, and tells him to take her home.
Nyko deserved better than a death that didn’t make sense. He was an important recurring character, appearing in 10 episodes over three seasons. He was like a brother to Lincoln, and saved both Lincoln’s and Octavia’s lives. He was present in the village that Finn massacred, and it was his calm negotiating that kept the situation from becoming even worse. His skills as a healer were important to the story over and over again. He was often an important liaison between grounders and Skaikru. He has been one of Arkadia’s few consistent allies among the grounders, along with Lincoln and Indra. To dismiss him as if he didn’t matter to the other characters on the team who had been working with him for three seasons was disrespectful to the character and poor writing.
Nightblood is only going to do so much to save them if the planet is going to burn the way we saw at the end of episode 1, and/or if all of the smaller plants and animals that make up the beginning of the food chain die. They’ll have to give livestock and food plants nightblood as well, or find better protection from the radiation where they can protect animal and plant species. I have my doubts about whether the Ark can survive what’s coming, no matter how well the repair it.
Which one of Zach McGowan’s current TV looks is the creepiest? The Azgeda king with the bone crown and war paint on The 100, the LMD on Agents of SHIELD, or the severed head in a jar on AoS? It’s a toss up.
I want Jaha’s sweater.
Monty and Jasper have a point about the list, but it wouldn’t be needed if others hadn’t made the decision to destroy the hydrogenerator. Once only 100 people could survive on the Ark, everyone defaulted to Clarke to make the hard decisions, as usual. The people who lived on the Ark in space were used to living in the shadow of death and making sacrifices to survive, even sacrificing their lives. These are still the same people. But Clarke was already on the ground for the events that showed the Arkers’ selflessness. All she knows is what Jaha and Lexa taught her, which is to make decisions, then do whatever is necessary to make sure the plan is protected. So, she acted in secrecy.
Clarke still hasn’t completely recovered from pulling that lever in Mount Weather at the end of season 2. She hasn’t grown as a leader since then. And the hits keep coming. She’s really only effective with Bellamy at her side. The same is true of Bellamy.
Metawitches 
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