The 100 (Season 6) (1 Viewer)

[mattCR]

As a sci fi concept, this is such a great extension of everything we learned about The Flame in prior seasons.. I gotta say, the entire layout of what is happening here is just one of those moments that makes me really enjoy this as a show that plays with great science fiction concepts.

 

[David Weicker]

Returns tonight.
Two weeks is way too long a gap

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Two weeks is way too long a gap

Even longer if you live in New York and the episode is preempted by the Yankees-Mets game. Very frustrated right now. The programming change pop-up said it's not rescheduled until Sunday, despite the fact that the rest of the week is pretty much all repeats.

Looks like I'm going to have to watch it on the CW app tomorrow, which meaning sitting through the same five commercials every single commercial break.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

This was probably the best "trapped inside one's mind" episode I've ever seen; the rules were clearly established early on, and adhered to. Josephine got to learn more about Clarke, but Clarke got to learn more about Josephine, too.

It was fun to see some departed faces, too. And some departed sets.

The bit with Clarke using the Christmas lights in the diner to Morse code a message to Bellamy owes a big debt to the first season of "Stranger Things", but it was definitely an effective moment.

Now both sides know Clarke is still alive in there. It's a race to see which side can succeed first.

 

[ChristopherG]

Adam,

As always I enjoy reading your reactions to various shows. I personally abhor the “trapped in your mind” type episodes as they just seems like such vanity projects by all involved but you always find the details that matter.

Regards,
Chris

 

[mattCR]

I thought this was a pretty unique trapped in mind episode because the series has set up the digital download of personalities and that for three years now, and asking questions about how that works is definitely interesting.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Well, that was one way to keep an important character around when the actor's availability is limited. "The Originals" pulled a similar trick when Claire Holt opted not to continue as a series regular after the first season. In that case, though, it was magic and reversible. I wouldn't bet on never seeing Henry Ian Cusick again, though, given all of the ways we see the original Josephine even though that that body's been dead for centuries at this point.

This show has had shocking levels of violence right from the beginning, but there's a extra level of horror that comes from seeing a child stone cold murdering people. Hopefully Jordan intercepting the knife meant for Simone Lightbourne will shake Madi loose from the Dark Commander's hold.

Was the young girl that Diyoza saw on the edge of the anomaly her still-gestating unborn child, or a child from her pre-apocalypse life that we didn't know about?

This is a resurrection moment for Octavia. It'll be interesting to see what she does with it.

I can understand skipping next week, so they don't have to compete with Spider-Man: Far From Home, and everybody's Fourth of July travel plans, but it stinks that there's yet another gap.

 

[DaveF]

There are two TV themes I’m a sucker for: time travel and crisis of the mind. So the mind-space episode had me fully. It also served as a bottle episode, with smaller sets and a fraction of the cast. It let them give us some flashbacks to key moments in Clarke’s arc, which I found helpful. And it gave some much wanted tidbits of Earth before the remnant fled to space — details the show has been very stingy about for six years.

And it gave us a few minutes with Monty. I’ll never begrudge The 100 for using cheats to get Monty back on screen.

 

[DaveF]

Side question: I watch CW on a DC channel 5. The sound is weird. Voices are very low volume compared to ambients, and there’s very strong LFE coming through. It’s just all wonky. Does anyone else experience this with CW shows? Maybe it’s just me and I need to switch to CW streaming instead of TiVo.

 

[DaveF]

Was the young girl that Diyoza saw on the edge of the anomaly her still-gestating unborn child, or a child from her pre-apocalypse life that we didn't know about?

This is a resurrection moment for Octavia. It'll be interesting to see what she does with it.

I took it as Diyoza’s unborn child. When she returns, I expect her child will be older, and perhaps even come back without Diyoza.

What this season is messing me up on is keeping track of the Primes. I like what they’re trying to do, and I’m not great with faces or name, but I just can’t keep track of who’s who and how they relate amongst the Primes. I was lost for a few minutes when we learned that Gabriel was actually alive, and had to be reminded this was the Josephine’s love who was killed in the first red moon back in the premiere episode. I need a printed guide to follow along with.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Side question: I watch CW on a DC channel 5. The sound is weird. Voices are very low volume compared to ambients, and there’s very strong LFE coming through. It’s just all wonky. Does anyone else experience this with CW shows? Maybe it’s just me and I need to switch to CW streaming instead of TiVo.

This is a consistent problem with CW broadcasts. It happens at my affiliate, too, which leads me to believe that it's a problem with the source and not the delivery.

It's not just that the dialogue is low in the mix, it often seems muffled. Even with the volume turned up, so that the music and sound effects are way too loud, it can be hard to understand what they're saying at times.

I invite my father over every Tuesday to watch "The 100" with me; all of the other CW shows I watch, I watch using headphones. For whatever reason, the problem isn't nearly as noticeable with headphones.

I took it as Diyoza’s unborn child. When she returns, I expect her child will be older, and perhaps even come back without Diyoza.

That's an interesting idea.

What this season is messing me up on is keeping track of the Primes. I like what they’re trying to do, and I’m not great with faces or name, but I just can’t keep track of who’s who and how they relate amongst the Primes. I was lost for a few minutes when we learned that Gabriel was actually alive, and had to be reminded this was the Josephine’s love who was killed in the first red moon back in the premiere episode. I need a printed guide to follow along with.

They probably should have had some sort of honorific pin or necklace for each of the Prime lines, so that at any given moment you could look at the pin or necklace and know who is behind the face.

 

[DaveF]

Your description of CW is exactly what we notice.

We also have recurrent breakups insognsl causing image dropout for a few seconds if there’s any bit of weather. And this is on cable!
I’m switching to streaming next episode to see if it’s better.

What’s odd is Legends and Flash aren’t afflicted audioally like The 100 typically, for me.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Sanctum has always had Machiavellian underpinnings to its utopian ideal. The Primes have provided centuries of stability, continuity, and experience, but at the price of dozens upon dozens of human sacrifices. Even worse in some ways than the historical human sacrifices of our world, because their sacrifices are a living death. The body endures without any of the things that made that person that person.

But Russell and Simone's selfish decision to "jump the line" and implant Josephine into Clarke set off a chain reaction that threatens everything they have built. The truth behind the lie underpinning their religion is circulating among the common folk now. And the common folk just saw Russell give a big speech about the moral necessity of killing all of those tied up at the stake, and then spare the invaders for reasons of naked self-interest while burning one of their own without a second thought. Sanctum has lived in peace for decades. The common folk are not desensitized to violence like our characters are. This act will be shocking to them. And it will provide fuel to the flame that Echo has lit.

One of the themes I find fascinating this season is that while they came to this moon to get a new start and be better, it is the grit and fire that they developed surviving the past five seasons that keeps allowing them to prevail. There have been a number of occasions, the final confrontation between Clarke and Josephine being one of them, where the Earthlings triumphed because they fought harder and withstood more. The Primes have numerous advantages, but the sweet deal they've established for themselves has made them soft.

I'm glad that the Bellamy/Octavia reconciliation has begun, even if Octavia has a long road to travel to win him back. She's at least no longer unwilling to express her feelings or show the vulnerability necessary to reconnect.

I kind of hope that Madi is able to shake off the Dark Commander on her own, without relying on Raven's tech savvy to delete him out of her head.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

And another one bites the dust...

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

"The 100" will end with a 16-episode seventh season, bringing the total episode count to an even 100 episodes.

 

[DaveF]

https://ew.com/tv/2019/08/04/the-100-to-end-with-season-7

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

This show has a history of mindblowing finales. The fourth season finale, with the desperate race to get to space, Clarke being left behind, and then the six year time jump, was probably my favorite. The fifth season finale, with the 125 year time jump and whole new planet, was problem the most epic.

This was an above average season, but this was one of the lesser finales for me. Part of that is that our characters had been fighting for their lives for five seasons leading into this conflict; they were pretty much all highly trained killing machines. The Primes were long-lived, but they'd presided over centuries of peace and stability. When things finally came to blows, it was pretty much inevitable that the Primes wouldn't be much of a threat to our protagonists.

The only thing holding them back was their desire to do better and be better. But the Primes had been so selfish for so long that they kept pressing their luck, kept poking the bear. And, ultimately, they paid the price for it. Of course, so did our characters. Clarke having to float her mother (even though her mother, for all intents and purposes, was already dead) is yet another horrible call that she had to make; there is a certain symmetry, since Abby's decision to float Clarke's father was one of the inciting incidents that kicked everything off.

Paige Turco was the last of the middle-aged series regulars, meaning we're going into the final season with an entirely young adult main cast. Given the demographics of The CW, I'm surprised it took this long. In terms of the hero's journey, it makes sense, though: In the final chapter, our heroes won't have any parent figures to lean on for support.

The first, second, fourth, and fifth seasons told survival stories that just happened to take place in a science fiction setting. The third season and this season told science fiction stories, with malevolent A.I. and body-swapping monsters. Based on the final act of this season, the final sixteen episodes are going to lean even more heavily in that science fiction direction.

The final scene makes it clear that a) time moves differently on the other side of the anomaly, since Diyoza's fetus is suddenly a roughly twenty-year-old young woman; and b) Octavia was lying about not remembering what happened on the other side of the anomaly.

 

[David Weicker]

I was a bit let down by the finale. In no way am I saying it was bad (definitely better than the Pike arc or the mid S5 episodes). But given how awesome the other season finales, this just wasn’t what I was expecting/hoping for.

I will say that this season had no noticeable dips in quality (as opposed to other seasons), but this was the weakest episode this year.

As for the actors ages, well Russell is still around, and Diyoza may return, although neither are core cast. And we still have Indra (who was under-utilized this year)

Looking forward to next season. Hopefully most of the characters are still alive come episode 100 (and we end happily).