The 100, season 2
Sep. 7th, 2015 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkWe finished season 2 of The 100! I don't even know where to begin, in a good way.
In no particular order:
- I knew Finn was going to die. I didn't see him snapping and torturing and killing a prisoner and then committing a massacre coming at all though. It was a combination of things: The battle, dozens of his friends being killed, being captured by a grounder, Raven almost dying, and Clarke being missing, and he went into battle-mode and then panicked. Still, ouch, brutal. Lexa demanding Finn's death as recompense makes sense.
Of course Clarke didn't want to give Finn up, but at the same time of course the other Sky People didn't all want to die because of one criminal. Finn giving himself up was really the only solution. At least Clarke saved him from the torture; she even tried to make his death nicer and kissed him. I liked that we saw his crime on the Ark, the better we got to know him the odder it seemed that he'd go on a spacewalk like that but it makes perfect sense if it was for Raven.
- While Finn slipped into violence, Murphy got the redemption arc. Well done too! Not finished of course, but that makes it better. They managed a good combination of giving him a bit more background without excusing his actions and showing how he tries to change even though it's hard. It starts with him going back to the dropship and helping Raven because he doesn't want to die alone, after he was captured and tortured by the grounders again (this time he didn't even tell them everything.) Then he risks his life to save Bellamy, tries to stop Finn from committing the massacre, is almost sacrificed by Raven in Finn's stead, almost messes up the diplomacy effort with the grounders, and is approached by Jaha to find the City of Light. He goes with Jaha because why the heck not, and he'd also like to leave his past behind (he doesn't want to tell the girl they meet in the Dead Zone about what he did because 'she's one of the few people on this planet who doesn't hate him yet.') At the end of the season he found a lighthouse and a mystery. I'm very curious about his story next season!
- I really didn't expect Jaha to survive. He steps right into a power struggle when he gets back, which he loses, and then he goes on some sort of quasi-religious "destined search" for the City of Light, constantly affirming his faith in destiny. On the way there he sacrifices one of his companions, I didn't see that coming either. He finds an AI in an abandoned mansion who wants to rebuild a nuke with the rocket he brought from the Ark, whoa.
- Marcus was described by DD as "the only one who always keeps his brain turned on." He always tries to do what's right and best for his people, but it's hard. He's pragmatic when it comes to survival, and he has Abby beaten when she breaks the rules again. Ten minutes later he makes her chancellor. He wants peace and he's willing to risk and sacrifice his life to get it, no wonder Lexa started to respect him. When they meet the kids – Marcus and his guys rescuing Finn, Bellamy, Monroe, and Sterling, which didn't make them inclined to think that the kids can handle themselves, and then Bellamy attacks Murphy – he makes it clear that they're back to playing by the Ark's rules, but he's also pragmatic enough to realize when it's Clarke who's in charge, and he's the one telling Abby off when she's stupid again. Which happens all the time.
- I didn't like Abby. She's a gigantic hypocrite, she thinks she doesn't have to follow rules, she only looks at things from her own perspective… So many times when she does things it's clear that the rules would completely change if Clarke was somewhere else. She tells Clarke she still needs her mom to protect her, but doesn't give any reason why. She likes being in power and she doesn't like taking orders, but she's very erratic about it and not reliable. She thinks she's better than Marcus because when they both had to make difficult choices she happened to be right. She's horrified by Clarke sacrificing most of Tondc without even thinking about what she did to Clarke's dad – these kids grew up with human sacrifice for the greater good. Sure, Abby is brave, but other than that… She had a talk with Marcus, maybe she'll still grow, there's definitely potential. Right now I don't like her that much.
- Octavia becoming Indra's Second was very cool. She's become a warrior! But not one of the Tree People, they're too ruthless and she's not that good at following orders. It was impressive how she tried to save Lincoln and eventually even got Indra's respect. The moment where she told Lincoln to get back up again so they could fight together, or die, was great.
Poor Lincoln, but that he got to kill Cage is at least a nice moment? Lincoln got Indra's respect back to a degree that she let him choose his people, or at least choose the Sky People over death as a traitor. He and Octavia are between worlds now.
- The Mountain people! Dying from radiation in minutes seems a bit extreme, I have no idea how scientific that is, but hey, plot. (Also apparently there was genetic engineering on the Ark, which makes "their bodies can deal with radiation" a bit more believable but not much. Oh well, TV science.) A society that is forced to rely on continuous murder to survive, whoa. Even the friends of Maia who were against the procedure said they got the treatment occasionally when they needed it, so obviously staying indoors is not enough. The way they justify it is that they call the grounders savages and see them as less than human, but the generation divide makes a lot of sense: Cage (who the heck names their son Cage, poor kid) is so used to killing to survive that he doesn't see a big difference between what they were already doing to killing the Sky People. I don't understand why they had to torture them though, operate without anesthesia and so on. Dramatic effect? Ugh.
Clarke killed them all. I didn't expect that, huh. (Now they can go back and see if they can pick up other survivors over the radio! After they recover.)
- I didn't expect Lexa to betray Clarke, but it makes perfect sense. Why should Lexa risk so many of her people just to save a few of Clarke's? Clarke could convince Lexa to form an alliance because of the common goal that she could help achieve and because she knew how to turn Reapers back, but Nyko watched her do it with Lincoln and they can probably manage by themselves by now.
Lexa is a great character. Very young, but Commander because of reincarnation. Ruthless because she has to be, she knows sacrifice, but she cares about her people.
I also liked how she came to respect Clarke, and tried to teach Clarke about what it means to be a leader. And kissed her! If she'd slept with Clarke she still would have done the same thing at the Mountain.
- I still don't particularly like Jasper, though I can understand him. I like Monty though, and I'm curious how their friendship develops. I liked that through Maia we got to see that not everyone in the Mountain is evil, but Clarke had to make a choice and she chose her people.
At times it was almost weird that we didn't get to see more people from the forty-odd that were left with name and face, but it makes sense if they want to be more flexible if they want to use them later. I was surprised we didn't get to see more of Monroe, I would have liked to.
- Clarke! She was amazing. Learning to become a leader, making the hard choices, saving her people – and then she feels so alienated from them that she leaves. She did the best she could, but it wasn't always good enough.
At first in the Mountain she was basically operating on auto-pilot, or so it seemed: suspicious, if with reason, and without a real plan, and she got out because of luck more than anything. And Anya – I didn't expect Anya to die so quickly! (Which idiot shot her, she was walking away, morons.) Later she catches her breath, at least a little bit. It's hard not to be in charge anymore – the Ark sent them away to die, what authority over them can they claim? – but she doesn't let herself be pushed around either. She establishes the alliance with Lexa and the grounders, she kills Finn for it, she sacrifices Tondc but saves her mom and refuses to let Lexa kill Octavia, and she kills all of the Mountain Men to save her people.
If Clarke has one weakness is that she acts impulsively when people she cares about are concerned. DD said she would have liked to see Clarke make the same decision about the Mountain without her mom being in direct danger, same with Bellamy and Octavia. I think Clarke would have done the same thing though. She really fixated on having to save her people.
- I really liked Clarke and Bellamy's relationship. Suddenly they rely on each other more than ever, nobody else understands what they've been through. The hugs! In general I loved all of the "you're alive!"-hugs.
I wonder if one of the reasons why Bellamy is less messed up about his choice in Mount Weather than Clarke is because Bellamy is more used to a world which forces you to make fucked up choices than Clarke is. Bellamy always knew the world isn't fair, Clarke had to learn that. She got a first crash course when her dad was floated, but it's not on the same level of "society sucks, there are no happy endings for everyone" that Bellamy and a lot of other people from the Ark are familiar with.
The Sky People will have to rebuild their justice system. They don't need to float people for crimes anymore.
- I'm really looking forward to next season! I want to see what Clarke will do, I want to see more of Jaha and Murphy and the mystery island, I want to see Bellamy try to find his position among the Sky People and Octavia and Lincoln too, I want to know how the relationship between the Tree People and the Sky People continues after the betrayal. Lexa expected most of the Sky People to die, and the others would be easy to defeat if necessary. Now not so much anymore, especially if the Sky People can scavenge the Mountain before the grounders can. The grounders will be busy trying to turn the Reapers back, then trying to hold the Alliance, and the removal of such an omnipresent enemy surely changes their internal politics.
Tl;dr I liked it a lot.
In no particular order:
- I knew Finn was going to die. I didn't see him snapping and torturing and killing a prisoner and then committing a massacre coming at all though. It was a combination of things: The battle, dozens of his friends being killed, being captured by a grounder, Raven almost dying, and Clarke being missing, and he went into battle-mode and then panicked. Still, ouch, brutal. Lexa demanding Finn's death as recompense makes sense.
Of course Clarke didn't want to give Finn up, but at the same time of course the other Sky People didn't all want to die because of one criminal. Finn giving himself up was really the only solution. At least Clarke saved him from the torture; she even tried to make his death nicer and kissed him. I liked that we saw his crime on the Ark, the better we got to know him the odder it seemed that he'd go on a spacewalk like that but it makes perfect sense if it was for Raven.
- While Finn slipped into violence, Murphy got the redemption arc. Well done too! Not finished of course, but that makes it better. They managed a good combination of giving him a bit more background without excusing his actions and showing how he tries to change even though it's hard. It starts with him going back to the dropship and helping Raven because he doesn't want to die alone, after he was captured and tortured by the grounders again (this time he didn't even tell them everything.) Then he risks his life to save Bellamy, tries to stop Finn from committing the massacre, is almost sacrificed by Raven in Finn's stead, almost messes up the diplomacy effort with the grounders, and is approached by Jaha to find the City of Light. He goes with Jaha because why the heck not, and he'd also like to leave his past behind (he doesn't want to tell the girl they meet in the Dead Zone about what he did because 'she's one of the few people on this planet who doesn't hate him yet.') At the end of the season he found a lighthouse and a mystery. I'm very curious about his story next season!
- I really didn't expect Jaha to survive. He steps right into a power struggle when he gets back, which he loses, and then he goes on some sort of quasi-religious "destined search" for the City of Light, constantly affirming his faith in destiny. On the way there he sacrifices one of his companions, I didn't see that coming either. He finds an AI in an abandoned mansion who wants to rebuild a nuke with the rocket he brought from the Ark, whoa.
- Marcus was described by DD as "the only one who always keeps his brain turned on." He always tries to do what's right and best for his people, but it's hard. He's pragmatic when it comes to survival, and he has Abby beaten when she breaks the rules again. Ten minutes later he makes her chancellor. He wants peace and he's willing to risk and sacrifice his life to get it, no wonder Lexa started to respect him. When they meet the kids – Marcus and his guys rescuing Finn, Bellamy, Monroe, and Sterling, which didn't make them inclined to think that the kids can handle themselves, and then Bellamy attacks Murphy – he makes it clear that they're back to playing by the Ark's rules, but he's also pragmatic enough to realize when it's Clarke who's in charge, and he's the one telling Abby off when she's stupid again. Which happens all the time.
- I didn't like Abby. She's a gigantic hypocrite, she thinks she doesn't have to follow rules, she only looks at things from her own perspective… So many times when she does things it's clear that the rules would completely change if Clarke was somewhere else. She tells Clarke she still needs her mom to protect her, but doesn't give any reason why. She likes being in power and she doesn't like taking orders, but she's very erratic about it and not reliable. She thinks she's better than Marcus because when they both had to make difficult choices she happened to be right. She's horrified by Clarke sacrificing most of Tondc without even thinking about what she did to Clarke's dad – these kids grew up with human sacrifice for the greater good. Sure, Abby is brave, but other than that… She had a talk with Marcus, maybe she'll still grow, there's definitely potential. Right now I don't like her that much.
- Octavia becoming Indra's Second was very cool. She's become a warrior! But not one of the Tree People, they're too ruthless and she's not that good at following orders. It was impressive how she tried to save Lincoln and eventually even got Indra's respect. The moment where she told Lincoln to get back up again so they could fight together, or die, was great.
Poor Lincoln, but that he got to kill Cage is at least a nice moment? Lincoln got Indra's respect back to a degree that she let him choose his people, or at least choose the Sky People over death as a traitor. He and Octavia are between worlds now.
- The Mountain people! Dying from radiation in minutes seems a bit extreme, I have no idea how scientific that is, but hey, plot. (Also apparently there was genetic engineering on the Ark, which makes "their bodies can deal with radiation" a bit more believable but not much. Oh well, TV science.) A society that is forced to rely on continuous murder to survive, whoa. Even the friends of Maia who were against the procedure said they got the treatment occasionally when they needed it, so obviously staying indoors is not enough. The way they justify it is that they call the grounders savages and see them as less than human, but the generation divide makes a lot of sense: Cage (who the heck names their son Cage, poor kid) is so used to killing to survive that he doesn't see a big difference between what they were already doing to killing the Sky People. I don't understand why they had to torture them though, operate without anesthesia and so on. Dramatic effect? Ugh.
Clarke killed them all. I didn't expect that, huh. (Now they can go back and see if they can pick up other survivors over the radio! After they recover.)
- I didn't expect Lexa to betray Clarke, but it makes perfect sense. Why should Lexa risk so many of her people just to save a few of Clarke's? Clarke could convince Lexa to form an alliance because of the common goal that she could help achieve and because she knew how to turn Reapers back, but Nyko watched her do it with Lincoln and they can probably manage by themselves by now.
Lexa is a great character. Very young, but Commander because of reincarnation. Ruthless because she has to be, she knows sacrifice, but she cares about her people.
I also liked how she came to respect Clarke, and tried to teach Clarke about what it means to be a leader. And kissed her! If she'd slept with Clarke she still would have done the same thing at the Mountain.
- I still don't particularly like Jasper, though I can understand him. I like Monty though, and I'm curious how their friendship develops. I liked that through Maia we got to see that not everyone in the Mountain is evil, but Clarke had to make a choice and she chose her people.
At times it was almost weird that we didn't get to see more people from the forty-odd that were left with name and face, but it makes sense if they want to be more flexible if they want to use them later. I was surprised we didn't get to see more of Monroe, I would have liked to.
- Clarke! She was amazing. Learning to become a leader, making the hard choices, saving her people – and then she feels so alienated from them that she leaves. She did the best she could, but it wasn't always good enough.
At first in the Mountain she was basically operating on auto-pilot, or so it seemed: suspicious, if with reason, and without a real plan, and she got out because of luck more than anything. And Anya – I didn't expect Anya to die so quickly! (Which idiot shot her, she was walking away, morons.) Later she catches her breath, at least a little bit. It's hard not to be in charge anymore – the Ark sent them away to die, what authority over them can they claim? – but she doesn't let herself be pushed around either. She establishes the alliance with Lexa and the grounders, she kills Finn for it, she sacrifices Tondc but saves her mom and refuses to let Lexa kill Octavia, and she kills all of the Mountain Men to save her people.
If Clarke has one weakness is that she acts impulsively when people she cares about are concerned. DD said she would have liked to see Clarke make the same decision about the Mountain without her mom being in direct danger, same with Bellamy and Octavia. I think Clarke would have done the same thing though. She really fixated on having to save her people.
- I really liked Clarke and Bellamy's relationship. Suddenly they rely on each other more than ever, nobody else understands what they've been through. The hugs! In general I loved all of the "you're alive!"-hugs.
I wonder if one of the reasons why Bellamy is less messed up about his choice in Mount Weather than Clarke is because Bellamy is more used to a world which forces you to make fucked up choices than Clarke is. Bellamy always knew the world isn't fair, Clarke had to learn that. She got a first crash course when her dad was floated, but it's not on the same level of "society sucks, there are no happy endings for everyone" that Bellamy and a lot of other people from the Ark are familiar with.
The Sky People will have to rebuild their justice system. They don't need to float people for crimes anymore.
- I'm really looking forward to next season! I want to see what Clarke will do, I want to see more of Jaha and Murphy and the mystery island, I want to see Bellamy try to find his position among the Sky People and Octavia and Lincoln too, I want to know how the relationship between the Tree People and the Sky People continues after the betrayal. Lexa expected most of the Sky People to die, and the others would be easy to defeat if necessary. Now not so much anymore, especially if the Sky People can scavenge the Mountain before the grounders can. The grounders will be busy trying to turn the Reapers back, then trying to hold the Alliance, and the removal of such an omnipresent enemy surely changes their internal politics.
Tl;dr I liked it a lot.
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Date: 2015-09-17 09:53 am (UTC)I'm really looking forward to Bellamy trying to find his place with the Ark people! Especially him interacting with Marcus.