This episode was better than the last two weeks and was more along the lines of the first three episodes of Season Three. Still not enough for this show to redeem itself (and at this point, Bellamy reflects exactly where this season is: irredeemable). This episode also breezed over yet another important scene that occurred off-screen (the cease-fire agreement between Lexa and Pike). I am now the only person of everyone I know who is still even watching this show and at this point, it's solely because of this wikia.
Highlights[]
- Octavia all day long. She gets her own discussion point.
- Emerson was a welcome breath of fresh air in the stale Polis storyline.
- Emerson has always been one of my favorites and he killed it this episode.
- A question for the Crime and Punishment page: why was Emerson sentenced with Death by 49 Cuts while Finn was sentenced with Death by a 1000 Cuts and not by 18 Cuts?
- Emerson calling Clarke out on her self-righteousness and pompousness.
- Titus calling Clarke out on her moral myopia
- Jackson took the ALIE pill! I knew it in the first scene he was in. I love this because it hints that there is more pain to Jackson than we've seen. I'd love to know more backstory on him but I'm not too hopeful we'll ever get it (we still don't even know his first name).
- My guess is Jackson was trying to get rid of the pain of working for someone as incompetent and clueless as Abby is
- The A.L.I.E. storyline is still mostly holding strong (maybe because all my predictions are coincidentally coming true).
- Polis/Polaris, the 13th Station, Becca escaping to space and possibly returning in that dropship pod with ALIE 2.0 are all intriguing developments.
- Jaha forgot Wells. I wasn't too surprised by this development but it was a nice and necessary touch.
- The acidic tree sap turns to acid fog when burned. I'm going to give them credit that this is a very nice nod back to the Acid Fog and is a side-effect perhaps of what it did to the environment.
Lowlights[]
- Why are Clarke and Lexa back in Polis right now? (Gets its own discussion point)
- Clarke is the biggest hypocrite and I can't stand her self-righteous BS
- It's a bad sign when even the lead in the show has become detestable
- Ugh! Lexa has become so preachy that I can't even listen to her talk now, either
- Every time they bring up the farcical election, it jars me back to reality and reminds me how big of a mess this season really is.
- Kane blaming himself for the election by saying he "let it happen by demanding an election." NO! It's STILL Abby's fault for holding it when she did!!!! She was the Chancellor so every decision is ultimately on her.
- Why did Monroe, Monty, and Bryan agree to massacring a village if necessary? (Discussion point)
- Bellamy's speech about how the Grounders need to be interned so they can't reveal the Sky People's secrets makes my skin crawl
- Same with Bellamy's and Pike's conversation about Octavia
- Abby doesn't care at all about Jasper for five episodes but now that Jaha wants to take away his pain, Abby is all up in his business. I'm so done with her at this point. She was never this bad. Her character has been ruined almost as drastically as Bellamy's.
- No Lincoln this week. If you're going to kill off a main character, can't you have the decency of allowing them to actually appear in the episodes ahead of time? I'd at least hope we'd get a flashback for Lincoln like they did with Wells and Finn but I'm assuming that's asking too much at this point.
Discussion Points[]
Octavia[]
Last week and now this week, Octavia is back to kicking ass again. This week, she single-handedly saved a Grounder village and most of the Arkadia guards sent to massacre them. Octavia is such a good soul and it's part of why she and Lincoln are two sides of the same coin. Octavia's interaction with Gavriel reminded me of her interactions with Artigas. She has a soft spot for kids (probably because of her own childhood). I never thought I'd say this but I really hope Octavia is pregnant when they kill Lincoln off.
Unseen Cease-fire Agreement[]
Clarke and Lexa went immediately back to Polis? Don't they have that whole Arkadia problem to deal with? Lexa camped outside Camp Jaha with 1000 of her warriors when Finn murdered 18 and now she just runs home to Polis? Why did Lexa and Clarke let Pike keep all those Grounders interned? And there's no way Octavia wouldn't have told them about it considering Lincoln is one of those locked up.
Monty and Monroe (and Bryan)[]
They knew exactly what they were doing when they went along on that mission. Pike made it very clear to all of them that they were clearing that land by any means necessary, including another massacre. I can believe and understand it about Bryan but I'm having a hard time believing it about Monroe and Monty. Right now, I'm trying really hard to give all three the benefit of a doubt because if they were actually confronted with having to massacre that village, we don't know if they would have ever gone through with it (and now we'll never know with Monroe).
And why did Bryan and Miller only hug? Aren't they boyfriends? If it wasn't for twitter confirming that Bryan is Miller's missing Farm Station boyfriend, I would just think they're really good friends.
General Thoughts[]
This was a much better episode than the last two. Still doesn't make up for the disastrous mess created by an unrealistic election that shouldn't have happened in any plausible scenario on earth, regardless of time or apocalypse. Also doesn't make up for the lack of character development of pretty much any of the characters at this point.
This season feels like a first draft, like it needs a really good and thorough content edit. There are so many mistakes and problems that a little tweaking might have fixed if only someone had the oversight to see it in the first place. Something happened, some component was lost. It's like someone fired their editor when they shouldn't have (my guess is whoever showed up around episode 1x04 and left around episode 3x03).
I'm rating this at 3.5/5, 7.5/10. A little better than Season One's The Calm but still disappointing overall.