TV Recap: The 100, Wanheda Part 1

22 January, 2016 TV Recap, TV Reviews 8 comments

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Hey guys, we’re trying something a little new and experimenting with mixing TV reviews into our repertoire. As some of you may know, a little show called The 100 had it’s season 3 premiere last night. If you follow me on twitter, you’ll know I’m utterly obsessed and have been fanatically looking forward to this day since, well, March.

I can’t really talk about the ep without spoilers because I have a lot of feelings (shocking, I know, I’m normally so stoic) but I’ll keep the first part spoiler-free and give you plenty of warning before switching over to specific things.

Overall I think this was a fairly strong opener. I love so many of the new plotlines and character arc seeds being sown and I think the show did a really good job bridging the left over season 2 stuff and mixing in exposition details while keeping the show moving forward. A lot of this episode dealt with what everyone has been up to in the 3 month gap between season 2 and season 3 (I love that they’re portraying how messed up everyone has become, some are dealing with it better than others) and laying the groundwork for things to come but the pace still felt active and forward-moving (for the most part, Jaha what are you even doing?). 

A massive high five to The 100’s continued commitment to depicting LGBT+ rep. While some of it felt a tad like fan service, this is the kind of fan service I am 100% behind (I SEE YOU MONTY x MILLER SET UP. I. SEE. YOU.). Actually, a number of things about the ep felt a little straight out of fanfiction but it was the best parts of fanfiction so I’m good with it.

As far as new plot direction goes, I love that we’re going to see a lot more of grounder society and am super excited to see where all of that goes. I’m a little hesitant about the Arker vs Grounder continuing conflict, though it makes sense, (if everyone were sitting around holding hands and braiding each other’s hair I think that would’ve been disingenuous and cheating,) mostly because it feels like it could get stagnant and repetitive but I’m willing to reserve judgement for the time being.

One thing I am absolutely not on board with? Whatever the fuck is going on with Jaha. The big reveal about the City of Light was so underwhelming and blech. I said it through all of season 2 and I’ll say it again, WHY IS JAHA STILL A THING? They had the perfect opportunity to kill him off in the season 1 finale and they didn’t and honestly, the amount of screentime devoted to his story bothers me a lot. It’s entirely disconnected from the main plot (for now, I’m assuming) and it takes screen time away from characters and stories that have actual heart, depth and relevance. I can’t see what it’s adding to the overall story aside from background on how the world got to the state it is which I’m honestly not sure is necessary. We’ve consumed enough post nuclear apocalypse media at this point to know that there are basically three ways humanity gets wiped out and starts over and seeing as the show utilizes one, I think we could’ve filled in the blanks ourselves. It’s really hard not to think Jaha is only there for the star power Isaiah Washington’s name brings to the show and considering his history, hard pass.

On a last un-spoilery note, I am in LOVE with the new characters. I really hope Niylah (played by Richard Harmon’s super hot sister, Jessica Harmon) sticks around and not just because I’m deeply into her face and back tattoo (which seemed intentionally highlighted so I’m hoping this means she’s got layers we’ll find out more about later). 

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Same goes for Roan (played by Zach McGowan who you may know as Charles Vane from Black Sails, another awesome show I’ve been binging and highly recommend). I really like that actor (and not just because his voice is sexy as fuck) and I’m pumped to see what he brings to the show.

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OKAY. Onward to specifics.

 

Here is where the spoilers start.

 

Leave if you don’t want any.

 

I’m assuming if you’re still here you’ve seen it and/or don’t care, yes?

 

You were warned.

 

Some assorted thoughts on specific parts/characters:

Hands down my absolute most favorite part of the episode was the Adventure Squad road trip scene. I am 400000000000% here for Bellamy, Raven, Monty, Miller and Octavia going out and exploring and having road trip singalongs (I’m politely ignoring that Jasper was there, more on him in a moment). While it could be argued this was ripped straight out of 78% of the post season 2 fanfiction, I can’t bring myself to care because oh dear god how I wanted this. THEY’RE SMILING AND LAUGHING AND RELAXING AND DID YOU SEE RAVEN SMILE AND MILLER GRIP MONTY’S ARM WHILE SINGING THE LINE ABOUT MAKING LOVE TO YOU? BECAUSE I DID AND I AM HERE FOR IT.

As much as I adore the adventure squad singalong, I have a few questions. Specifically, where did Jasper get a working iPod? I assume Mount Weather but like hell that thing still works after 96 years with no software update. Ditto the rover. How does it run? Gasoline expires. Have they set up a drilling and refining operation? It definitely doesn’t sound like an electric engine (I say with my abundance of automotive/mechanical expertise).

While I am happy that the show is exploring and depicting the effects of grief and PTSD, I am less pleased that they chose to use Jasper to do it. Part of this is because his character has been steadily getting more and more on my nerves over the course of the show. Part of it is because his grief seems to focus around Maya’s death which, while I believe he cared deeply about her, they knew each other for what? 2 weeks? I have a hard time buying that their love was so epic he’s more obviously wrecked than the other survivors who have gone through equal levels of horrifying shit and loss. Having Jasper as the token traumatized character feels a little too much like a stretch to keep him relevant.

I don’t have too many thoughts on Gena, Bellamy’s new girlfriend (although I’m still laughing over how fucking hard the writers were trolling shippers in this episode). I’m glad he has someone to do nice things for him and am absolutely here for anything that points to secret nerd Bellamy so there’s that. We’ll see where that goes (my guess is not too far and no that is not because as far as I’m concerned he’s already married how dare you suggest that).

AM ABSOLUTELY HERE FOR BELLAMY AND LINCOLN BEING BFFS MORE OF THIS PLEASE.

the-100-saison-3-wanheda-part-1-episode-1(HI HARPER AND MONROE GOOD TO SEE YOU I LOVE YOU GUYS PLEASE MAKE OUT)

The jury is still out on Bellamy trying to redefine the guard. On the one hand, his whole ‘the ground is our chance to make it mean what we want it to mean’ is straight up Clarke season 1 with ‘maybe the ground is a second chance to do better’ and it gives me A LOT OF FEELINGS that he’s picked up so much from her. On the other, it seems slightly uncharacteristically naive and optimistic of Bellamy to trust the Ark given his history and his rampant fuck authority attitude in previous seasons. But also after everything he’s been through I guess I accept him trying to start over and needing to let someone else make decisions for awhile. Idk, undecided on this. It helps that I think his dynamic with Kane is kind of adorable and who else is waiting for Kane to make dad jokes?

As much as I hate tension between Lincoln and Octavia, aka the shows only functional ship (which is kind of hilarious when you consider they were born out of kidnapping and torture but whatever, water under the bridge, this is The 100, who hasn’t been tortured at this point?) (#stophurtingravenreyes2k16) ANYWAY. Love the tension, I completely see where both parties are coming from and this kind of relationship strife feels realistic and not like manufactured drama for drama’s sake. Lincoln is advocating his hardest for grounder/arker peace and acceptance which makes sense considering “The world’s been trying to turn me into a monster for as long as I can remember.” and his desire to not let it. He sees this as his chance for a peaceful community existence and he’s working his ass off to make it happen. On the other side you have Octavia who grew up with the Ark authority as the ultimate boogeyman. She spent 16 years living under the floor in terror that the guard who one day come in and destroy her family and oh look, they did. Is it any wonder that she can’t handle seeing Lincoln in a guard jacket? As for her choosing to sleep in the forest/align herself with the Trikru as much as possible, they were the first people outside of the delinquents to accept her. Of course she’d want to get away from the Ark and closer to the Trikru. I’ve seen a couple of people saying things along the lines of ‘but she turned her back on the Trikru in the season 2 finale’ right, but remember that was only because they wanted her to leave her brother behind and her love for Bellamy trumps pretty much everything. I fully believe if Indra hadn’t forced her to choose, she’d be living with the Trikru visiting Arkadia occasionally.

Update: Just when I thought I was sad enough about the gap between them, Ellis pointed this out: “Octavia is totally projecting on Lincoln right now, right? Because he used to be the middle person like her, not quite grounder not quite skaikru. But now he’s starting to wear the Ark clothes and becoming more Ark and she’s afraid to lose him because he was the one person who was like her right?” and now I need to lie down.

I still haven’t forgiven Abby for slapping Raven in season 2 but their relationship gives me A LOT of feelings. I know some people ship it but to me it’s a really beautiful surrogate mother/daughter relationship for both of them. While never described in great detail, the show has made it clear that Raven’s home life was the worst and it’s nice to see her being cared for and taken care of. Shout out to Raven dropping another one of her deal-with-your-shit-Abby truth bombs. God, I love her.

I also love that the show is back to depicting Raven’s injury as a real thing she has to deal with. One of my major complaints with season 2 was how they kind of gave her a magic brace that rendered her leg injury largely a non-issue and I’m glad they’re going back on that. I’m going to turn the mic over to Natalie Crown who says everything I think and then some about Raven’s developing storyline much, much better than I ever could.

It was really nice to see Richard Harmon’s name in the credits. As much as I am not pro-Murphy (godammit show stop making me briefly like him), I really like the actor and credit him with single-handedly making Jaha’s storyline watchable. Congratulations to Richard for his upgraded regular status, he’s definitely earned it. Now, let’s see his character earn some of the good feeling his one-liner delivery forces upon us.

And finally, Clarke. Oh Clarke. My Buffy Summers risen from the grave. (But seriously, just try tell me Clarke’s dead-eyed stare is not totally reminiscent of Buffy’s stint as Anne) (Just kidding, don’t tell me that, you’d be wrong and I’d have to fight you). Eliza Taylor does an INCREDIBLE job depicting a broken shell of the girl who tore down a mountain. You can straight up feel her desperation to shut down her feelings and distract herself in anyway possible and I am so here for this as much as it hurts me. Especially considering it’s manifesting itself in a desire to drink and fuck her way through her grief (HIGH FIVE CW FOR A PRETTY LENGTHY NON-FADE-TO-BLACK F/F SEX SCENE, I AM THOROUGHLY IMPRESSED), a traditionally masculine coping mechanism and fuck yeah dismantling gender roles. Sidebar, while I don’t hate the red hair (dyed with berries according to the writers), I’m glad that the blonde will apparently come back next ep.

I’m also thoroughly into seeing how this whole the Ice Nation quest to kill Wanheda (Commander of Death) to absorb her power/Lexa and the coalition being weakened by Clarke’s resounding defeat of the mountain (the previously unstoppable enemy Clarke took down in a DAY after Lexa’s betrayal) plays out. Hopefully the show will ease up the Jaha nonsense and focus on this because this is infinitely more interesting.

Casually ignoring the whole Shawn Mendes thing because honestly that felt like the most transparent ploy to lure in a new audience.

On that note, I will leave you with this gifset of what was undoubtably the absolute best part of the premiere:

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ADVENTURE SQUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD

The 100 airs Thursdays at 9pm ET/PT on the CW.

Meg Morley

Meg Morley

Co-bloggery at Cuddlebuggery
Meg is an all-around book nerd who just really wants to talk about books, preferably with other people but by herself will do. Find her on Goodreads.

8 Responses to “TV Recap: The 100, Wanheda Part 1”

  1. Carina Olsen
    Twitter:

    Gorgeous post Meg 😀 YAY for sharing about The 100. <3 I loved this episode too. So much. this series is simply the best. <3 I'm just happy the Clarke sex scene is done with, so that I don't have to worry about it anymore, lol :p and ugh. I really didn't like Bellamy's girlfriend 🙁 She looks SO OLD. I hope she will be gone soon, hiiih. But agree with much of everything else that you said 🙂 I want Jaha gone. He is so boring. Sigh. And an idiot too, hah. I'm just.. I'm a little bit upset that you and two others I follow tweeted so much while the show was airing 🙁 you guys pretty much spoiled everything for me, which makes me a bit upset :\ I can't watch it for many hours after, since I live in Norway 🙂 But anyway. I do get that you are excited. <3 And I love reading your thoughts about the show. Just wish so many wouldn't tweet about everything while it is airing 🙂 Think this post is the perfect way to do it instead. <3 (hope it's okay that I'm saying this. Ack. Now I feel like you will be mad at me :p Hope not. <3)
    Carina Olsen recently posted…Waiting on Wednesday #223My Profile

    • Meg Morley

      OH NO! I’m so sorry you got spoiled :(((( I try to make sure everything I tweet is tagged with #the100 to make it easier to mute. I like tweeting the eps because social media attention is one of the things network execs look at when they’re considering renewal and I desperately need season 4 to be a thing but I try to make it as vague/easily avoidable as possible. I hope next week works out better (apparently it’s going to be a big bellarke episode so WHEEEEEE!!!)

      OMG JAHA IS THE WORST CAN WE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GET RID OF HIM.

      • Carina Olsen
        Twitter:

        Hugs. <3 It's okay 😀 I really need to mute that tag the next time, lol 🙂 I love that you tagged it all. <3 But the other ones did not, which was a bit disappointing :\ (I'm a bit sensitive for spoiling, lol, as an author I love said on twitter about a character death in Supernatural while it was airing on Wednesday. Sigh.) But anyway 😀 I do get why you tweet about it so much. <3 I need a fourth season too. SO BADLY. It needs to happen. This show should never end 🙂

        And eeeee! I hope the next episode will be some bellarke happening 😀 They need to see each other again. <3 And a big hug. I need it. I want it.

        And haha, yes, I really, really don't like Jaha. I get the feeling he will come back to camp and end up killing so so so many of them. Sigh. And I don't really like Jasper either.. sigh. Asshole. He hit Bellamy in the face. Wtf. Not okay. Hmph. But I do like Murphy 🙂 Which is shocking, as he almost hanged Bellamy. Ugh. I can't help it. He is an interesting character 🙂 And sort of cute. Maybe.
        Carina Olsen recently posted…Waiting on Wednesday #223My Profile

  2. Samantha

    Love this review! I totally agree with everything you say. When they chose to open with Jaha and Murphy I thought that was a bold move considering its the weakest plotline happening. Though I agree that the Murphy bit is making that whole side story watchable.

  3. Angie

    WHY IS JAHA STILL A THING.

    Naturally I agree with most things and I need Niylah to stick around and unless I missed something I’m just going to continue believing she’s the Ice Nation Queen in disguise because why not?

    ROAD TRIP WAS BEST PART OF ALL THINGS EVER. MILLER AND MONTY ARE A THING AND I WILL MURDER ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE.

    WHOSE JASPER THOUGH?

    The Bellamy and Lincoln stuff was flawless and I need more shirtless scenes of them practice fighting all the time.

    SO HERE FOR HARPER AND MONROE MAKING OUT PAY ATTENTION 100 WRITERS.

    Murphy is the only reason I don’t skip all the Jaha stuff. Although I thought his scenes at the beginning of the episode were a bit ridiculous Richard Harmon is really freaking talented.

    The Jaha stuff is so pointless I don’t even understand why it’s a thing. LE SIGH.

    BEST GIF SET EVER

  4. Sana // artsy musings of a bibliophile
    Twitter:

    This will probably be a long ass comment because I just rewatched again as the first time was so overwhelming and there was too much squealing going on.

    Anyway, 100 percent on board with Raven and Octavia’s storylines. As much as I appreciate Abby trying to help Raven, I appreciate Raven telling her to fix herself much more. I love their dynamic for all the reasons you mentioned and their last scene together in the episode was A plus. Octavia has never belonged anywhere and I appreciate that they’re exploring her feelings on that. I like Linctavia and it’s better not to think about how they happened because that was messed up (but then what isn’t messed up on this show, right). Still, I like Lincoln and Octavia’s separate struggles and the exploration of those struggles a lot.

    So much yes to Clarke getting it on with Niylah, like YES, THAT WAS SUPER HOT (much more than the Clexa kiss, to be honest). However, the Bellamy/what’s her name was out of the blue and straight up in-your-face to Bellarke’s shippers. I laughed about that, too hah. Whatever, I’m pretty sure she’s not going to hang around for long. Okay, I hope she doesn’t because I just can’t see Arkers getting what the 100 have had to go through since their time on earth so soon.

    I started watching Black Sails a few weeks ago and I was wondering where I’ve seen Roan before so thank you for that mention and yes, very much approve of his character as well as Niylah’s.

    I LOVELOVELOVE the Adventure Squad™ but I also pretty much ignored Jasper and if Clarke was there, it would have been perfection. I don’t know why Bellamy said, ‘The chancellor’s not from Farm Station. Monty is. So is Miller’s boyfriend’ which made me go aren’t they the same person?! What?! Because seriously who the hell is Miller’s boyfriend. Why is this happening now. But then Miller did do that slapping the arm thing and paired it with the song lyrics so I’ll just wait here for Minty, thanks.

    Yep, 100% do not care about Jaha. It seems so pointless and a waste of screen time.

    I AM ALL ABOUT CLARKE GOING FROM PRINCESS TO THE COMMANDER OF DEATH AND CONFRONTING THE QUEEN OF THE ICE NATION. LIKE FUCK YES. ALSO, SO VERY EXCITED ABOUT THE NEXT EPISODE AND GETTING OUR BLONDE CLARKE BACK.

  5. Judith
    Twitter:

    I love this and I love you and I would write coherent comments but I already shouted my thoughts to you and I can’t do that again without needing to watch the episode again RIGHT NOW

    but ADVENTURE SQUAD GOALS AND RAVEN AND OCTAVIA AND BELLAMY AND CLARKE AND MINTY AND OH MY GOD THE PERFECTION

    #killjasperandjaha2k16

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