The 100 - Coup de Grâce - Review: "You may be the chancellor, but I'm in charge"

There are plenty ways to open this paragraph, talking about how badass Bellamy was during this episode, how Maya made a huge turnaround for me, how everything fell into place, but what really stood out for me was the following line:
“You may be the chancellor, but I’m in charge.”

The 100 is mainly about its teenage characters growing up, becoming adults in the midst of a cruel environment. It cares for its adult characters as well, obviously, and they have evolved and become more full fledged as the series goes on, but the teenagers, especially Clarke - our main protagonist - are the fuel to the show. One could say that makes the show fall into the category of teen drama, but even if it does, the show isn’t anything less than if it was an adult drama. In fact, it is more because it is one of the few - if not the only - teen drama that actually showcase what it is to come from child to adulthood.

On the comments sections of various threads I’ve said that this is one of the best shows on TV, that it is nearing GoT’s quality and that it should get showered with awards. I stand by it; this show is one of the few that got the balls to fire all cylinders all the time, to keep moving forward, giving our characters no rest and plenty time to explore those characters and show us how they are, becoming more human and more relatable as the episodes go by, may the be sky people, grounders or even mountain men. This may be a teen drama as it focus mainly on its teen characters, but that doesn’t make it less impressive.

What The 100 has done so well since the beginning is that it rarely stops the flow of the storyline, but at the same time the storyline fits the character and not viceversa. The show is made by the choices each character make, and those choices are backed up by the way the characters usually behave. Take Clarke’s choice to take over command from her mother; over the past few episodes she has become both stronger and colder; she is done waiting for things to happen, she is taking action.

A lot of this episodes covers mainly one theme: defiance, may it be carried it out by Maya, President Wallace’s son or Clarke, all of them revealed against the established order to do what they think is right.

First of the criticism; I get why Jasper did what he did, he himself admitted to be stupid, but it didn’t make it any less stupid. By now he should know that a move like confronting President Wallace could have turned out ugly; luckily for him, he turned out to be on his side, but it still stroke me a bit strange that Jasper rushed into it. Yes, he is desperate, but going in there was way too risky, even when being that desperate.


On the same note, I get why Abby didn’t want to outright torture the guy, but she should have come up with something to get information. And why the hell did she call Clarke just to tell her that her friends are being bleed with nothing else to offer? That is by far the dumbest move of the episode; it is obvious for everyone that Clarke is pending on a thread and just telling her that, without any other useful information about her friends was just outright stupid.

But now that we got that out of the way, let’s truly talk about the episode and what it did so great:

This season Bellamy has been mostly sidelined, so it’s great to see him on action again. The torture montage at the beginning has to be the best cold opening the show has ever done, and the opening credits couldn’t have come at a better timing. What I missed about Bellamy the most from season 1 is how conflicted he is; he is smart and he is strong, but he also carries a lot of weight on his shoulder and he has been seeking redemption for all the bad deeds he did back at the beginning of season 1.

So when Maya comes rescue Bellamy on a greatly executed scene, we see Bellamy going for the kill, with no hesitation, and then after he kills the guard we can immediately see that he is saddened by it; he doesn’t regret it, but he doesn’t enjoy it either, and Bob Morley once again shines showing a conflicted Bellamy, finally grabbing the spotlight after being sidelined for most of this season.


Maya and Bellamy’s sequences on Mt Weather may be all about transition from point A to B, but there is great execution, with the highlight of that story being Bellamy watching the children going to pre-school. Even in Mt Weather there are innocent people, and Bellamy even realizes that the guard he killed was one of the children’s father and that must have sting a lot, since he himself grew up without a father. Once again, Bob Morley delivers, and once he makes contact with Clarke he makes him promise they will find a way to keep the innocent out of it, and while Clarke does promise, this is war, and in war the innocent fall.

Bellamy’s escape and infiltration in Mt Weather scenes also work due to the splendid job Maya is putting on screen; she is becoming more and more interesting by the episode, and this is the first time she has truly betrayed her people by helping Bellamy to infiltrate, and she does it so splendidly that I was surprised by how fond I have become of her character. And she makes an awesome dynamic duo with Bellamy.

Coming back to the camp Jaha, Lexa and Clarke are being targeted by the mountain men since they are the leaders of their people on the allegiance they forged. We get to see Octavia kicking some ass and Clarke taking command of the situation, creating a rift between her and her mother. It is an interesting parallel of what happens in real life when parents and their children go through this similar struggle; the context is obviously different, but the parallel is there, as Clarke is proving that she has gone through enough experiences on the ground to lead grounders and sky people through victory. That being said, through this rift Clarke is missing possibly one of the most important points Abby is trying to make: they can’t lose their humanity and their integrity over this conflict or all become pointless.

As I said above, Finn’s death has strengthened Clarke, but it has also made her loss some of her integrity, and while that’s a necessity for war, she is walking a thin line in which she may as well lose her identity altogether. Being eager to torture the mountain man for answers shows that Clarke is also becoming scarier.

But she is still a person; after learning her comrades are being bleed on Mt Weather she freaks out and found herself on the verge of collapse. She has become colder, but not a monster, she still thinks of everyone else, she still needs to save everyone, and it is great to see Raven calling her out, that she has to do her job and figure something out so that Finn’s death is not in vain. It really shows how complicated their relationship has become, and after seeing Clarke treating Raven like shit through the episode, is good to have her showing some backbone.

Bellamy comes to the rescue and tells Clarke by radio that he made it in with Maya’s help and that she has to hurry up to save everyone. That gives Clarke enough hope to keep going and put in motion her own plan, sending the mountain man to Mt Weather to deliver a message that will keep them distracted from Bellamy’s pressence there.

The way Clarke and Abby face off is just spectacular, with both Eliza Taylor and Paige Turco bringing their A game to portray this mother/daughter confrontation which ends with the realization every parent comes eventually: their children won’t be children together, and though there is plenty Clarke can - and should - learn from Abby, this is her time to do things her ways.

So that’s a pretty great accomplishment for teen drama, don’t you think? Call The 100 whatever you want, solely sci-fi/post-apocalyptic drama, genre or teen drama, but the thing is that this show works so well on so many levels that no matter what label it carries on, it has to be recognized among TVs best shows on the air, because it does what very few shows dare to do: it continues to create a fast pace storyline made by what its characters decide. And that’s great TV.

Grade: B+

Stray Observations:

-Character I miss the most this week: Lexa, for sure. She has been a really interesting addition to the show and her relationship with Clarke has made this halfback of the season even more interesting.

-Storyline I don’t miss: Jaha and Murphy going for the city of light; interesting stuff may be going on there, but I can skip that for the following weeks.

-By the way, I know this is old news, but to this day I can’t stress enough how happy I am that season 3 is confirmed! This show has to make it to 100 episodes and end on that mark. And it also has to rate higher than it is currently rating!

-Cage Wallace will be one hell of an antagonist, I’m sure of that.

-We lost Nyko this week! Another good grounder bits the dust :S

-Nice touch giving President Wallace her painting stuff while being incarcerated. The poor guy wasn’t really bad, so I feel a bit sorry for him. But just a bit, he did incarcerated all those grounders in the first place.

-On the weekly, Raven is cool: she gives Clarke a fighting chance against the reapers. Raven deserves the spotlight soon.

-Next week I’ll be covering the show once again, so I’ll be reviewing episode 12 and 15 this season. Someday I’ll get to review the season finale! Someday!
But until then, this is Pablo, signing out ;)

About the Author - Pablo

I'm currently studying Psychology while also writing fantasy books (one already published in my home country, Chile, you can check it out on the facebook icon). I watch many different types of shows, including my favorites Revenge, Game of Thrones, Once Upon a Time and about 23 more. Currently writing reviews for Once Upon a Time, The 100 and Community

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