The 100, 2x08

[oyceter]

Apparently I am watching all the CW shows, all the time now. (Well, not Jane the Virgin yet, but it's next.)

I wanted to write up a general post before this, but I got stuck, so maybe some other time.

Spoilers

WOW, they actually went there. I started to think so with the flashbacks and was fairly sure when you get to the reveal of why Finn went to prison, but for a very brief moment, I was afraid they'd kill off Raven as a sort of repayment for Finn saving her life. (Hi, show, I am still annoyed about Wells.)

Anyway, this is promising, because Finn was a really boring character, and I had an incredibly difficult time believing that Clarke of all people would so quickly overlook his actions. Ditto the leaders of the Ark, who had the whole "break a single rule and get floated," thinking it was somehow terrible to give him a war crimes trial. I was yelling at the screen in the beginning, because torturing someone, then shooting them, then gunning down 18 other unarmed people trying to escape is kind of beyond "we all had to do terrible things to survive" or grief and anger because he thinks Clarke may have been killed.

Hopefully there will be some good Raven and Clarke scenes after this.

I love Lexa and how many female leaders the show has (and the reveal of who Lexa was in the trial set for Kane and Jaha), but I really really wish they a) hadn't killed Anya and b) didn't make the black female leader the vengeful, violent one.

Comments

[kuwdora]

Jane the Virgin has been my favorite new show of the television season! sorry, don't watch the 100, but omg Jane the Virgin is DELIGHTFUL AND WONDERFUL. ♥

[intothespin]

YAY YOU WATCHED YAY.

I think it's ridiculous that none of the Ark people thought Finn should be punished for MASSACRING 18 PEOPLE. It makes sense to me that Clarke would be against him being killed, because Clarke has always argued against execution as a punishment, and I'm glad she couldn't say she forgave him, but it felt like there should have been a lot more judgment and a lot less self-blame there. (Some self-blame, sure. People do.) I can even make a case for Abby being against executing him, because Abby did actually always argue against killing people on the Ark (even if it took a LOT to make her actually go public with the Council's plans). But there's a difference in not wanting to kill someone and not thinking they did anything worth punishment.

And I want an acknowledgement that the Ark executed WAY more people than we've seen any sign the Grounders tend to, whether or not they did it for vengeance or for survival. I am really frustrated with how the Ark people keep insisting that wanting Finn to die for murdering 18 people is savage and barbaric. (I mean, I'm against the death penalty, but this is not an unreasonable response. And they do not have the resources to put someone in jail. At bare minimum, Finn should have been exiled, like Murphy -- and, of course, in these circumstances, exile is most likely a death sentence.)

Anyway! I am also unhappy re: Anya and that Indra is the vengeful, violent one, and also that Dr. Tsing (apparently not Singh? I don't even know) is the one pushing inhumane experiments at Mt. Weather. Dr. Tsing is really undercharacterized in general. I'm glad that they're complicating Indra slightly in her interactions with Clarke and Abby, but they have a long way to go to make up for the general stereotype.

I do love Lexa, though.

I'm really excited by the fall out, though, particularly between Clarke and Raven and in how the Ark people and the Grounders form their alliance.

[meganbmoore]

I really dislike the "Raven did the spacewalk" reveal, as it reads to me as a retcon meant to push some guilt onto her and a last ditch effort to make Finn look a little better before he died, but other than that, this episode was amazing. (I also inappropriately cracked up at Lincoln's "Look, I kinda liked the guy before, but he just MASSACRED MY VILLAGE. You sure I'm the right person to go to about this?" bit.) I'm particularly pleased that they continue to ignore the "healers don't/shouldn't heal" trope and that Abby is completely unapologetic about not turning power over to the men who used to have it now that they want it back.

[hesychasm]

What is the healers trope, if I may butt in?

Otherwise, I could have written this comment. I hated the Raven reveal for the same reasons as you, although I admit I've had an irrational hateboner for Finn almost since his first appearance and the mitigation of his awfulness was annoying. Then again, the spacewalk was his idea, not Raven's, so the reveal didn't redeem him that much.

I think Clarke's initial insistence to Lincoln that he should defend Finn because Finn was "his friend" just shows how far she has to go to see the Grounders as human beings of equal worth to the Ark citizens. Like, it's fine and understandable for her to care about her own people more. But girl had some serious blinders on trying to argue with Lincoln about what Finn did, and I'm glad the episode allowed him to voice his perspective on that.

(I do love Clarke and she is my fave, but I still have a lot of complicated feelings about her.)

[meganbmoore]

There's a really common trope in fiction that healers (unless they're evil) aren't supposed to kill or be ruthless because it's their calling to save lives, not take them, and healers (particularly healers) are usually "talked down" from revenge and such to save them from tarnishing themselves or whatever.

I think Clarke's "he's your friend" to Lincoln was also about the fact that Finn was the one who reached out AFTER Lincoln stabbed and poisoned him (which is the only redeemable thing Finn did for me the whole series so far). But yes, I think Clarke sees the Grounders as more human that the Mount Weather people (who have even said they don't consider the Grounders to be human, and are behind most of the "savages" comments) but agree that she has a long way to go.

I started off neutrally disinterested in both Finn and Bellamy, but quickly came to hate Finn and a bit more slowly became very fond of Bellamy. (Which is a bit odd for me, because I usually don't care for CW's "hot bad boy" characters all that much. Or outright hate them.)

The spacewalk was Finn's idea, and he's still the one who screwed up (and with Raven, there's also the psychological and emotional aspect of the only person who's ever loved her setting up something that she thought she'd never be able to do otherwise for her, which is going to impact anyone's judgement) so even though he did it for someone he loved (which I'm pretty sure is what we're supposed to focus on) it was still his screwup, even though, on the surface, it seems to be an attempt to shift the blame.

[shewhohashope]

I hated Bellamy well into the post Raven on Earth era, but I don't see how they could ever redeem Finn for this one. Even giving himself up to be horribly tortured didn't touch me because he was still doing it for Clarke. A person who has no morality outside how their actions affect the people they love is not a person I can care about.

And they keep mentioning that he slaughtered children and elders. I really feel like the show went way too far in order to the story they seem to want to tell. Particularly when you have Clarke comparing it to things she actually did to survive, and Raven comparing it to the injury she got from someone shooting her in the back.

[meganbmoore]

I think Bellamy dropped in my original estimation and then went up, but I honestly can't say when I started to like him.

The worst thing about Finn and remorse/retribution, I think, is that never once did he actually express remorse for his ACTIONS (that I recall) just that there were CONSEQUENCES for his actions, which weren't done out of fear or desperation (which even Bellamy can claim for throwing away the radio and attempting to assassinate Jaha, not that it makes either better) much less survival (pretty much anything Clarke has done) but out of anger and his refusal to accept that they couldn't give him what he wanted (Clarke).

[shewhohashope]

An unrelated Bellamy thing: I wish we got more of him being anxious about Miller. Aren't they the best of friends??

ETA: and I'm glad we got to see Miller Sr. And that he called Abby out on being desperate to get their kids back up until she got HER kid back, at which point, fuck them all.

[shewhohashope]

I'm so sad that they killed Anya and replaced her with a visionary white girl and an angry black woman, but I can forgive almost everything because Finn is dead, and as long as I don't remember anything about him, that's enough for me.

[meganbmoore]

I was very hopeful that Anya would make a surprise comeback that time Abby was pulled away because she was needed in surgery, but no. (And I actually like Lexa a lot, but am VERY bitter that we lost Anya for her, and that the frenemy relationship Clarke was building with her will now be Clarke/Lexa instead.)