Picture your favorite board game sitting on a table in the middle of your living room. Then, turn the table over, throwing the various pieces of the board game in all directions. Once you've done that, flip over the other furniture in your living room, and tear up the carpet as well.
That's the best analogy I could formulate concerning last night's fourth episode of The 100. "A Lie Guarded". It was directed by Ian Samoil, with writer Kim Shumway running her magic touch over the script, which was packed with variety, including some bizarre black spots.
This episode took a completely different tack compared to its three predecessors this season, and that was largely able to occur thanks to a barely mentioned near three week time jump between what happened in last week's excellent episode and what happened last night. If that escaped a viewer or two, it's safe to say they'd be astounded by how the story went from 0 to WTF. But two or three weeks is a long time in this series - it feels longer than in many others - and I don't think it was the right call. Let's look into why.
Arkadia kicked proceedings off in a highly symbolic fashion - and there was plenty of that in this episode. Jaha awoke to find himself floating in a lake. Jasper took immediate responsibility for the prank, proclaiming it was his way at getting back at Jaha for his infamous floatings on board the Ark. Jaha saw the funny side (he had no other choice), but Jasper was only warming up. Noticing rain fast approaching, all the workers repairing Alpha Station rushed inside, believing it was contaminated. Whether Jasper's decision to stay outside dancing was either complete guesswork or exquisite judgement, but his choking imitations didn't garner anywhere near the level of appeal his prank on Jaha did. His third attempt later was also limited in its success, but more on that later. To nitpick in the early stages, we've never seen that lake before as far as I can recall. It's no doubt extremely handy for the Arkadia residents, but it's taken more than two full seasons to make an appearance, and should have been made known earlier, or Jaha's scene written differently.
When did everyone round here lose their sense of humor?
Though Polis took a more minor role last week, it was evenly weighted with Arkadia and the episode's B-plot, which we will get to in a minute. With Kane remaining in Polis to maintain diplomacy, Roan abruptly called him into a meeting and demanded to be updated on Skaikru's progress in finding a solution to the now much more fast approaching meltdown.
The Polis plot was the only one to benefit from the time jump - and it fell flat in my opinion. Its only use was to give Roan grounds to confront Kane, and to give his subsequent actions more substance, but it damaged all other storylines. In a nutshell, Bellamy and another guy who he was captured with while out hunting were hauled in front of the Azgeda king and used to force Kane to reveal what was really happening, and why they had Luna with them in addition to repairing Alpha Station. Kane truthfully revealed why, but Echo thought otherwise and made her thoughts known to Roan - who, to be fair, had already drawn his own conclusions which aligned with Echo's. Roan saw this as a breach of their alliance with Skaikru and Trikru, and declared war right on the spot.
Like I said, 0 to WTF. Even I was staggered with how quickly this occurred, and the time jump worked against the series here by making it seem as though Roan had substantially more internalized frustration - much more than could possibly have been caused by the loss of the Flame and threats to his power - but what changed in those two or three weeks which forced him into declaring war is nigh on impossible to understand, and it's created the season's biggest plot hole to date. The other guy Bellamy was with was executed by Echo, but Bellamy and Kane were spared and thrown in jail.
A warrior knows when not to kill. Lincoln told you that.
Shortly before that, Kane and Octavia had a heated one-on-one discussion concerning her actions in last week's episode which saw the Flame leave Azgeda with Gaia. Kane was rightly concerned that Octavia's mini warrior spree was having a detrimental effect on the alliance, and won the debate comfortably in a quality example of an adult character having greater common sense and high level thinking than their fellow teenagers. Octavia later fled Polis when war was declared, and on a frantic horseback ride to warn Arkadia, Octavia was cornered and fought to the death against several Azgeda soldiers, including Echo. The old cliche of ridiculously high cliffs of doom was called upon (it's been used at least twice prior in this series) and Octavia was eventually shunted off the edge and a body and dispersing blood could be seen in the river below.
I was still sighing in disappointment with the stupidity of all this when things took a turn for the worse. Full credit to the animal handling team in this episode because the bloodstock were brilliant, but somehow Octavia's horse made it down to the river below (did it jump off the cliff too?) and revived a battered Octavia who had come to rest on the edge of the river. She hauled herself onto the horse and told it to take her home, which I'm guessing it did.
I mean, really? Yes this is fictional television, but Kim Shumway just completely undid some really good work from the previous three episodes with this bollocks. If something needs to be this far-fetched to get a point across or develop a storyline or character, it's always, always best to rethink the approach. It made the classic head knock and unconscious trick look like the greatest thing ever, and it could have been perfectly substituted here. Embarrassingly, Octavia was also stabbed right through her abdomen during the exchange with Echo, and even that couldn't assist the thousand foot fall or the swim in the river in ending Octavia's life.
I'm too frustrated with this crap to bother examining what might happen next thanks to this, but what I will say is that Bob Morley pulled some of the embarrassment back with a pretty solid piece of acting when he was told that his beloved sister was apparently dead. He's in for the shock of his life when he finds out she's alive, that's for sure.
Moving on to the episode's B-plot, which was pretty good overall. The time jump didn't help at all though - did it really take a full fortnight at least to put together a mission to visit Becca's isolated laboratory in the hopes of finding a way to give everyone the metabolism to radiation that Nightbloods were engineered to have? In fairness they may have been travelling for a few days which would make sense. Anyway, Raven, Murphy and Emori accompanied Abby, Luna, Nyko and others to the island, and it wasn't long after they stepped off the boat that armed drones began attacking, killing Nyko, which came as both a surprise and a shame.
You're not fooling anyone Murphy. You're still a dick.
I was so pleased to see Raven's character development from last week's episode further built on this week. She had a quip at Murphy early in the piece, but after he helped her to safety from the drones a short time later, her attitude changed and she thanked him for his assistance. Aware that she wasn't a target to the drones, Luna attempted to make a run for it while everyone else was pinned down, but Raven pleaded with her, calling upon her experience last week with the child dying from radiation poisoning to seal Luna's help.
It's not your blood that defines you. It's your heart.
Their exchange united them in more ways than their dialog, and it was really good to watch. There were several other really intellectual quotes in this scene that contained a lot of symbolism, too. Eventually, Raven disabled the drones just before Abby was about to be the second victim in a dumb and very much forced attempt at self-sacrifice. The group found the lab and entered, but in a move I approve of, this B-plot will roll over to next week's episode.
Back to Arkadia now, where I want to discuss Clarke, Monty and Jasper.
For the first time in ages, this trio got some decent screen time and character development together. Clarke saw the funny side to Jaha's floating, and Monty was there in Bellamy's absence to reassure Clarke that things were coming together. Clarke admitted she felt useless as her only contributions to the Alpha Station preparation aside from leadership was as a medic, and this was really good to hear.
Things went pear-shaped a short while later. Going for his third prank of the night, Jasper worked with Murphy to wire a fire suppression system to give Clarke a squirt when she entered the Chancellor's quarters. Moments before Clarke was caught in the trap, Jasper found the list Clarke had prepared a couple of day... oh, sorry, a couple of weeks prior - and carelessly discarded in an insecure location in the office.
Monty and Jasper were revealed to have been absent from the list, and this hurt them dearly. While this was bad news for everyone, in terms of character development, this was the desired outcome. For one, finally, Jasper and Monty agreed on something, and teamed up to force change. A knee-jerk reaction by Clarke saw Jasper thrown in jail - an act which resembled her father's whistleblowing attempt which saw him floated. This didn't stop Monty - he revolted in the same way by reading the list over the rover's loudspeakers. The disgruntled crowd closed in around Clarke, who was forced to justify her selections - which were well reasoned and intentioned - but it was Jaha's self-driven insertion which continued his progression that's been in the making since the premiere.
That's not what I said.
That's what they heard.
Spot on, mate. Spot on. Again, Jaha may not hold the status he once did, but his intellect and experience is still as sound as ever. He left it as late as he could to intervene and save Clarke from digging her hole even deeper. Once he did, he tore up the list and decided that a lottery with attached working conditions would be the new way 100 people would be selected. That way, workers who would have had nothing to live or work for once the list was outed would be motivated to keep working because the chances they would be picked would be fair. Clarke later questioned Jaha's move, and rightly expressed her concern about being overruled. Jaha has her right where she wants her, and although Clarke is becoming more aware of Jaha's plays, she can't compete with his expertise and experience. She has to endorse him, and learn all she can from him.
The bright sparks among the population would be aware that Clarke's selections would have given the population the best theoretical chance of survival, and an interesting twist would have been a minority come out in support of Clarke's picks and put themselves forward as a sacrifice, much like the 300-odd members of the Ark sacrificed themselves in the first season. At least if they didn't make it into the sealed Alpha Station, those left outside wouldn't have their death guaranteed, and could still survive with a bit of luck. Maybe an uprising like this could occur in a future episode, as it would be a good way to liven things up. Monty had the following two lines to say to Clarke which were about as accurate as you could get.
If you just tell everyone the truth, they may surprise you.
If you think you have the best idea you have to convince people, not lie to them.
In the end, this wasn't the best episode of The 100 you'll see. It was a bit of a mess in my eyes. The time jump wasn't handled well and its benefit to the storylines was minimal. It made Roan a completely different character for as yet unexplained reasons, and the result is everyone is going to war yet again. In fairness, it's good to see that the early concerns the characters had about keeping a lid on what was happening at Arkadia have been proven correct - good progression there - but it's happened too rapidly for the politics and motivations to be fleshed out and understood properly. What I'm getting at here is that Roan's decision to go to war wasn't made on a whim because he's smarter than that, but what's happened in the background to force that decision hasn't been portrayed. I've spoken about simplicity in each of my reviews thus far this season, and even a line or two of dialog would have helped immensely here.
Octavia's survival was complete crap as I've already detailed, so I've got nothing further to add there. With such strong growth between Bellamy and Clarke last week, this could have been capitalized on again this week much like Raven's was in really good fashion this week on top of last week. Instead, the time jump put him in a hunting party and now, as seen by the promo, he's going to be used as a bargaining chip next week as Azgeda move to take over Arkadia and Alpha Station. The mission to Becca's lab in this episode suddenly becomes infinitely more important, and is likely the only thing preventing a full-on war. I'd rate my predictions here as pretty accurate, but you never know what will happen in this series.
Nevertheless, character development for Monty and Jasper especially was decent, but Jaha and Clarke edge them out of second spot, with top marks given to Raven and Luna. Murphy and Emori also shared some interesting dialog. I thought the score in this episode was noticeably better than usual, as were the numerous excellent one-liners and symbolism which were prevalent throughout. Lastly, I'm sad to see Nyko go. The character has proven really useful, and this series is a bit short on Grounders at the moment.
Thanks for reading! As always, make sure you head down to the comments to share your thoughts and theories on my review and the episode itself. It's always interesting hearing what you have to say, so come and be a part of the discussion! See you all back here next week.
