Ravenya003

I didn't mind the sex scene, but I object to how LONG it was. By comparison, Ivar killing the other child and Lagertha finally making good on her promise to Kalf felt rushed by comparison, and THOSE were the most interesting scenes in the show. Otherwise, everything felt like well-trod territory here. Yidu is Athelstan 2.0, and I can't help but feel Ragnar is projecting his Christian friend all over her: they're both diminutive dark-haired youngsters with knowledge of faraway places, and he's already starting to confide in her. The Wessex plot feels so pointless these days, and I'm disappointed they went there with Ecbert/Judith. It was an interesting enough dynamic without the sex, and I'm just left wondering what on earth they even see in each other. I want to like Judith, but she always seems so completely in over her head. And Athelwulf is a basket case. Thank goodness the Vikings are heading back to France. Perhaps there's a chance that plotline could be wrapped up this season.

Brilliant article, and one EVERY show-runner and writer needs to read. The days of social media is still Wild West territory in a lot of ways, and it's about time some proper guidelines were set down for people to negotiate it properly. The saddest thing is, regardless of what The 100 has already done or will do in the future, THIS is what it will be remembered for: Lexa's death and the subsequent fallout. Which is a shame, as it was (is?) a pretty great show. But as someone said on another thread, "Buffy" defined the Lesbian Death Trope for an entire generation of genre fans, and now Lexa has codified that trope for the current generation. Hey, at least it provides a perfect case study for future show-runners/marketeers about what NOT to do.

Max isn't a victim and Jack isn't a villain, and perhaps "sold out" wasn't the right word to describe what happened re:the treasure - but seriously, Jack's motivation in all this isn't survival, or a noble calling, or sticking it to The Man, or even protecting his friends and loved ones, but his own ego. He wants to go down in history as the Jack Rackham who brought war to Nassau. That's it. Heck, if he hadn't gone back to Nassau in the first place because he couldn't bear the thought of going under an assumed alias, he and Anne would be on a luxury Carribbean cruise by now. Also: This really makes no sense at all. Eleanor openly admitted to Woodes that her ability to oust Edward Teach from Nassau was contingent on the fact she was screwing Charles Vane. Every time he did something that benefited her (such as beheading Ned Lowe), she returned the favour by screwing him some more. Sex has ALWAYS been a tool in Eleanor's arsenal. And the idea that Eleanor commands more respect than Max with the pirates of Nassau is frankly laughable. The pirates hated Eleanor so much that they strung up an effigy of her outside the tavern with the words "good riddance" written on it, and have since been staging elaborate plays in which she gets sentenced to death by an English judge. What part of that screams "respect"? On the other hand, much of Max's power comes from her ability to control the street, BECAUSE she's a much less haughty manager than Eleanor, as well as knowing most of them on a more personal level. (And that's not a diss at Eleanor - she just made a few too many mistakes).

Flint killed a woman in the premiere of this season. Jack sold out Max a couple of episodes ago when he ignored her entreaty to have Anne bring back the pearls, a decision that will now bring Spain down upon all their heads, and which was made so that his name would live forever as the guy who started the war over Nassau. Heck, I love Rackham and it was totally in-character for him to do so, but within the context of the story it was a shitty move to pull.

You know, it'll never cease to amaze me that a man like Flint can shoot an unarmed, terrified woman in her own bedroom and nary a word is spoken, or that Rackham can betray Max out of sheer pride and get a "hell yeah!", but when an ex-slave tries to better her situation in life so she no longer has to fuck strangers for a living, she's an arrogant witch who needs to be taken down a peg. You mean the arrogance she demonstrated in her scene in the bath with Anne, in which she acknowledges the precariousness of her situation and fears she'll become known as "the whore who lost everything"? Yeah, that lack of self-awareness HAS to go. Except for coming up with the idea to transfer the gold into smaller, easily transportable pearls; approaching Woodes with a mutually beneficial agreement that would consolidate his power without uncomfortable questions being asked; instructing the women of the brothel to spread the idea that allying with Flint is a bad idea; immediately realizing Anne's restraint in the exchange is an indication that a plot is underway, and having enough people in her employ that she knows the route Woodes plans to take across the interior before even his commanding officer does - but sure, let's go with "not smart." I'd ask for an example, but I know I won't get one. She has neither seduced nor charmed anyone this season. Not once. The prolonged and violent gang-rape in season one wasn't "falling hard" enough for you? Jesus. Well, maybe she'll be sold back into slavery or hanged as a traitor, before or after a couple more rapes. It seems a fitting end for a women of colour who got a bit too uppity.

Not surprised, but like many others, my attitude toward the show has soured. I can't change the decisions that have already been made, but I can change the channel. Edit: This is an interesting read - Angry Fans May Have Driven Down the 100's Ratings This comment in particular popped out: "As to the specific massive reaction The 100 has received from queer viewers, they played Russian roulette with a gun that other television shows spent 20 years loading, and this time they lost... They gave interviews with blogs for queer women, which attracted the lesbian TV herd (we migrate like nobody’s business, forever seeking quality representation), and did a lot of twitter outreach. It worked! They got a ton of queer women watching, many of whom are loud teenagers on twitter. Because The 100 is a low-rated show on the smallest broadcast network in a historically fractured American television landscape, they're likely have the smallest straight audience of any broadcast show to kill a queer female character. They have a relatively large group of queer fans to be angry with them for going to the overdrawn well of the Tragic Lesbian Death, and historically few straight fans left over who don’t understand the controversy or history. A second explanation is accumulation- when a spate of queer women die on tv, the first one gets the least backlash. Network mate Jane the Virgin killed off a lesbian 10 days before Lexa, and fellow genre show Shannara killed off a queer character a few days before Lexa, so almost every angry queer woman you see on social media was judging The 100 with especially frustrated eyes. A third explanation is the Buffy rip-off. Most of their queer audience knows who Tara Maclay was and how Buffy killed her off when she was half of the only recurring lesbian couple on primetime TV. The 100 made every effort to evoke an emotional response to Lexa’s death, and they tapped a specific vein of hurt that they didn’t understand."

At this point I'm much more interested in what the viewing figures for 3.08 will be than I am in seeing how the Arkadia idiots will shoot themselves in the foot this week.

I always thought the name was a pun on his one-legged status. "Long johns" are a type of pants worn as underwear, and to call himself Long John (singular) is a joke about how he only needs one pant-leg. I don't think the nickname has actually been mentioned yet (and I'm sure I would have remembered it) but given the show's surprising fidelity to the novel's established facts, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before it's dropped. The Silver might well be his real name, but I always assumed Robert Louis Stevenson meant it as a reference to his silver tongue.

So I've just found out that the writer of this episode is not only good friends with Amber Benson (who played Tara "lesbian killed by a stay bullet that wasn't meant for her" Maclay in Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but is going to be the showrunner for a recently announced reboot of Xena Warrior Princess (another LGBT-friendly show that ended with one of its would-be lesbians getting brutally killed). I think we've crossed from offensiveness into complete surrealism at this point.

What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall of the writers' room right now. In my imagination it involves a lot of yelling and a burning waste-paper basket, since when cast members and writers are taking to social media to urge viewers not to kill themselves, you know something has gone very, very wrong.

Yes, it is Eme. My bad. Also, I don't think that Eleanor is seducing Woodes with the sole intention of screwing him over: she's just hedging her bets. Right now he's the only thing keeping her alive, and she knows that should they not get the Spanish gold back they're BOTH screwed, so she's trying to make herself as secure as possible. Also, didn't Woodes answer in the affirmative when Jack asked him if he had a wife? Eleanor wouldn't give two shits about adultery, but I still wonder if she's aware of his marital status. Probably since he's wearing a wedding ring, but odd that it's never been discussed before.

Damn this was a good episode! I loved seeing Abbe again - I actually glimpsed her serving tables last week but forgot to mention it in my post; but it made me wonder if she would pop up again. And of course she was Mr Scott's informant. Makes perfect sense! Interesting that Eleanor and Madi knew each other as children - I wonder if they'll meet up again. And I love that Max has essentially taken Eleanor's place in the story, and is struggling with the same difficulties. She's now betrayed Anne the same way Eleanor betrayed her. I still think that Eleanor might be playing Woodes. I doubt Vane has any power over her, but she had a pretty powerful bond with Flint, and I think she'd be won over by him in a second. Funny how Dufresne started this show more-or-less as the audience surrogate as to how life on a pirate ship worked, only to gradually fade away and be killed off to prove a point. I imagine the necessary switching of the actor had something to do with this, but it makes you wonder what would have happened otherwise. Another thing that's fantastic about this show: there might be fewer women than men, but the ones we've got are absolutely integral to the plot. They wield different types of power, from queens to administrators to informants - right down to the whores commissioned to spread rumours among their clients.

For anyone interested, the writer of this episode is on Tumblr, and has been (quite graciously) reblogging many of the furious/devastated/mournful messages from fans. Among other things, it's obvious the writing staff didn't expect this level of backlash, or fully understand the wider implications of the Bury Your Gays trope.

So do people think there'll be a drop in viewing figures after this episode? Fandom (specifically shippers) have a way of overestimating how important they are in whether or not a show is successful, but there is a LOT of anger and bitterness out there right now. I expect it'll be like Game of Thrones post-Sansa's rape: the very next episode had the lowest viewing figures of any aired episode, but things picked up again toward the end of the season. Maybe that's not the best example, since there's no way GoT is going to get canned before it finishes its story, but the fourth season of The 100 hasn't been green-lit yet. There's probably enough traction to give it the go-ahead, but Lexa's death hasn't been the only mistake they've made this season: the fridged girlfriend, Bellamy's OOC behaviour, the marginalization of fan-favourites... Bellamy/Clarke shippers will probably be strung along for a while longer (if there's one thing these writers are obviously good at, it's teasing its audience), but oddly enough, I think that Lexa's death actually diminishes the chance of them hooking up in the future.

I've been following a couple of Black Sails fans who went into meltdown mode, though it's easy to fall into the trap of assuming a platform like Tumblr is a hivemind. So far this fandom has been blessedly free of shipping wars (oy, you should see what's going down in The 100 fandom) and I had a kneejerk reaction to seeing it start up here as well. Plus Madi/Silver are starting to interest me, especially after reading this review. To quote: I've realized this is possibly the show's greatest strength: making sure that absolutely every single character, right down to the minor characters, have their own agendas and histories, as well as plans for the future based entirely on those agendas and histories.

Hmm, not the best episode, but I can understand its purpose: it was a transitional episode, setting up the board and rearranging the pieces for the second half of the season. (We're over halfway already!) I think there can be little doubt at this stage that Madi is the future Mrs Silver. (Tumblr is predictably losing its mind). Scott's talk to his daughter about creating a villain for a story was interesting, namely because I think it was loaded with foreshadowing for what happens between Silver/Flint prior to the start of Treasure Island. That's goes ditto for Billy's words to Benjamin Gunn on the beach prior to the Teach/Flint duel. One thing bugged me: how amazingly eloquent these pirates are. I expect it from Flint, but this episode had Silver, Billy, Teach, Vane and Mr Scott all waxing lyrically about relationships, heartaches and the meaning of life. Hilariously not Anne though, who didn't get a single word of dialogue: just violence. I like how she's now the key to the unfolding situation - the show has been underutilizing her until now, so hopefully she'll have a more pivotal role in future episodes.

My favourite part? The evil little smile on Clarke's face when she spares Emerson's life, knowing that she was using her own "blood must not have blood" rhetoric to condemn him to a much crueller fate than death. For all her talk about forgiveness and peace, she knew damn well what she was doing when she chose to show "mercy" to the guy who has a dead teenager's bone marrow in his system.

I get the feeling most of the debate surrounding this episode will focus on The Slap. I was disappointed in Ragnar - I neither love nor hate Aslaug, but I've always felt that along with his curiosity and cunning, the fact that he's never laid violent hands on a woman/child is what set Ragnar apart from his brethren. (Well, except that time he ordered the deaths of Horik's wife and daughters. Ahem). There was some good stuff here, but again I feel that the cast/story is too scattered. I have faith that it'll all conjoin eventually, but at one point we're watching a scene between two characters that I realized are only connected to the main cast by the fact that the dude is getting information from a woman who is sleeping with an army general who is working for the Emperor of Paris whose daughter has been married off to the brother of the actual main character of the show. I've never liked Prince Jerkface and Princess Crazypants more than when (both covered in blood) they acknowledged each other post-life-saving. He just nods in exhaustion and she snarls: "what took you so long?" It might be a cliche, but it's a classic for a reason. Not sure what Ecbert is up to, but I find it hard to believe he's doing all this for his daughter-in-law out of the goodness of his heart. Be careful, Judith. You've already lost one ear to this guy. So Ragnar's punishment for Floki is not only the god Loki's punishment after he killed Baldur the Beautiful (being tied up in a cave with acid/water dripping on his head) but filled with obvious Christian symbolism. This is when the show is at its most interesting: in exploring the fundamental similarities between belief-structures as well as their differences.

Oh yes, I was a Lost viewer! Thing is, however crazy the plots on that show got, I felt that the writers managed to at least keep a handle on their characters. Here... I don't know, but it just felt like things are unravelling a bit. Granted, there is a basic historical template that the writers have to follow, but I'm not hugely interested in Floki's punishment or Lagertha's weird relationship with Calf or Rollo's second betrayal. The characters just seem a bit diminished somehow. Of course, it's just the first episode, so I'm willing to trust that things will get ironed out later.

Just caught up with it, and enjoyed it - though wasn't quite as captivated as in previous seasons. I really feel the loss of Athelstan, and the French characters don't interest me all that much. I think the major problem though is that the cast is so scattered, when most of the show's strength is in the dynamics between them. That, and I fear the writers may have a few too many balls up in the air. I have no idea how many more seasons this show is expected to run, but plot-lines like the Wanderer, Thorunn, Rollo's new marriage, Lagertha/Calf, Bjorn heading off into the wilderness, Floki's trial, Eckbert and Judith - they're all going to need closure at some point. Remember when the first two seasons ended cleanly on the deaths of Earl Haraldson and King Horik? I miss that. Not sure what to make of Rollo/Gisla, or of people's reaction to it. Sure Gisla would have expected a political marriage, but to a man who helped invade her city, slaughter her soldiers and who isn't even a Christian? It's impossible to underestimate how central a person's faith was to a person back in those days, or what it would mean to be joined in wedlock to someone so fundamentally removed from it. Yet the tone seems to be off: in the church we're asked to feel sorry for Gisla, yet in the bedroom her distress was played more for laughs. Thankfully Rollo demonstrated more compassion for her than he did the slave back in season one, but his final decision to ambush his fellow Vikings means this isn't in any way a "beauty and the beast" narrative with Gisla eventually coming around to his inner nobility (there isn't any!) I guess I'll just have to wait and see how it unfolds. I'll also stand up for Aslaug: I like her in the same way I like Britta from Community: she's prissy and self-absorbed, but I find those traits oddly endearing. I've never doubted her love for her children, and she carries herself beautifully: every inch a queen.

I was late to watching this one, and it didn't disappoint! My brief and scattered thoughts: Loved that the heart of this show is essentially the world's outcasts (women, POC, a one-legged man, a gay captain) banding together to stick it to The Man. That said, the movement is being led by Flint, who is essentially the Joker - at this point, he just wants to watch the world burn. (Difference is, we're actually egging him on). I think Mr Scott will pull through. He didn't seem to be fading, but growing stronger. Loved seeing Eleanor and Max reunited, though it was also very sad: they loved each other once, and now I doubt either of them believes a word the other said. Laughed out loud when the scene cut from Woodes's devastated face to Jack and Anne sauntering down the road together. But Jack - what are you doing?? Your reputation isn't worth a stupid pardon. Especially since... ... all that stuff on the Spanish ship. I was under the impression that the documentation would prove all the pardons being dished out would prove to be worthless or reneged upon, but that doesn't make much sense considering they were being handed out by the English. I just can't help but feel the pirates are being played somehow. Flint wants to find Charles Vane. Aw, yeah.

For the record... Historical Figures: Charles Vane Jack Rackham Anne Bonny Benjamin Hornigold Woodes Rogers Edward Teach "Blackbeard" Treasure Island characters: James Flint John Silver Billy Bones Benjamin Gunn Original characters: Eleanor Guthrie Max Miranda Barlow Everyone else, basically.

This was probably my favourite episode yet. So glad they avoided the cliche of the "hostile natives" - I get that it's a staple part of pirate stories, but it REALLY should be retired by now, and I gasped out loud when Ben Gunn introduced himself. Yup, they're definitely on Treasure Island. However, unlike my prediction last week, in which I said Max would end up as Mrs Silver, it would appear we have a new contender for the role: the Queen's daughter. As much as I love our pirate boys, I couldn't disagree with anything the Queen was saying: she's created a safe haven for escaped slaves: the very LAST thing she should be doing is letting go of any strangers who would probably sell them out for a couple of coins. And Mr Scott! That was a great reveal, and I only twigged about a second before he appeared on the beach. Hopefully though his wound isn't fatal: they've been wasting him so far, and I really want to see him reunited with Eleanor and his family before the end of the show. Eleanor/Woods will be falling into bed any second now - there's every chance that she'll get out of this mess alive. Also loved the Vane/Rackham farewell - though I suspect Rackham's desire for a grand reputation will be what gets him killed. And I loved Flint's realization that the English are carrying out his exact plan for Nassau: granting the pirates pardons. No wonder he seems so lost. How can he fight the English when they're acting according to his lost love's wishes?

it would have made more sense if Bellamy/Echo were the couple that the season started with, only for Echo to betray him to the Queen by leading him to Polis. It would have given Bellamy the "personal element" the writers were pushing for with the introduction of Gina, avoided a cliched fridging, and given Bellamy a more compelling reason to act on feelings of betrayal (that he not only trusted but was in a relationship with someone plotting against him). Plus there would have been some juicy recriminations between them later (Word of God is that Echo insisted on Bellamy accompanying her to Polis because she didn't want him to die in the Mountain) and a nice parallel between Lexa/Clarke from last season.

All the Polis stuff was great, save for the premature death of the Ice Queen. I get this show likes its shocking deaths, but surely she could have been mined for more drama. I was looking forward to finding out more about Costia and the beef Nya had with Lexa. Obviously SOMETHING fairly massive had to have gone down between them, but it doesn't look like we'll ever know now. As for the Grounder/Arkadia stuff - this was season 1 levels of stupidity. How difficult would it have been for Kane to trot over to the Grounder army and say: "look guys, we appreciate the protection, but we've got some riled up civilians who are busy mourning for their dead and they don't like that you're camped out on their doorstep. Do you mind backing up a bit and using Lincoln/Indra as go-betweens until things calm down?" Bellamy - not sure I'm buying what the writers are selling. I get that he's hurting, but massacring Grounders is so obviously a terrible idea, and one that could easily put Clarke in danger (he doesn't know Lexa - what if she decides to retaliate by sending back Clarke's head?) that it's difficult to feel too much sympathy.