WiC Watches: The 100 season 7

The 100 — “The Flock” — Image Number: HUN708b_0224r.jpg — Pictured (L-R): JR Bourne as Sheidheda, Adina Porter as Indra and Richard Harmon as Murphy — Photo: Colin Bentley/The CW — 2020 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.

Episode 709: “The Flock”

We’re thankfully back to the main story this week, as John and Indra must retake Sanctum while Hope, Octavia, Echo and Diyoza take to become Disciples. Not for the first time this season, the timelines of each storyline vary greatly, and it’s still hard to tell if it matters. Since the story is told from a different perspective each time, the audience jumps from future to the present to the past. Even when things seem to be all caught up, we’re thrown into a flashback or down a completely unrelated path. This messes with the pacing, as seemingly important moments are deemphasized or resolved way too quickly. Everything feels like it’s being rushed to fit into one season instead of two, and the problem has been getting worse as the season goes on.

It’s in full effect in “The Flock.” In this episode, we learn that Hope was the only one not to make the cut to be a Disciple, and is sentenced to another five years on Penance. Throughout the process, she was the only one who seemed to hold onto her sense of self. The other would-be Disciples seemed to give themselves over to the training soul, body and mind. Three months of conditioning and Diyoza, Echo and Octavia all forget who they are, cut ties to their former lives, and become Disciples to fight a vaguely defined war. Only Hope, who has spent much of her life in isolation, retains her identity.

The execution of these scenes isn’t bad, but the overall plot development is ridiculous and hard to believe for pretty much all of the characters.

On Sanctum, however, things finally start to develop. Emori and the Faithful are being held hostage by the prisoners and Indra and John hatch a plan to save them. The plan is good one and they both stick to their roles. It goes perfectly and they rescue Emori, taking the prisoners down at the same time.

This is when things finally get interesting. Shedheda uses his small group of devout followers to escape his chains and brutally murders the Faithful who tried killing him for being a false God. It is a brutal feat of violence so great that he even gains the support of some members of OneCrew. The final scene finds him drenched in the blood of his enemies standing over a room full of corpses with members of OneCrew bending the knee to the deadliest Commander their people had ever known.

Violence and war have always been the defining features of this show. Bringing back the violent, barbaric life that so many of the grounder peoples lived within these new, seemingly untainted worlds is the kind of conflict this season needs, and I’m happy to see it finally begin.

Grade C-

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