'The 100' recap: 'Bodyguard of Lies'

I’ve never been in war, but I’ve watched a lot of it on TV and in movies. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there is always time for love during war. Is this actually true? I feel like no, but that didn’t stop our characters on The 100 tonight. The battle has finally begun, and they’re making everybody’s fan-fiction dreams come true.

But before we talk about that, let’s talk about the Desert Crew: Jaha is marching with his small gang through the dark while a guy named Harris is telling a bad Grounder and Reaper joke—which I do not get the punch line to. He starts to tell another joke—which we’ll never hear the punch line to because he gets blown up.

Then it starts raining body parts. And as a woman tries to avoid the arm flying at her, she backs up and explodes, too. Turns out they’re in the middle of a minefield. It figures that on this show you can’t even walk through a barren desert without drama.

And if that weren’t enough, they have to wait out a sandstorm. (I am absolutely obsessed with the visuals of these desert scenes. Bravo visual effects and camera crews.) When the storm stops and they have the light to venture on, they no longer have footprints to follow. They’re grumbling about being in a death trap when they see lights up ahead, which means they’re close to their destination. “These mines are just another test of our faith,” Jaha says.

So ol’ Moses starts off in the desert with his walking stick leading the way and his four stragglers following in his sand wake. But a guy named Richards starts to freak out about having to walk in a straight line. Murphy gets in an Arzt joke (“A shower would be nice right about now… wash off the rest of Harris”), and Richards just can’t take it. He goes running through the desert before Jaha tackles him—right before he almost lands on a mine.

They finally make it to a sign that says “Warning Mines,” which signifies that they can take off running up the sand dunes to see this blessed City of Lights. Except it’s not a city. It’s just endless rows of solar panels and then the beach. Jaha says what we’re all thinking: How are these not destroyed?

So Murphy takes a rock to destroy one himself��and they’re promptly spotted by a drone. They take off running after it, hop into a canoe, and sail into our hopes of finally seeing THE CITY OF LIGHTS.

Back to the WAR: In Mount Weather, Cage is full-on angry. He’s said that he’s been safe in their giant bunker for 97 years, and it won’t stop now. (Apparently he’s never heard of knocking on wood or jinxing yourself.) His first plan of attack is taking out Bellamy. Next we see the rogue Sky Person, he’s having issues with his key card. The guard has figured out he’s not Lovejoy—took them long enough—so they start shooting. But Bellamy being Bellamy is able to get away and back to Maya’s house, where her dad and a guard named Lee help him out. It turns out not everyone underground is terrible. They help him get into the acid fog production area (there’s got to be a better name for that). Once there Bellamy coordinates with Raven and Wick—yes WICK!—on how to disable the fog.

Raven and Wick have been busy the whole episode flirting and doing science stuff, and I don’t hate it at all. It leads to great conversations like this:

Wick: “I’ll have you know I was a god at fluid dynamics.”

Raven: “You think you were a god at everything.”

Wick: “Empirical evidence doesn’t lie.”

But they have to hold off on their chemistry lessons (see what I did there?) to help Bellamy. He’s telling them about the room he’s in, and Wick just asks how “my boy Monty is doing,” which endears me to him even more—and I didn’t think that was possible. But enough Wick talk, Bellamy just wants to blow the joint. Raven loves a good explosion, but doesn’t want to kill Bellamy in the process. I appreciate that.

So the two geniuses figure out that they can use a cleaning option to neutralize the acid… or something like that… because science. The pH level drops—success! Raven and Wick celebrate with an almost-kiss! Everything is awesome. But of course it doesn’t last long. Bellamy is leaving when he sees a hidden valve indicating that the pH is fine. He goes to radio Raven, but Emerson and Cage are the only people hearing his cries for help.

NEXT: All’s fair in love and war…

But even if Raven and Wick could hear Bellamy, they wouldn’t because they’re doing it in the science room. So glad that room has a bed and that no one besides those two ever goes in there. But the scene doesn’t have as quite a happy ending—not that kind, get your mind out of the gutter—as it should. Raven gets emotional and shuts down. Wick tells her he’s in it to win it if she is, but she’s all business: “We have a war to win.” Raven, if you ruin this for all of us and cause us to lose Wick as an even occasional character on this show, I will be so mad at you.

Anyway, back in Mount Weather, the guards flood the acid fog production area, but naturally Bellamy doesn’t go down without a fight. He flies into a vent and starts firing at everything behind him. Cage is simultaneously turning on the acid fog veil, but Bellamy left a blowtorch on the device, which goes off at the perfect time. No more acid fog.

This is very bad for Mount Weather and very good for the Grounders and Sky People. Most of this episode they spend waiting around at the acid fog line. Clarke and Lexa do a lot of arguing about the best way to move forward after allowing the missile to hit Tondc. Lexa says Clarke was born to lead and her people to die for her, but Clarke doesn’t want to be that kind of leader anymore (anymore as in not since she decided to be that kind of leader two days ago).

Clarke is also having a fight with Octavia, who has figured out Clarke’s dirty little secret. O tells Clarke that Bellamy wouldn’t have wanted people to die because of him—which is most definitely true—but the ultimate kick in the gut: “You’re in charge now; you decide who is disposable. You would have fit right in on the council.” It clearly bothers Clarke, but she pushes past it and asks Octavia to keep the info about the missile to herself. Octavia agrees, and Clarke trusts her, but Lexa doesn’t.

Lexa sends Octavia off to the guard post, even though Indra expects her to be going on a scouting mission. It’s clearly suspicious, but Clarke doesn’t do anything about it until she sees Indra by the fire; Indra tells her Octavia is on a scouting mission. So Clarke goes on a scouting mission of her own and finds Ryder about to take Octavia out. She stops him and saves Octavia without her even knowing.

Clarke is outraged and goes to tell Lexa she can’t just kill everyone she doesn’t trust. “Yes, I can,” Lexa counters. They talk about how Clarke’s feelings don’t make her weak any more than Lexa’s hiding of her feelings make her weak. But turns out Lexa DOES have feelings. When Clarke says how Lexa let everyone burn in Tondc, she throws back: “Not everyone… Not you.” And Clarke takes a step back; she takes a second to process it, but responds fairly quickly after hearing that news. If she cares about her, then she should trust her decision to save Octavia.

But it’s not until later that Lexa tells her she does trust her. She summons Clarke back to her bungalow and tells her that the Grounder ways are harsh, but they’re just surviving. “Maybe life should be about more than just surviving,” Clarke says. “Don’t we deserve better than that?”

And Lexa apparently agrees, which is why she kisses her. Based on everything I’ve seen on TV, I fully expected Clarke to push Lexa away and say she just doesn’t see her like that. Imagine my surprise when Clarke is very much into it… until she isn’t, and says “I’m not ready… to be with anyone. Not yet.”

I want to be so happy for this moment. We need characters on TV—main characters at that—who are diverse in race, gender, sexuality, religion, etc. I’m excited to see if they explore Clarke’s bisexuality beyond the network cliché of the “exploration phase” (cough, cough, Marissa on The OC). We need all of this.

But—and I’m sure you saw this but coming—it didn’t feel true to these characters at this moment. Lexa is THE REASON Clarke became the murderer of her first love. And in the timeline of the show, that was what, like two weeks ago? The kiss just didn’t feel earned to me and because of that it felt fan servicey and cheap.

But maybe I’m just overreacting—what do you guys think? Now that all that love stuff is over, are you ready for war? Because the Grounders and Sky People are ready. They’re marching on, and all that stands in their way to Mount Weather is the doors. From what we’ve seen them accomplish so far, that shouldn’t be a problem.