The 100 recap: The journey of the minds
The 100 has never been shy about killing off characters, but the departed rarely leave without getting their due. There’s always been a chance for redemption or an opportunity to say goodbye. Even when Lexa died in season 3 — inarguably the show’s most controversial death — she was given time for final moments with Clarke and an epiphany that “blood must not have blood.” So it didn’t quite sit right with me that we learned of Henry Ian Cusick’s “death” by seeing his corpse on a table, while some hot young bod (a.k.a. Greyston Holt) took over his brain.
Thankfully, tonight’s episode, “What You Take With You,” righted that wrong. Let’s start at the beginning…
Fresh out of the anomaly, Octavia has no memory of what’s happened to her. Xavier/Gabriel thinks quite a lot happened since she’s fully healed and has clean, possibly longer hair. (He doesn’t even know how long it’s been since that girl has had clean hair!) To aid in her remembrance, he’s prepared a cocktail of anomaly gas to inject into her. Seems safe! He says he and Russell tried this once to see what happened to hosts after a Mind Drive wipe and it will open up her mind.
And open up her mind it does. She finds herself in the pit, where she’s flooded with the memories of her past sins. She’s chained up, though, so there’s no escaping — even when her former foe Pike walks in. (Oh, hey, there Michael Beach!) “How does it feel to know that everyone hates you?” he asks her. Tears come to her eyes when he makes her realize that it’s worse than that … she hates herself. Although she says she wants forgiveness, Pike makes O boil it down even more: This is all about redemption.
Enter Blodreina. She decides to put her doppelgänger out of her misery and kill Pike, but Octavia picks up the sword and fights her former self instead. Blodreina gets in a few good hits, but in the end, Octavia wins out. As she runs her through with the sword, she says, “Blodreina no more” and wakes up in Gabriel’s tent.
Speaking of waking up, Hot Kane is not quite sure what to make of his new body. Abby tells him this is a new start and he can leave the old scars behind and yada yada, but he’s just not feeling it. And he’s not feeling her either. He says everything feels wrong, but Abby thinks it will just take time. It’s clear when he meets Simone and spits vile at her — “I am not one of the sheep you raised to follow you into oblivion” — that he’s not fully on board with what Abby sacrificed for him.
He and Raven go to wake up someone they think will be on their side: Indra. Ever a stoic, she isn’t as shocked by the recent developments as they thought. See, Indra doesn’t see this as much different than floating people on the Ark for stealing food or making children battle to the death to become commander on the Ground. But Kane says the Primes are committing murder, plain and simple, and he wants this new world to be different from the last.
Raven has a plan: They need to float the nightblood. Abby used all the polymer on the ship, so even if they found more on the ground, they’d have to get Raven (their only pilot) to help create more in Zero-G.
This all sounds like a great plan — until you realize that Kane has to float himself with the nightblood. (Couldn’t they have just thrown it out the lock on its own? I feel like the answer is yes, but I don’t want to rob Kane of his redemptive moment, so I’m just going with it.) Indra awakens an army from the cryopods and they stop Simone from leaving and taking the nightblood. Before Abby realizes what is happening, Kane has locked himself into the airlock. As Abby begs him to reconsider, Kane transforms into the old Kane we know and love; he says doing this will allow them all to make a new life.
“You told me once that your job was to make sure we deserve to survive,” he says. “That’s what I’m doing now.” Indra recites the Ark farewell followed by the Grounder goodbye. Abby sobs and sobs. And Kane floats himself. Goodbye, Henry Ian Cusick.
With no more nightblood, there are no hosts for Mind Drives — which is going to prove problematic for Josie if she loses her current host. Bellamy is dragging her through the woods as Clarke’s mind gets weaker. It’s not long before the Children of Gabriel capture them and tie them up in a cave. Bellamy explains to them that the Primes can make hosts and they need Gabriel’s help. The followers send a radio signal, but say if Gabriel doesn’t contact them back, they’ll die.
The wall between Clarke and Josie’s mind continues to weaken, and Josie even lets down her guard. She explains that she’s been in love with Gabriel for 236 years, even though he’s been trying to kill her for the last 70. Then she notices that Clarke is tapping out Morse code: “Boo-hoo.” Clever girl. Knowing that Clarke can now hear them, Bellamy tells her that he won’t let her die. And since they have nothing better to do, Josie dives into how weird the Bellarke relationship is. And she’s not wrong: They both have tried to kill each other at one point or another.
The Children of Gabriel come back because the Sanctum guards are closing in. When Josie fights back against them, they see her mouth bleed black — and the scar at the nape of her neck. They know she’s a Prime. They are about to kill Josie when she allows Clarke to take control of her body. Our girl knows how to fight. She breaks free and gives Bellamy the keys to his cuffs before running off to find Gabriel. She makes contact with the Sanctum riders, but she uses them to take out the Children of Gabriel behind her — and then she takes out Josie’s bodyguard, Jade.
Josie appears beside Clarke now; the barrier between the two is getting weaker. Clarke radios Gabriel to let him know that Josie is in her body and she’s on her way to him. Josie asks to take over control again so that she can ride the motorcycle. But Clarke has picked up a few tricks in Josie’s head, including how to ride and how to speak Mandarin. She takes off to the anomaly.
Fresh off her drug trip, Octavia is ready to seek out her second chance when she hears Clarke’s call on the radio. She knows this means her people are in trouble, and she wants to help. But Gabriel says she just needs to stay put. “Things are about to get weird.”
Does Gabriel know these people used to be cannibals and one time fought a giant gorilla!? “Weird” is a relative term when it comes to The 100. But with just four episodes left this season, I say bring on the weird.
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