One of the things I love most about “The 100” is that they don’t often waste time from a narrative standpoint. Sure you can argue that they rehash a lot of plot points which could be construed as a waste of time but, on the whole, the plot is always moving along at a pretty good clip. That is absolutely true of this fourth episode. Not only are we getting further world building into Sanctum, but we’re also getting a massive amount of character work that is extremely welcome in the midst of a soft story reset.
We pick up pretty quickly after the end of episode three with Diyoza out on her own in the wilderness. I’m honestly still pretty baffled by the choice to kick her out of Sanctum. I mean I know she’s a legit criminal, but she’s also been pretty helpful for most of her tenure. Either way, she’s 225 years pregnant and on her own in hostile territory so it feels fitting that she’s not even through one night before she gets approached to help rescue little Rose, the second girl who was taken by the Children of Gabriel.
Back in Sanctum, Jordan has wasted zero time having full sex with Delilah after their ordeal last week. Honestly, for a kid who only had his parents for company until less than one week ago, he’s got pretty good game. Raven has also continued to be a total dick about pretty much everything so it felt like a good sign that she was going to the machine shop, until she kept being a total dick once she got there. The only saving grace was that the guy running the shop was extremely good looking.
While all this is going on, the whole of Sanctum is getting ready for Delilah’s naming day ceremony, which keeps getting explained kind of like a birthday. It’s clear before too long that there’s something a little more sinister at play, but we don’t find out what it actually is until the end of the episode. In addition to naming day, the citizens of Sanctum participate in a second ritual called “repentance” where they repent their sins and make amends to anyone they’ve hurt. It’s a very cool way to get Bellamy and Clarke in a scene together to talk about their feelings and the results are spectacular as always.
Clarke manages to apologize to Bellamy and make him smile which is more than he’s been doing this season so far. She also tells him that he’s her family and she won’t lose sight of that again. They share a very intense hug and if I hadn’t already been burned before, I’d think they were setting up a romance. I’d think that even more after Bellamy’s next scene with Echo where he accuses her of feeling nothing about their dead friends but, again, I’ve been burned before.
Out in the woods, The Children of Gabriel have Octavia and Rose captive when Diyoza and the Sanctum guard come in guns blazing. They manage to get Rose away and they’re nearly back to Sanctum when a rogue attacker gets a shot off and kills her. It’s definitely tragic, but we also don’t know anything about Rose and Sanctum feels more and more creepy by the moment.
Less creepy, but still super weird, is the fact that Clarke almost immediately falls into bed with the hot Sanctum doctor. After they share a dance in full view of Bellamy they end up in his bedroom and honestly, Clarke deserves it. She’s been given nothing but shit since Lexa and she absolutely deserves a good tumble. What she definitely does not deserve is for the hot doctor to be a sleeper agent for the Children of Gabriel who tranquilizes her!
While all this is going on, Delilah is going through her naming ceremony which is strangely behind closed doors. It was about this time that I started suspecting “naming day” was less about a birthday party and more of a flame type situation. And when Delilah came out of the hall and straight into the arms of the hot machine room guy instead of going back to Jordan I got more sure.
What made me the most sure was when Russell Lightbourne and his wife captured the paralyzed Clarke, took her to an underground bunker and had a very loud argument in front of her about how they could have their daughter back tonight if they just use Clarke for a host instead of waiting for the next naming day. Then without much more fanfare they implanted Josephine’s flame into Clarke and Eliza Taylor finally has something fun to act for a change!
I honestly can’t wait to see how Josephine/Clarke works out and I hope it lasts longer than one week just to keep things interesting. I’m also certain that Bellamy or Madi will be the first ones to figure out what’s happened to Clarke and I can’t wait to see how they decide to handle it. So far, this season is shaping up to be the most interesting one in ages which is a huge relief.
