WiC Watches: The 100 season 7
By Zac Giaimo
The 100 — “False Gods” — Image Number: HU702a_0293r.jpg — Pictured (L-R): Eliza Taylor as Clarke, Tati Gabrielle as Gaia and Shannon Kook as Jordan Green — Photo: Dean Buscher/The CW — 2020 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.
Episode 703: “False Gods”
Back on Sanctum, Clarke and the rest of One Crew struggle to keep the other citizens from killing each other. The three groups — the Old Earth prisoners, the Children of Gabriel, and those devoted to the Primes — are at each other’s throats over the fate of Russel Prime (JR Bourne), although they still don’t know that he’s been killed and the feared grounder Commander Sheidheda (Dustin Daulby) has taken control of his body.
The change is Russel’s demeanor is obvious almost instantly when Jordan visits him in his cell. Even the look of the episode cues us in to something being wrong: the camera angles are slightly different and the music is more ominous. But when he gives a speech to his followers not to break him out, he’s much more convincing.
Sheidheda is being set up here to be the main antagonist for our heroes, but given the events of last week’s episode, it’s clear to me that whatever Octavia and Diyoza faced on the other side of the Anomaly will be the true test. How Sheidheda exactly gets into Russel’s mind chip isn’t clear, but it’s obvious that, although the real Russel Prime sought death, Sheidheda does not. His plan to show the chaos that would result from his death goes well, but it leaves the viewer with more questions than answers.
While all this is going on, Raven, Murphy, Emori, and some of the prisoners try to stop the nuclear reactor that powers Sanctum from melting down killing everyone. Even after six seasons, radiation continues to be the ultimate threat these people face, a threat that makes whatever problems they’re facing as individuals feel meaningless.
Raven recruits prisoners with welding experience to close the leaking cooling lines, while using Murphy and Emori’s Nightblood to fix the problem with the core. When Raven is talking to the prisoners, she mentions that the job is “fairly routine,” which immediately makes the viewers — or me, at least — think that the prisoners will die doing this job. So when they inevitably do, not only is it not surprising, but the whole fiasco seems like a way to pit the prisoners against the main cast. I mean, they gave their lives to save the entire human race, but that’s just glanced over as the remaining prisoners, as well as Murphy and Emori, instantly blame Raven for their deaths when literally anybody — besides the four people on the planet with Nightblood — would have died doing what they did. And things only got bad when a member of One Crew Raven trained to watch the core tried something stupid to impress his girlfriend, which isn’t even mentioned when everyone starts blaming Raven.
I mentioned it back in the review of the premiere, but there are way too many plot lines being set up here. It’s understandable that the writers want to go big for the final season, but this is getting so convoluted I’m afraid they’re going to have to take serious shortcuts to make it work.
It may seem like I don’t really enjoy this show as I nitpick everything. But it’s just the opposite. I hold this show to a higher standard than most CW programs because of its ability to tackle difficult problems without shoving an opinion down your throat. From war to happiness to human existence itself, The 100 allows the viewer to make up their own minds about these hard questions.
Early in the season, a theme seems to be emerging about whether someone ever deserves to die, even if their death would benefit many people. Russel Prime has committed various atrocities and lives as a God based on lies. He’s brainwashed half of what remains of humanity for the benefit of himself and his family. But does he deserve to die for his sins? Or should Clarke and the rest of the heroes take the higher ground and go down a different path than they have in the past? The writes don’t outright give you the answers to these questions. And even when the characters make their choices, they’re never certain. In this episode, Indra and Clarke decide to keep Russel Prime alive after seeing the reaction his followers have to him getting shot. But it’s clear it is not an easy decision, even for Indra, who has always been a decisive person. I love when shows can present an issue without a solution. It’s what keeps me as a viewer thinking about what happened days after I’ve watched it.
This episode wasn’t up to the standard the show has set for itself, but it does move the story along in a semi-organic way. The plot has certainly thickened. I’m just hoping it’s no so think it has no room to move.