Month: April 2015

And so we come to the end of season 2…

The episode opens with an update about where Jaha and this remaining three disciples are. They are in that boat they found and are crossing a big lake or sea of some description. They obviously have been at it for a while because they are all exhausted and suffering from exposure.

Then Jaha spies a light in the distance and exhorts his remaining disciples to row. One of the oars falls out of the boat and the guy who goes after it soon gets munched by some mysterious beastie. The others panic as the beastie attacks and Jaha shows his true colours by pushing a second disciple out of the boat. The beastie thus distracted, Jaha and Murphy make it to the shore.

After last week’s shock betrayal by Lexa only a few of our characters are left in play. Octavia in in the tunnel under the mountain. A body falls into the skip through the disposal chute. I believe I heard Octavia say the name “Fox” which was the name of a girl from the 100 who was in the mountain. So it looks like the bone marrow harvest is back on.

Alas, poor Fox.

Clarke comes into the tunnel. It is fair to say that she and Octavia “exchange words” about the breaking of the alliance.

Then the door opens. It’s Bellamy, Monty, Jasper and Maya in a radiation suit. They all discuss what to do. The decision is made for some to go to former president Dante to see if he can help and the others will try to get Maya some air for the radiation suit as the only safe level of the mountain is level 5.

Back at the Grounder camp Indra talks to the captive Lincoln about what side he is on. He needs to make a decision. She gives him a knife and leaves him to make his choice.

In level 5 the vampire looking guy is in the big eating room with all the citizens of the mountain. He is called to the dorm. There lots of Ark folk are chained up and we can hear drilling noises. New prisoners are being brought in from outside. We see the new arrivals include Abby and Marcus.

Raven is selected as the next victim for the drilling of bone marrow. She is taken to the bench and strapped down. Here comes the drill. Ewwww!!! We saw it go into her leg! Ewwww!!!

Clarke gets to Dante who is alone in his white room. He admits he advised his vampire looking son to do the deal with the Grounders. Clarke takes Dante with her to the control room. Dante takes responsibility for the bone marrow use of the Ark people. “Deliverance comes at a cost; I bear it so they don’t have to,” he says

Murphy is on a beach and is injured. A drone flies over and Jaha promises to get help for Murphy. He runs off after the drone. Murphy is pretty annoyed with Jaha.

Octavia and Maya get to level 5 and hide in a room.

Clarke makes it to the control room where Monty can show her the different parts of the facility on big screens. She can see Marcus and her mother have been captured. She talks to the vampire looking son on a radio. She says if he does not release the Ark prisoners she’ll kill his dad. He refuses to let the Ark people go. Clarke has sort of backed herself into a corner here.

Clarke shoots Dante.

Vampire looking son has heard his father being shot over the radio. Clarke then says she will irradiate level 5 if the prisoners are not released.

It is now daylight and Murphy wakes up on the beach. He exposes a solar panel and then hears music. He follows the music and finds a well appointed bunker place. He goes in and explores.

Jasper has a plan. He’s going to pretend to be taken prisoner by the one remaining dissident guard. The guard will take him to the dorm room where the bone marrow is being extracted. He has a knife and he will try to kill the vampire looking son.

The vampire looking son sends Emerson up to the control room as he is the only remaining guard with the bone marrow treatment who can go the irradiated level. He will try to get into the control room.

Vampire guy then switches Raven for Abby. She is next for the drill. You know, I’m pretty sure Clarke didn’t think the whole “kill his father” thing through… Marcus pleads with the vampire guy. He says they can donate bone marrow. No deal.

Octavia and Maya are discovered. Octavia then does some seriously badass stuff dispatching some of the guards. She runs down a corridor and ends up in the main eating room where all the mountain people are gathered. They panic when they see her in Grounder makeup. But Octavia is captured.

Clarke gets Monty to program the air vents so they will pull in irradiated air. They can’t delay any longer. Abby is having the bone marrow thing done. Bellamy sees his sister captured. They also see Emerson setting up explosives to blow open the door of the control room. They have no choice. They decide to share the responsibility and pull the lever together.

Clarke and Bellamy pull the leaver. The fans stop extracting air and go in reverse to pull the outside air in. Immediately all the untreated mountain people get sick and collapse. Jasper had been about to try to kill the vampire looking guy but now has to run for for Maya. Emerson hears the alarm and decides to leave.

Later Clarke goes into the big room on level 5. All the mountain people are dead. She finds a distraught Jasper holding Maya’s body. He’s not very receptive to her “I had no choice” explanation. I did feel bad for Jasper. Maya was a nice person who deserved better. But she was always going to be toast.

Octavia goes to the dorm room and and frees Marcus who in turn frees Abby. Clarke goes to dorm room and embraces her mother. She cries and says to Abby she tried to be the good guy. Abby says maybe there are no good guys. Where is the vampire looking guy they then wonder.

He’s in the forrest making an escape from the mountain. Out of the trees comes Lincoln looking like he means business. The vampire looking guy uses his sonic weapon thing to stop Lincoln and and produces some of the reaper drug. Lincoln fights the sonic agony and uses his knife to cut off the vampire looking guy’s hand. He then injects the vampire looking guy with the drug and leaves him.

Looks like vampire looking guy is toast.

The survivors go back to the Ark site accompanied by Lincoln. Clarke and Bellamy get to the gate but Clarke refuses to go inside. Bellamy says if she is looking for forgiveness for what she did then he will gladly forgive her. Clarke says she can’t go back. Echoing Dante’s words she tells Bellamy “I bear it so they don’t have to”. She embraces and kisses Bellamy and then turns and leaves.

Its a very nice scene, very bittersweet.

Epilogue time! After all, there’s going to be a third season…

Murphy is messing around in the well appointed bunker and finds a video recording time-stamped 2052. Some guy in the same bunker is talking to the camera and says “she” has launched the missiles and it’s all his fault. He then shoots himself.

Outside somewhere Jaha finds a nice pristine mansion. “Curiouser and curiouser,” he says. He goes inside the mansion and he finds a lady who turns out to be holographic AI. She knows his name and thanks him for his gift. He asks how can she know who he is. She leads him to a room where the warhead of his missile is. The same missile he rode down to earth from the Ark earlier in the season.

So this AI lady must be the “she” the bunker guy talked about. Is it ok to call her Skynet?

And there we end.

Honestly I’m not sure if I like the sci-fi plot twist at this point. I liked the concept of the show just fine. “What if people came back from space after generations to an irradiated earth and had to adapt and then they find hostile people already there?”

It’s a bit like what happened with Revolution. In that show the what-if was “What if the electricity went off?” What kind of society would be built on the ruins of our technological world? How would people cope without all the stuff we take for granted? Then in season 2 it became much more sci-fi with nanites who had gained sentience and didn’t want to be turned off. And the whole thing crumbled under the overuse of Stephen King references.

Also another show, Under the Dome. “What if your town got cut off from the outside world?” What would you do for food and fuel? What kind of society would form? Would a strong man try to take over? Then it gradually becomes a load of mumbo-jumbo fantasy rubbish about “mini-eggs” and “mini-domes” and “four hands”, blah, blah, blah. And they killed off that nice girl Angie, grumble, grumble.

But hopefully The 100 won’t go go down the same route and overdo the sci-fi plot twists for the sake of sci-fi plot twists.

And don’t forget the Grounders are still out there…

But enough of season 3 which doesn’t even exist yet. Season 2 was some of the most fun I’ve had watching a TV show in absolute ages. It was a consistently good run of episodes and I remained impressed with how dark the show would go with the nominal heroes doing distinctly unheroic things.

Put it this way, I’ll be buying the blu-Ray boxed set.

And so we come to the first part of the two-part season finale.

Bellamy is in the harvest chamber and he starts freeing the Grounder prisoners, including the Grounder chick he met earlier. Then the vampire looking guy comes on intercom with a message for the denizens of Mount Weather. He wants the dissidents to turn in the 44 Ark kids they are hiding. Bellamy knows this will end badly so he leaves the Grounder chick to free her people.

The Mountain guards are doing a door-to-door search. They come to the apartment where Jasper is hiding with Maya. The couple hiding them don’t give them away but a guard spots some water rings from coffee cups on a table and knows there’s someone else there. He is about to shoot the couple when Jasper reveals himself. The guard shoots the couple anyway.

At the Grounder attack camp there is a sort of war council. Clarke gives us a lots of exposition on her plan. Basically there will be different teams who each have different objectives. Raven is going to blow up the turbines at the dam. This will deactivate electromagnetic locks and give them a sixty second window to get the front door opened. The main army will be at the front door as a distraction, meanwhile Octavia will be with Indra’s team going into the Reaper tunnels to kelp the prisoners escape.

In the Mountain Jasper and Maya are being brought down a corridor. Maya’s dad from Continuum and Bates Motel stands in the way. Bellamy helps them overpower the guards. Maya’s dad will take any Ark kids they find down to the harvest chamber to await the escape.

Outside the bomb is placed in a hole drilled in the front door. Now they just have to wait for the power to go off. Raven and her boy toy Wick are in a big turbine room setting explosives but they are discovered by personnel. One of their five bombs gets damaged in the tussles that follow. (By the way, I’m pretty sure it’s the same turbine room as the Alkali Lake turbine room in the movie X-Men 2.)

The vampire looking guy goes to visit his dad. He explains how Mount Weather is up the creek without a paddle. His dad is obviously underwhelmed by his son’s leadership abilities. As the vampire looking guy turns to leave the former president stops him. He obviously has an idea on how they can save their people. But what is it?

Raven only has bombs to blow up four of the turbines. Then she realises that she can deactivate the surge protectors from the fifth turbine and it will destroy itself by trying to do the work of all the turbines. More guards appear and Raven sets off the bombs before she and Wick have time to get clear.

Up top they realise the power has gone off. But when pressing their little remote control button the bomb isn’t doing any actual exploding. They can’t get closer because of gunfire from some Mountain Men in the trees. They need to get closer to the door and there’s a cool sequence where the the Grounders form a shield wall to get a button carrier closer but they are all killed. The seconds are ticking down. Lincoln shoots a fire arrow at the bomb and it destroys the door lock. Lexa takes a group of men to go into the trees and get the shooters.

Bellamy, Maya and Jasper are searching for Monty. They find him still alive. He tells them that the Mountain Men know about the Grounders being feed in the harvest chamber and some guards have gone down there.

In the Reaper tunnels underneath the Mountain Indra tells Octavia that she has been accepted as one of the tree tribe people. This is a big deal for Octavia.

Up top some strong Grounder men pull open the door. The order is about to be given to attack.

Then Lexa comes back from her search for Mountain Men and stops the attack. She has one of the Mountain Men with her.

Huh?

The door is opened and all the Grounder prisoners walk out. They have been freed. But there are no Ark prisoners there.

Huh?

Clarke is understandably confused at this development. Lexa brings her up to speed. Basically Lexa has betrayed Clarke and put her people first. The Mountain Men offered the Grounders their prisoners if the Grounders leave them alone. Looks like the alliance with the sky people is toast.

Lexa orders the Grounders to leave and they turn and go. Down in the tunnels Indra hears the retreat horn and orders her squad to retreat. Octavia is obviously not going anywhere as her brother is in the Mountain. Indra is unimpressed and says Octavia is no longer her second and she is no longer of the tree tribe clan people. The few Ark personnel with Octavia also leave and she is left alone in the tunnels.

Bellamy gets to the harvest chamber and finds Maya’s dad from Continuum and Bates Motel dead. There are no Grounders and no Ark people there.

The vampire looking guy tells his father that the Grounders took the deal he suggested. He is now able to go after the few remaining Ark people for their bone marrow.

The episode ends with Clarke left alone at the front door of Mount Weather.

So. Bloody hell! I wasn’t expecting that. And after watching this show for two seasons I should have been ready for reversals and surprises. Still, after last week’s snog session I was expecting Lexa to die heroically protecting Clarke while freeing the prisoners and the alliance put into jeopardy that way. Or something.

So we have Clarke outside the front door, Bellamy in the empty harvest chamber, Octavia in the tunnel and an injured Raven in the turbine room. How can the four of them turn this one around?

Really looking forward to the finale!

We didn’t get an update on Jaha’s Quest in the last episode. This new episode rectifies that. Jaha and his remaining disciples are walking through a sandy area at night. One of the number is telling bad Grounder jokes. He reaches the punchline and boom! They are in a minefield. A lady disciple is upset by this development. Boom. She’s gone as well.

In Mount Weather the vampire looking guy wants the missing 44 ark kids found. Elsewhere inside the mountain Bellamy is running through different levels trying to get to the acid fog machinery. His stolen key-card no longer works. He has a few close calls while being chased.

Back at the ark crash site Raven is trying to find a way to neutralise the fog in time to be of use to Bellamy.

Octavia tells Clarke she has worked it out; Clarke and the commander should have died in the missile strike but got away in time. Therefore Clarke knew and let all the people get killed. Clarke pleads with her to keep the secret or the alliance is over. Octavia grumpily agrees. Lexa is also now aware that Octavia knows the secret. She tells some beardy dude to kill Octavia.

Bellamy goes to visits Maya’s dissident dad from Continuum and Bates Motel. Another guard is there conveniently helping them. Maya’s dad has a convenient map that shows another way to get to the acid fog machines.

It is finally daylight at the minefield. Jaha and his disciples had to sat motionless all night but a sandstorm has wiped out their footprints that could lead them back out.

Clarke stops the big beardy dude from assassinating Octavia. She goes to have a word with Lexa in private and is all forceful and assertive to the extent that Lexa actually backs away from Clarke.

Jaha is making his way through the minefield by using his big messiah staff to probe the sand for a mine. Eventually they get out and over the next sand dune they see twinkling beams of light emanating from somewhere. It must be the city of light, right? They excitedly run up the sand dune to see it…

But what they see is a large field of old solar panels reflecting sunlight. No city, no people. They are discouraged.

With the help of Maya’s dad Bellamy gets to a machinery room with big tanks of acid. He’s on the radio to Raven to see how to turn it off. Back at the Ark Raven and another engineer type dude get him to press buttons on a control panel until they find the maintenance screen that allows the acid to be neutralised. The digital dial on the screen goes to a neutral ph and Bellamy tells them the good news. Raven then fires off a flare to alert Clarke that the acid fog is switched off.

At the Grounder camp Lexa promises not to kill Octavia. She says that in the past they always had to make hard choices to survive. Clarke says that living needs to be more that just surviving. Before you know it this leads to Lexa initiating a Clarke/Lexa snog session. It goes on for a bit. Not sure how comfortable the actresses are doing it but I’m sure it will get the Internet forums buzzing. (It also makes me think that Lexa is not long for this world.)

The snog is interrupted with the news that Raven’s flare has been seen. Hurray for Bellamy. Lexa tells the grounders it’s time to go to war! Off they march singing that “Hey-Ho” song from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. (I made that last bit up.)

Meanwhile at the Ark Raven and the other engineer dude start snogging and are clearly going to do the business. Right there. On the table. Never mind her leg brace.

But enough of the snogging shenanigans. Now we get to a very satisfyingly tense final act.

Bellamy is waiting it out in the acid fog tank room. He spots a physical gauge on a tank covered with grime. Curious, he wipes off the dirt and sees its the same dial as on the computer screen. But with horror he realises that the actual gauge says the fog is still acidic.

He tries to radio Raven to warn her but he can’t get through. Because we then find out that the vampire looking guy is listening in. A guard says Bellamy’s radio is cut off from the outside. So the Mountain Men faked the acid neutralising screen! Vampire looking guy tells his men to wait for all the Grounder army to get in range before activating the fog weapon.

Guards break in to the fog tank room. Bellamy is now desperate. He knows the fog is being activated but he can see no way to turn off the machines. He does however have a little oxyacetylene torch that he used to get into the room. And there is a big tank over there with an “oxygen” label on it…

Bellamy escapes in vent with some guards in pursuit. One of them follows Bellamy into the vent. Another guard is checking out the room and hears a noise. He looks over to see the oxyacetylene torch burning the oxygen tank. He has just enough time to think “oh, bummer” when we get a mighty boom.

The fog threat has been eliminated. The vampire looking guy orders the fog to be activated and the glum minion tells him it is not working. What other defences do we have, asks the vampire looking guy. Just the door, says the minion. He’s probably thinking “bummer” too.

Back at the Ark Raven and her man friend have finished doing the business. Raven just blanks the dude so he cleverly realises it’s time to leave.

Indra tells Octavia she also knows about the missile strike.

As an epilogue it’s back to Jaha the Messiah on his Quest.

Jaha and his remaining disciples are examining the solar panels on the beach. Jaha wonders why so many of the panels are not broken. Murphy offers to change that and smashes one. Then a little drone vehicle activates and buzzes around them. Then it flies off, presumably under remote control.

They chase the drone to the water’s edge and see it disappear across the water. And wouldn’t you know it there is an old boat conveniently there for them. Jaha says it is all a sign, they are supposed to follow the drone in the boat. They may yet get to this City of Light.

So interesting, it seems they are working up a new faction for us to meet in season 3. Let’s face it, we need one as Mount Weather is surely about to be toast.

Incidentally the episode is apparently called “Bodyguard of Lies”. I believe that is a wartime Churchill quote about the truth needing to be guarded with a bodyguard of lies by using deception operations.

In summary a good episode with a tense final act with Bellamy blowing up the fog tanks. Also it’s nice to see the Jaha storyline getting somewhere.

I believe there are two episodes left this season and presumably they will all be about the attack on Mount Weather.

Will Lexa survive? Clarke’s previous love interests Wells and Finn didn’t.

Will the Grounders find out that Clarke knew about the missile strike? That could break the alliance.

Will any of the Mount Weather dissidents survive, including Maya and her dad? This is a dark show so I’m thinking “toast”.

And is there a City of Light? I guess we’ll see…

The episode opens in the immediate aftermath of last week’s missile attack. You know, the one clarke knew about but allowed to happen anyway. Clarke sees a flaming horse (via CGI, no horses where harmed in the making of this episode) and a person who appears to have an arm blown off.

Lincoln digs out Indra from the rubble. She’s not happy to see him because of the whole reaper thing he had going on.

Shots ring out. The Mountain Men have left a sniper behind to keep the survivors pinned down. Clark and Lexa are in the forest. Clarke hears the shots and wants to kill the sniper.

Abby is helping missile victims. She hears a noise coming from the rubble. She looks in a hole and sees Marcus trapped. Abby goes down the hole to try and help Marcus. Indra tells Octavia that as she is Indra’s second she has to save her people since Indra is injured.

In Mount Weather Jasper and his gang are fortifying the dorm room. It’s nice to see that girl Harper still has use of her limbs after the whole bone marrow extraction process she had suffered. Jasper promises a girl called Fox that she will be ok.

Some Mount Weather guards break into the dorm. They lob in some knockout gas grenades and then dismantle the wall of furniture blocking the way in. Inside the dorm all the Ark kids are lying on the ground. But it’s a trick. Jasper’s folk managed to catch the grenades in buckets of water so they were not knocked out. They spring up and attack the guards with knives. There is much stabbing going on.

The guards decide to retreat but manage to take a prisoner on the way out. Jasper is unhappy to see it is Fox, the girl he promised would be ok. He’s so unhappy in fact he attacks a wounded guard with his big axe.

Back in Ton DC Abby has made her way into the ruins and finds Marcus. He is trapped by a girder. Abby tries to move it but is unable.

Fox is taken to the bone marrow lab. A guard comes in and shoots the Mountain Men. It’s Bellamy in his disguise. He and Maya take Fox away. Bellamy wants to stash her somewhere safe. Maya takes them to her home where her dad is. And hey, her dad is played by that guy from Continuum and Bates Motel. He played Alec Sadler’s son from the future in Continuum. That guy.

Maya conveniently explains that her parents were part of the movement against using Outsider blood. Huh, First I’ve heard of it. Alec’s son says that Fox can stay, but just for one night. Yeah dude, honestly that’s probably all you’ve got left after Clarke gets there and blows you all to hell.

In the forrest Clarke and Lexa are discussing what to do. I feel your anger says Lexa to Clarke like she’s a Jedi or something. Then look who comes along next, it’s Lincoln. That’s awkward, what with Clarke being alive and all when everyone else in Ton DC is toast.

Abby uses a pipe to try and lever up the girder of Marcus but blood starts pumping out of a wound on his leg Apparently it’s the Femoral artery. Best put that girder back.
She is discussing a tourniquet when there’s a Cave in.

In Mount Weather Maya tells Bellamy about trash chute that could be used to get to level 5. Bellamy heads off to check it out when Vampire guy comes down the corridor with his gang. He recognises that Maya and Jasper had a thing going on.

He puts Maya in a radiation suit suit with only 20 minutes of oxygen and sets her down in level 5 which had the radiation breach last week. Vampire guy gets on the radio to Jasper and tells him to surrender or Maya is toast. Dilemma! Jasper must make a choice. Love a good dilemma.

Back at Ton DC the sniper still sniping. But at least it’s now daylight. Octavia wants to get to the crater where the cave in happened but her folk are pinned down.

Maya is reunited with the others on level 5. She tells jasper about Bellamy’s plan with the trash chute.

Abby and Marcus have been trapped by the cave in. Abby admits to Marcus that Clarke knew about the missile strike in advance.

“How could she do something like this?” Abby asks.

As always Marcus gets a good line. “Because she grew up on the Ark. She learned what to do from us,” he replies.

Marcus continues this train of thought by remembering culling 300 Ark folk to save the rest of the population when the oxygen was running out.

This in turn makes Abby remember being responsible for informing on her husband -which got him floated – to avoid panic at his news about the failing life support.

Bellamy makes his way down the trash chute to level 5. Just in time as Maya’s air is almost gone. He and Maya and Jasper go down the chute to another level. Her father is waiting there for them.

Clarke finally reaches the sniper. Lincoln is about the stab the sniper but the sniper produces one of those sonic reaper controller things. He is able to hold Lincoln as a human shield. Clarke is obviously a fan of Robocop as she just shoots the guy through Lincoln’s shoulder.

“Did that make you feel better,” asks Lexa drily.

“No,” admits Clarke.

Still, she’s badass.

With the sniper threat gone Octavia is digging to try and reach the trapped people.

Level 5 is empty when some guards get in. All the kids have used the chute to get to the other level where Maya has organised dissidents families who will help hide the kids until they can escape.

“War is coming,” says Bellamy to remind us of the war that has been coming for weeks already.

And just when all the threat is been sorted out at Ton DC along comes Mr Gaeta from Battlestar Galactica. He turns up to help with some rope. They dig out Abby and Marcus who are still alive. Clarke and the others return. Lincoln makes up with Indra. Abby tells Clarke not to forget they’re supposed to be the good guys.

So a lot going on in this episode, but the overall story is not advanced very much. Actually where was very little of Clarke in this one. The episode moves things on a little but there no major developments.