The 100: “Blood Must Have Blood Part 2” Review

A ‘Lil Review

The 100: “Blood Must Have Blood Part 2”

Season 2, Episode 16 (March 11, 2015)

The Grounders betrayed the Clarke and the rest of the group to Mount Weather. Will Clarke be able to rescue everyone still trapped in Mount Weather? Will Jaha reach the City of Light? Another fantastic episode of The 100!

If you are a fan of post-apocalyptic TV, you owe it to yourself to give The 100 a try. I just happened to be bored one night and did some Netflix browsing and immediately became hooked. At first it may seem like the a teenage angst show, but ride it out, by the 4th episode, it’s real good!

For the uninitiated:

In the future there is a nuclear war that wiped out most of the planet. The audience follows human survivors that spent almost 100 years living on international space stations above the planet (called “The Sky People”). They eventually return to the planet when resources on the space station have been depleted. Initially 100 juvenile prisoners are sent to the planet to see if it is habitable (hence “The 100” title), but eventually all land on earth and attempt to rebuild on Earth. When they land on Earth, they realize that the planet still has radiation, but their proximity to the sun (being on the space station in outer space) rendered them immune to the radiation on the planet. They are not the only ones immune. There are groups of humans that managed to survive the nuclear apocalypse and after generations are also immune, they are called “The Grounders,” who live in tribal societies. The first season deals with the survivors and their dealings with The Grounders, with an explosive finale with the two groups going to war. The first season finale reveals a third party: Humans that live in the Mount Weather military base that are not immune, but have lived for generation inside the military base called “The Mountain Men.” The Mountain Men are more ruthless than even The Grounders. In their desperation to leave the base, they have experimented on both The Grounders and The Sky People by harvesting bone marrow as a means to harvest to build an immunity to the radiation and leave the base. Through experimentation on The Grounders, the Mountain Men created a cannibalistic offshoot of The Grounders (called “The Reapers”) that they are able to control through torture and chemical addiction. As a result, the Sky People and The Grounders have declared a truce, and decide to work together to fight The Mountain Men to save their people who are being held prisoners.

The previous episode, an insurrection has happened in Mount Weather. Bellamy has managed to sneak into Mount Weather pretending to be a guard, and cause sabotage. In addition to Bellamy, some sympathetic people in Mount Weather have helped some prisoners escape, and they have begun fighting back inside the mountain. Once Bellamy sabotages Mount Weather’s acid fog machine, it opens a window for The Sky People and The Grounders to launch an assault on the mountain. At the same time, a group of Sky People are following former Chancellor Jaha on a pilgrimage to a fabled City of Light that they believe will offer hope. At the last minute, The Mountain Men managed to negotiate a truce with The Grounders to betray The Sky People in exchange for The Mountain Men to release all captured Grounders. Clarke (the juvenile leader of The Sky People) is hurt, angry, and determined to save her people.

The episode begins with Octavia, having been deserted by The Grounder group she was with for wanting to remain with The Sky People as she runs into a crazed Clarke, who is determined to get inside the base. Octavia reminds her that she has to be the leader, and has to have a clear head, A moment later Bellamy arrives with Monty and Jasper (former prisoners) who escaped with the help of Jasper’s Mount Weather girlfriend Maya, therefore providing her with a way into the base. They decide they will try and get help from Dante Wallace, the former leader of Mount Weather who was removed from leadership and detained for not being aggressive enough against The Grounders and The Sky People by his son Cage. As they discover that Dante Wallace actually told his son to strike a deal with The Grounders to avoid further bloodshed, they take him hostage.

Meanwhile Cage has rounded all the Sky People up and has instructed his doctors to begin drilling bone marrow out of them. Recently caught are also Clarke’s mother, Abby and other members of The Sky People’s leadership. Abby pleads with Cage for an alternative than slaughtering The Sky People. She insists that they could volunteer for a medical solution, but Cage is not interested. Cage then begins drilling on another 100 member Raven, who manages to bite the neck of one of the Mountain Men before subdued (talk about graphic for network TV), and then begins to be operated on.

Clarke’s group makes it to the control room where she tells Cage via walkie-talkie that she has his father hostage and will kill him unless her people are freed. This gives Cage a moment, but he ultimately remains steadfast and refuses to stand down. At this point, Clarke realizes what she has to do, but is heartbroken. She finally decided to pull the trigger, and kills Dante to Cage’s surprise. Clarke then tells Cage that if she doesn’t release her people, she will allow radiation to enter the entire base, killing all the Mountain Men who haven’t received the bone marrow transfusion: just about all on the base, including children. An angry Cage stops the drilling of Raven. The audience first believes he has a change of heart due to how serious Clarke is, but instead he has Clarke’s mother Abby placed on the table and instructs the doctors to drill her bone marrow.

Meanwhile Octavia is with Jasper and his girlfriend Maya trying to get to Level 5, so Maya can get more oxygen, since Level 5 is the only level that is radiation free, and Maya is wearing a radiation suit soon to be out of oxygen. One of Maya’s friends is a sympathetic guard, and they hatch a plan for Jasper to pretend to be a prisoner with a well hidden knife and will kill Cage when close enough. They make it to Level 5 and begin to enact their plan.

In the control room, Clarke orders Monty to prepare to flood the entire base with radiation. Monty warns Clarke that once this is done, it cannot be undone. Clarke sees her mother being operated on, and Bellamy sees his sister Octavia taken prisoner, they realize they have no choice: it’s kill or be killed. They release the radiation throughout the whole base.

One by one, all the people of Mount Weather begin to succomb to radiation poisoning. Jasper was just about to attempt to kill Cage, when his girlfriend begins to get sick, and she dies in his arms as he watches heartbroken. Afterwards, the Sky People are freed and reunited. Clarke and Abby are reunited and have the best mother daughter reunion they had in their estranged relationship

Clarke then apologizes saying she tried to be the “good guy,” but couldn’t. In all the commotion and reuniting, Cage managed to escape the base. He was one of the few Mountain Men that had the transfer and remained immune. As Cage is escaping he runs into Grounder Lincoln who left his group to help The Sky people (since he loves Octavia). At first Cage has the upper hand since he previously turned Lincoln into a Reaper and uses a sonic blaster (specific for Reapers) on him, but Lincoln manages to take his sword to cut off Cages hand (and turn the sonic blaster off). Lincoln then takes the Reaper-creating chemical drug and injects it into Cage, turning him into a Reaper: poetic justice.

As they leave Mount Weather and return to their camp. Clarke realizes that she cannot stay with the group. Everytime she sees their face, she is reminded of what she had to do in order to save them (kill children). Bellamy understands, and tells her that he forgives her and she needs to forgive herself. Clarke then leaves the camp and goes into the wilderness.

The remainder of Jaha’s group are out at sea on a rowboat following the drone to see about the City of Light. Lost at sea, the group loses hope. Just then they see a lighthouse and begin to row towards the land. They are so excited that one member drops his oar into the water. As he reaches for it, something from the ocean attacks him and bites murphy’s arm. Their boat is then attacked by whatever is in the water. Jaha then grabs another person in the boat and throws him in the water as bait as the creature is reveald to be some sort of sea monster and eats the person whole. As Murphy and Jaha make it to shore, Murphy is angry at Jaha for throwing a man aboard. Jaha tells him that they “sacrificed a few to save the many.” Because of the sea monster bite, Murphy cannot keep going. Jaha tells Murphy that he will try and find the drone, but he will return for Murphy.

The next day Murphy wakes up to discover an underground bunker as part of the lighthouse. As he enters, he explored the bunker: complete with a pool table and whiskey. When he turns on the TV in the bunker, a video begins to play. The year on the video recording is 5/10/2052 (the same year of the nuclear war). On the screen is a remorseful man talking to the camera, describing how he lost control, how “she” got control of the launch codes. The man then proceeds to apologize and then shoot himself.

Jaha follows the drones to a mansion with many drones flying above it. As he enters the mansion, a woman in a red dress appears out of nowhere. The woman addresses him by name. Jaha realizes that she is some sort of computer program as he walks right through her. She reassures him that finding this place was his destiny (as he previously claimed), and thanks him for bringing her a “gift.” As he walks into another room, he sees the nuclear missile he used to escape the space station on (as a rocket) in her room and then says “we have work to do.”

Thoughts:

That got real dark real quick! I did not think that Clarke had it in her to kill Dante, and I really didn’t think she had it in her to kill every last member of Mount Weather. At first she was the heroine, then she became the leader, and now she’s a Jack Bauer anti-hero: someone who has to do the dirty business to make sure that everyone else is safe, at the cost of her soul. It’ll be very interesting where they take her character next season. She’s no longer going to be with the main camp of the Sky People. I don’t see her “walking the earth alone” for long. She’ll probably want to get revenge on Lexa and The Grounders for their betrayal. She may try and locate another Grounder group that was at war with Lexa’s group to do some sort of retaliation. However, Lexa and Clarke did share that kiss, so it’ll be interesting to see their interaction the next time they see each other.

What is the deal with the woman in the red dress? Will she be next season’s enemy? Last season it was The Grounders, this season it was The Mountain Men. With those storylines pretty much wrapped up (probably not the Grounders, we haven’t see the Wood Clan or the Ice Nation yet), it’s safe to assume that she will be the next antagonist. It appears that she started the nuclear apocalypse. At first the audience believed it was a nuclear war between the nations of earth. But it might be a Terminator-like Skynet induced nuclear war, and the woman in the red dress is responsible. Now with the new nuke, that Jaha arrived in, she might want to wipe out the rest of humanity. Next season has plenty of potential!

Images Copyright:

The 100 (CW TV)

IGN.com

#The100 #EpisodeRecap #TVShowReview