I’ll be honest, I really like “The 100” but after five seasons, four of which feature subtle variations on the same plot, I was getting a little tired. That’s not to say I wasn’t enjoying it. When I caught up just before the season six premiere I was very excited about new content, even if I thought it was going to be even more of the same. Imagine my surprise when season six has turned into something totally new and different!
I guess when the end of season five said “End of Book One” they were not joking because despite some surface similarities season six has been completely different so far. Not only are our heroes trying their best to start fresh on Sanctum, but the threat itself is completely different. The closest comparison to make would be Mt. Weather, and even that was a little more immediately nefarious.
My point here is that season six of “The 100” is doing things I never would have expected given the previous five seasons. Between the rampant use of “flames” in Sanctum to the fact that these grounders are good guys, there’s a lot of interest going on. Starting with the fact that poor Clarke is now inhabited by Josephine’s flame. I’ve seen a lot of talk on the internet about how Clarke is dead now and I honestly can’t believe it. I think there would have been a lot more fanfare if Clarke were going to be dead dead. I have a feeling that by the end of the season her nightblood is going to come into play and they’ll be able to remove the flame from her.
That being said, this episode allowed Eliza Taylor to do some hilarious comedic acting she hasn’t been able to do in years. Acting like Josephine, who is a real pill, she’s able to be silly and fun and free in a way that Clarke has never been. Unfortunately it also makes her suspicious almost immediately. If it were me, I think I would have guessed what was up the first time she called Murphy “John.” But it takes everyone the entire episode to figure out what’s going on with her, and even then it’s only Murphy and Bellamy who make a deal with her and get knocked out respectively.
Murphy’s deal with Josephine is pretty weird. Even with his cockroach status Murphy has always been relatively loyal or at least neutral to a fault. I guess having seen Hell when he drowned during the red sun made him want to stay alive bad enough to compromise his remaining three principles because he’s all-in when Josephine tells him he can be immortal now if he helps her.
I kind of glossed over how our heroes all found out that Sanctum is not exactly what it seems so I’ll say this; Jordan got a piece of Delilah and when she immediately stopped talking to him after her naming ceremony he got hella suspicious. This led to our whole group going into the naming ceremony chamber, finding a ton of literal skeletons all with brands from the flame on the back of their heads. Then they found the lab where the actual transplants take place and they got to witness some hellish footage of a transplant going wrong because the recipient didn’t have nightblood.
Meanwhile out in the forest, Octavia and Diyoza are still trying to figure out what their next play should be. They end up chasing a guy right into a pit of quicksand-y mud and while Diyoza stays calm like a Hermoine, Octavia Ron Weasleys herself neck deep into the devil’s snare because she can’t take direction or calm down for one fucking second. Her timing could also not be worse because there’s a temporal flare and while Diyoza is able to escape, Octavia has to submerge herself or get hit. Diyoza comes back for her and manages to get her out of the now frozen pit and I can’t wait to find out what this has done to Octavia. I’m certain there’s going to be some side effects coming!
The way this season is slowly dispensing the information necessary for us to keep up is some of the best plotting I’ve seen since season one. For the first time in several seasons I can’t imagine where this season might be going and I can’t wait to find out. A few characters might be acting slightly out of character but on the whole everything is shaping up to make this a really great season and I’ve got my fingers crossed for Clarke just in case!
