For a soft reboot, this season sure is treading some old, tired ground. I definitely enjoyed “Red Sun Rising” and I think episode two of the season is a lot better place for it than episode eight or ten. At the same time, it’s pretty irritating and tiresome to be dealing with all the same issues between all the same characters time after time after time.
The biggest issue to me seems to be that no one is taking their second chance at life very seriously. I’m aware that 125 actual years didn’t pass for everyone and so the pains and betrayals of season five are still relatively fresh, but I’d been hoping a legitimate fresh start on a brand new planet would sink in with everyone. Unfortunately, literally everyone is still holding the same grudges as always, with no sign of letting up.
Before we get there though, there’s a flashback to the Eligius III’s time on Planet Alpha which starts out pretty nicely. Our favorite Robin Hood, Sean Maguire, seems to be the leader and he’s in the new settlement with his wife and daughter. The daughter only wants to bone a geneticist in the settlement and she’s doing just that when they notice the bugs have gone silent just like our heroes did last week. When they get back to camp, Robin Hood dad has gone fully red sun crazy and kills pretty much everyone including his wife and daughter. It’s a great setup for the episode, so we know what we’re dealing with as our heroes are affected by the same red sun.
With their ship gone and said red sun risen, our heroes on the ground decide they should all lock themselves up so they can’t hurt each other more after Emori stabbed Murphy. Predictably, it does not go well. The red sun starts affecting everyone almost immediately, except Murphy and Clarke it seems. When Miller starts going extra crazy, Bellamy and Clarke unlock themselves and go to investigate.
Obviously the red sun starts affecting Bellamy almost immediately but he’s able to tranquilize Miller before any damage is done. Unfortunately, that starts a chain of events with the tranquilizers that leads to Clarke, Bellamy, and Murphy all fighting each other to get through the red sun days. This really gets to the heart of my issues with the series as a whole and this season so far (which I’m actually really enjoying). Everyone (read: mostly Clarke) is so guilt-ridden over their own actions and then everyone else is only too willing to compound that guilt in order to throw attention off their own guilt. It’s like a tornado of guilt on Planet Alpha.
The problem with this is that everyone is only rude to everyone else and again it feels like they’re all squandering this literal fresh start. Murphy can’t stop picking at Clarke for betraying everyone and I’m willing to admit that I have no idea what he’s still talking about unless it’s still the bunker? And if it is the bunker then he did live five full years since then, which to me feels like time enough to have forgiven Clarke. If he’s talking about something else I literally can’t be bothered to remember but I know he needs to get that chip off his shoulder.
The only grudge I’m willing to accept for the moment is Octavia’s. I mean she was a literal queen before and during the bunker, and even though she made everyone eat people, she did an okay job getting as many people as possible through that ordeal. I get that she’d be having a hard time adjusting after being woken up and finding out she’s not a queen anymore. On the other hand, she shouldn’t be awake yet. My biggest hope about having all these so called betrayals called out so early in the season is that maybe we’ll be done with them before the midway point and we can move forward with a unified team.
Back up on the Eligius, the drop ship manages to dock and gas everyone except Raven. When they all come to they’re trapped in the mess hall where the aforementioned Octavia storyline hits the fan. Meanwhile Raven decides to wake up Diyoza which is the best decision she’s ever made. The two of them figure out a way to overpower all the interlopers and free their people. Unfortunately only one of their attackers survives which I’m sure will end up being a point of contention throughout the season.
Our heroes in the ship decide to go down to the ground to find out what’s going on with Clarke and the others, and everyone’s officially on the ground including Madi who’s woken up somehow. They find Shaw’s burial site and Raven predictably goes to pieces. I really hope she listens to the explanation before she decides she needs to kill Bellamy or Clarke or Abby for some reason.
When they arrive at the village they find Bellamy, Clarke, and Murphy all unconscious and Abby gets to work on them immediately. Bellamy and Clarke wake up easily enough but Murphy is in worse shape after being drowned by Bellamy in a red sun craze. Before we can get too far into making him better the only remaining attacker has led a ton of weird children back into the village and the episode ends.
I have many questions going into episode three: Will Murphy be alright? Will everyone stop giving Clarke a hard time? Will Shaw’s death finally be the thing that fully breaks Raven? Will Diyoza make peace with being pregnant for 225 full years? Despite what I feel are serious retreads of issues we’ve dealt with too many times already I’m having a great time with Season six so far if only because we’re in a different setting with a slightly different combination of characters. It’s helping undercut all the tedium so far.
