For the first time in its history, The 100 isn't ending a season with a two-part finale, but that doesn't mean last night's penultimate episode of the CW drama's fourth season wasn't epic in its own right. Alex Kalymnios directed "The Chosen", which was written by the increasingly formidable duo, Aaron Ginsburg & Wade McIntrye.
Like last week's hour, this episode got better and better as it progressed. It started with a hiss and a roar - the intensity in the opening minutes was unlike anything we've seen early on in an episode this season. The heavily outnumbered members of Skaikru were herded like cattle into the main chamber inside the bunker, where they were instructed to come up with a way to determine the 100 members, out of about 450 in total, that would live on.
The series is no stranger to mass cullings - we've seen it before on multiple occasions both in space and on the ground. However, the majority of Skaikru's members were not about to lay down their lives as willingly as what we saw on the Ark, when a similar number of the population were culled to preserve oxygen. Things could have been very different, though, had an attempt from some of the 100 on the ground to communicate with the Ark not been sabotaged.
It was somewhat refreshing - in a weird way - to see that only a couple of people opted not to put their names in the running for staying alive. This made the freshly ended storyline led by Jasper, who perished last week after opting not to go to live in the bunker, much better as a whole, because those with no will to live ended up there instead of potentially having their names drawn from the ballot and continuing to be a waste of space inside the bunker.
Three out of four of these people are going to die tonight. You still think you made the right choice?
Jaha was the most vocal of the protesters to the ballot, and he played an astonishing role in the events that took place. While Kane, Abby and most of the Skaikru population weren't keen on their fate being determined by a ballot either, they accepted that it had to be done, and were willing to get the ballot over and done with. A man with a young son kicked things off during the ballot, and suddenly the crowd were supportive of fighting the Grounders for the right to live instead.
Octavia was a force to be reckoned with in this hour, for one reason: she was in a position of power for the first time in her life. Octavia has always been an activist and somewhat of a rebel, and although she's had influence in some decisions, she's never been in absolute charge. Her recent victory in the conclave meant all the clans looked up to her, and followed her lead. Her strict instructions to Jaha and Skaikru were a testament to this. For the first time in her life, she talked down to Jaha, despite her small stature indicating otherwise. She had every right to feel slightly shaken afterwards, but she also felt immensely satisfied, with a confidence boost to boot. Better still, she has effectively parted ways with Skaikru, and is running things as an independent. Her decision to spare Niylah was also admirable, and gives an indication of how she wants things to be run.
You have until midnight to choose, or you all die.
Things were about to come to a head when Jaha was moments away from gassing the Grounders inside the bunker, which would potentially allow all of Skaikru to survive. The Grounders were aware something might be brewing, and had raided the armory in preparation of a bloodbath perhaps not on a scale we've seen before.
What happened next was almost unbelievable. Instead of gassing the Grounders, Jaha, perhaps after caving to Kane's bold statement to him that fighting the Grounders would see his legacy destroyed, gassed his own people instead. This meant he could hand-pick the survivors without resistance, but those names didn't come from the ballot - they came from Clarke's list, which we learned about in the season's third episode. A minor plot hole here seems to be that Clarke didn't indicate whether children were included on her list, which ranked people in order of their skills. Jaha, however, opted to keep the children, which would likely mean some adults on Clarke's list were culled from the bunker to make room for the children in the quota. This might be explained further next week.
I've commented all season about Jaha's rise back through the ranks to a position of power after his City of Light fail. Earlier on, Clarke also took advice from Jaha, which improved her leadership skills, and her respect for him, thus allowing him to climb the ranks once more. I was amazed when Jaha agreed with Kane's suggestion that they refer back to Clarke's list when deciding who is culled. That tells me that Clarke's respect for Jaha was also reciprocated, which isn't something I've felt was the case previously. He trusted her judgement, and although he and Kane made some minor calls of their own, Clarke has largely determined the fate of her people once again.
Clarke isn't aware of that, though. She, along with Bellamy, Murphy and Emori, set out to retrieve Raven from her lab and bring her back to the bunker before the death wave hit. The trip in the truck was never going to be uneventful, and Bellamy ran a Grounder over moments before the four were set upon by other Grounders waiting in the woods. Bizarrely, Echo followed the group on horseback and single-handedly annihilated the hostiles. Why the group left the bunker without any weapons whatsoever continues to make me scratch my head.
Echo, minus a radiation suit, wasn't faring well, however. There was a spare suit in the truck so she changed into that, but the next dramatic moment came courtesy of Emori, whose suit was damaged in the fracas earlier. Fortunately a rescue party containing Harper and Monty was inbound, and Clarke was prevented from getting too unwell after her Nightblood cure proved ineffective.
After a few dead-end discussions on whether they should turn back to the bunker or divert to Polis, eventually, everyone arrived at the lab, but the crash on the way meant a return to the bunker was no longer an option. Instead, Clarke proposed that they all ride Raven's rocket to the remnants of the Ark, where they would likely be able to survive the incoming death wave.
Man, am I super excited to see this. Clarke, Bellamy, Monty, Harper, Murphy, Emori, Raven, and Echo are destined for space, which hasn't featured prominently in the series since the first season. The good news is that because there are so many big name cast members among that lot, thanks to the way television works, the mission is almost guaranteed to be a success, even if there will be a few bumps along the way. Further to that, we've got some power couples in the mix as well, and because everyone is of a younger generation, the roles are being effectively reversed, given it was the elders who remained on board the Ark while the younger ones were sent to the ground as guinea pigs originally.
We're not going back. We're going up.
Lots of people will, rightly, be querying Echo's potential position on board the rocket, and I have to admit I am too. For Emori's sake, at least she's not the last one in the pecking order any more, and interestingly, the gender balance is weighted heavily toward the ladies as a result - 5-3 in favor in fact. However, there's dead weight in the bunker, too, in the form of Niylah. She piggy-backed her way to safety via Clarke originally, and now Octavia is protecting her too. She hasn't done anything wrong, but she hasn't done anything to earn her place either. Time will tell how both she and Echo are utilized by the writers in the future.
In other news, Kane and Abby shared some powerful scenes in this hour. Through radio chatter with Raven, Kane finally learned that Abby was unwell, and was more understanding of her recent self-sacrificing attitude. Abby was among those gassed by him and Jaha, but we don't yet know whether Kane opted to cull her or to leave her in the bunker, which would have been against her wishes. I'm looking forward to finding out what he chose. If this was Abby's last episode (though I think that's unlikely), she left her daughter with some powerful last words, which might finally pave the way for something more between Clarke and Bellamy.
I told you there are no good guys, but that's not true. There are. You are.
In all, the episode's ending was the highlight for me, solely because it opens up some exciting new avenues for storytelling next season. It will be awesome to have space return as a part of the series once more, and especially with a larger group of characters than just Raven. The happenings in the bunker were fascinating to watch, had some decent twists, and were very well executed on the whole, with some unanswered questions to keep me interested next week. I'm pumped to see Octavia make the most of her newfound leadership role, and to see how a reduced Skaikru population interacts with a Grounder population. The score was a strong point in this episode, and director Alex Kalymnios had a strong debut. A couple of plot holes and bizarre calls aside, this episode of The 100 was one of the best we've seen this season.
As always, thanks for reading! There's a huge amount more that I could have discussed in this review, but time is short, as is our attention spans, so please head down to the comments section below to share your thoughts on this episode, along with what you think will happen next week. The promo is truly epic, and the press release gives nothing away. You can check out both of those right here. See you all for the season finale, "Praimfaya", next week!
