The 100 has returned with a vengeance. Picking up three months after the events inside Mount Weather, the delinquents and Sky People were enjoying a tenuous peace with the Grounders. But peace cannot last in a world like this, where Clarke Griffin has been hailed as the Wanheda, the Commander of Death, and the Grounder-hating Pike is elected to be the new Chancellor of Arkadia.

Spoilers ahead!

Arkadia

The last time we saw Raven, she’d had the startling realization that ALIE had erased a good portion of her memories. Now, she’s desperately trying everything to keep ALIE out of her head: locked in her room, she listens to loud music, reads aloud, and works out in a frantic frenzy. Although it causes ALIE to struggle to maintain her hold, the artificial intelligence can’t be gotten rid of that easily. Raven concocts a plan to get ALIE out for good, and recruits Jasper and Abby. Things go awry when ALIE and Jaha decide that enough is enough; ALIE lets Raven feel her pain as a reminder of what her world was like before she swallowed the chip. Overwhelmed by the unexpected onslaught of physical discomfort and torturous memories, Raven (despite her valiant efforts) lets ALIE back in. But this time, ALIE takes control of Raven’s body, and in a possibly triggering scene uses it to force Abby to take the chip herself.

ALIE’s army is steadily growing, and with Abby under her thumb there’s a good chance that the majority of the Sky People will be convinced to enter the City of Light…which is absolutely terrifying, because not only does it make ALIE stronger, but they basically do anything she says without question and become zombie-like when under orders. Luckily, Jasper is no longer tempted to take the chip now that he’s seen what it’s done to Raven. Although Jasper cannot see ALIE, he can see the effect she has on his people, and knows he has to do something. He knocks Raven out so that ALIE can’t see what she sees, “kidnaps” her, and steals the range rover. As he breaks through the main gate, a horde of ALIE’s disciples behind him, he nearly runs over none other than Clarke.

Outside the walls

Somewhere outside Arkadia, but still within the blockade limits, Bellamy is chained up waiting for his sister to return. She eventually does, with Kane and their cohorts in tow. Bellamy immediately realizes that Lincoln is missing, and is devastated to learn that he was killed. Cue Octavia’s savage beating of her brother, and the declaration that he’s dead to her. The scene was brutal to watch; sure, Bellamy let Pike get to him and turned his back on his friends. But is that justification for Octavia’s actions? She may be in mourning, but I have a feeling she would have killed her own brother in that moment of rage and pain.

The group is contacted via radio by Monty, who snuck out of Arkadia on his mother’s warning. (There’s an implication that she’s the one who outed him to Pike in the first place, but that’s a whole other bucket of fucked up family dynamics.) Kane and Octavia go to meet him at the dropship, but take Bellamy along as a hostage just in case it’s a trick from Pike. Sure enough, Pike trailed Monty when he left Arkadia, and has him at gunpoint at the dropship. Seeing his chance at having Pike so close to the blockade border, Bellamy continues the charade of being on the Chancellor’s side, and overpowers Octavia. He pretends to lead Pike and the guards back to the cave where the rest of the “traitors” are waiting…and instead leads them over the blockade line. Pike is (shot? knocked out? it was hard to tell) traded to the grounders and will be taken to the new Commander. Despite this problem being seemingly solved, Kane is still hesitant for several reasons. He’s not certain if Bellamy is acting out of trying to make things right with Octavia, or because it’s the correct thing to do. He’s also concerned about the new Commander and the Sky People’s status as the thirteenth clan. He decides to accompany the grounders back to Polis…let’s just hope Ontari doesn’t have him killed.

Polis

Back in the grounder capital, Murphy is helping Ontari with the ruse that she has already ascended as the Commander, even though Clarke stole the flame (aka Lexa’s spirit aka ALIE 2.0). As an audience, we can’t be certain if the ever-changeable Murphy is doing this to save his own skin or if he’s just trying to get close to Ontari in order to help his people. Despite his character development, Murphy is still a complicated and complex individual. He’s able to coax Ontari into telling him a bit of her backstory, which sounds pretty tragic…but I have no sympathy for someone who beheaded a bunch of unarmed children in their sleep. Despite my dislike, she is also an interesting dynamic at this point in the show. She was taken from her family at a young age and groomed (harshly) by the Ice Queen—she views the throne as not only her birthright, but her prize for living through years of what was probably torture.

But of course, because this season is pretty fucked up, the writers had to throw a scene of dubious consent in there. Through smiling lips, Ontari threatens to kill Murphy if he doesn’t sleep with her. Sexual assault, anyone?

Wait, what?

This episode finally set some things in motion that 1) weren’t major characters deaths and 2) may lead to a better remainder of the season. Clarke is back with her people, or some of them, anyway. (Will she finally have a storyline again? Cause that’s really all I ask for.) Pike is gone. ALIE is taking over Arkadia. And in the next episode, Clarke and Bellamy are reunited. Again. Do we finally get the hug??

Let me know your thoughts on Twitter @ImpalaMutineers.

May we meet again,

The Collected Mutineer

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