S07.E03: False Gods

[CooperTV]

Quote

As Raven (Lindsey Morgan) faces an unexpected threat, Clarke (Eliza Taylor) must keep the peace among opposing factions in Sanctum.

Original airdate 6/3/2020.

[Lady Calypso]

So...this was a slow episode. 

I mean, I'm glad that this episode was Raven's, especially since she got very little to do last season, and I'm glad for Murphy/Emori getting a bigger role, especially Emori. And their plot was better than whatever the hell they were doing with Russellheda, Clarke, and Gaia. 

But, still, a relatively pointless episode.

All it did was put Raven in Clarke's shoes where she had to make a difficult decision. Hopefully, this does lead to Raven getting off her moral high horse, because High Horse Raven pisses me off with her condescending tone and stink face. Unfortunately, it still didn't make her look good because her attitude kind of sucks. How seamless she was when she lied to the Eligus men was frustrating. I get that she needed them to fix the cracks but she was just so cold about the whole situation. Maybe it was her compartmentalizing, but she tends to be very rude when she does things like this. And snapping at Murphy the entire time when he was trying to help didn't do much good, besides getting snarky Murphy.

I do think that Raven was stuck in an impossible decision and I get why she did what she did; I just wish she didn't have a stink-face attitude while doing it. Especially her comment about Murphy going to be a cockroach as she locks the door behind him as he's going to help the Eligus crew. 

Emori was fantastic in this episode and it's a shame we haven't gotten way more of her. And Murphy was also on point with his snark. Plus, I think this is the first time we see Shirtless Murphy in a scene where he's not getting beaten up. Or maybe this is the first time we see Shirtless Murphy in daylight.  

But now, Raven has made a choice that did lead to four deaths. I mean, I guess it could have been more so she doesn't FULLY understand the choices that Clarke has had to make, but it's a start. I can't say I felt too badly about Nikki beating her up, though it did get hard to watch with how violent it ended up being, and especially knowing that Raven often gets tortured and beat up on this show. 

As for the other plot...*sighs* I still don't care about Sheidheda. And all Clarke did was talk to Gaia the entire time. It was nice to see Gaia take a bit of a more upfront role, though. Too bad she wasn't able to pull a Blodreina and get Wonkru to follow her. But that's what happens when you can't convince Wonkru to follow a non-Commander. Also, not quite sure why Clarke couldn't have Madi just stand at the door to tell them to listen to Gaia, but alrighty, then. 

However, at least Clarke got a mostly quiet and peaceful episode. She mostly got to talk about her feelings to Gaia and that was nice. Girl seriously deserves a break after all the shit she's had to endure last season. But it really seems like they're setting something up with Clarke/Gaia which...feels almost too little too late with it being the last season. 

Jordan...is still an annoying character. He's just written badly. He could have been a more interesting character with his background, but they insist on making him as annoying as possible.

[thuganomics85]

Whelp, I should have known that a lighter, carefree Raven wasn't going to last for long!  Tonight, she realizes on a smaller scale that everything isn't as black and white as she acts like it is, and basically orders four men to their deaths.  Sure, it was to save everyone else and it really did look like there was no other option, but the secrecy and way she handled things certainly wasn't impressive.  Maybe this will make her rethink how she had reacted and treated Clarke in the past.  Or even Murphy now, which included her snarking on him for real no good reason.  I do wonder if there will be lasting implications with the criminal group over this, since one of the victims was the leader who came off more reasonable than the others, while his surviving wife... well, doesn't seem to agree with his methods!

At least Emori got to be a badass here.  I'm hoping against hope Murphy/Emori survive all of this and keep being the wiseass, self-serving, but surprisingly loving and refreshingly honest powerhouse couple that they are.

In other unsurprising news, the factions continue to fall apart as Wonkru finds out that Madi is no longer the Commander, and pretty much bail on everyone else.  I appreciate Gaia wanting to do the honest thing, but maybe listen to your mother next time, buddy!  Indra really is one of the few who realizes how things usually go down on this show!

No surprise that Jordan is being played like a fiddle and Russellheda (heh, love it!) is already staging his eventual escape.  Just let Indra put a bullet in him, Clarke!

I did love Gaia's "Burning down the palace was maybe a bit extreme" line, because; wherever she meant that or not; it really was only a bit extreme, because arson really is low on the list of shit that has happened in this world!

 

[tennisgurl]

How did two of the smartest people on this show create a kid as stupid as Jordan? Like, obviously they're manipulating you, you know this guy isn't trustworthy (he and his people killed his kind of girlfriend to wear her body like a prom dress!) and yet your just going along with it! 

Kind of a dull episode, its basically a variation on issues the show has done plenty of times before. Factions that are all on the verge of killing each other while the main characters try and keep order, some kind of ticking clock science problem that will leave people dead, having to decide who lives and who dies, those arent bad stories, but its all been done before and better by this show. I also was left wanting to know what was going on with Bellamy and Octavia and the planet jumping stuff, I really hope that the whole cast can get together soon, I dont want to spend all season going from one group to the next from one episode to the next, it can really kill the momentum and keeps a huge portion of the cast away from each other. 

Hopefully this will give Raven such more needed perspective and realize they way she treated Clarke last season was really crappy, now that she has some tiny inkling of what she had to go through and the hard choices she made. I did like that Raven got more to do, after last season where she pretty much existed to be a dick to Clarke, and Murphy/Emori got a lot of really good material. I especially loved Murphy basically calling Raven out on her self riotous judgmental attitude, especially after she spent all episode being pointlessly snarky at him, even in life or death situations. I love Murphy/Emori, they have really become the shows best and most stable couple, they really just get each other so much, and I liked seeing them getting to show some heroics. 

Its bad the head prison guy died, he at least seemed pretty reasonable and open to peace, his wife seems a lot less so, especially now, and it seems like she might take his spot as leader. 

I cracked up at Gaia telling Clarke that "burning down the palace was a bit extreme" because yeah, that was a whole lot. And when Raven was telling everyone about how someone would have to turn the radiation stuff off manually, and Clarke automatically volunteers to go, while Murphy was like "obviously Clarke will volunteer for any suicide mission she can find" and they both give each other a Look. They dont interact a whole lot, but Clarke and Murphy are one of my favorites dynamics on the show.

[quarks]

1. Ugh, Jordan. Kid, I realize that you spent most of your life with just two people, who also happened to be two of the more optimistic people on this show - but Harper was also a realist, and we know Monty and Harper told you at least some of the stories about their past. You knew about Wahnheda, and you knew about Murphy. So how on Sanctum have you ended up this freaking naive - to the point where you are more naive and more easily manipulated than the semi-brainwashed followers of the Primes, who grew up in a comparative utopia?  Geesh, kid. LEARN SOMETHING.

I guess I should be going, yay, finally, a character who isn't suspicious/paranoid and who is incredibly naive and can be easily manipulated, what a lovely change, but the problem is, in six previous seasons and five or six separate cultures (Ark, Grounders, Mountain People, Eligius, Sanctum, and Children of Gabriel), no one else has been portrayed as this naive and stupid. Even the kids. Even the Sanctum residents who still believe the Primes are gods. Even the two episode welder. It makes Jordan stand out, and not in a good way. 

2. My overall sense of this episode was that Madi wasn't in it less because leaving her out made any sense and more because the actress had hit the cap of her legal working hours as a minor. 

3. I am loving this friendship between Clarke and Gaia. And as always, Indra, and specifically Adina Porter, remains a highlight of this show.

4. Also, yay Emori and Murphy, especially that whole bit about "I thought you weren't paying attention!" "Don't ruin my rep." 

5. Why was Sanctum running on nuclear power and not, say, solar power? Or wind power? And since they were running on nuclear power, why weren't more of the Sanctum residents trained in how to maintain a nuclear reactor, or, failing that, basic welding? I know that the actual answer to this question is, because The 100 is absolutely fixated on the subject of nuclear power/weapons and their dangers, but it still doesn't make a lot of sense.

6. All of which meant, despite some good stuff here, I had troubles getting into this episode - I just couldn't buy Jordan as a character, and I couldn't buy the whole nuclear power issue. And I'm still bored with EvilHeda. Hoping we go back to the more interesting Anomaly plotline next episode.

 

[ottoDbusdriver]

That was so boring.  I think the welders were the lucky ones since they didn't have to be in this show anymore..

Raven has been beaten and tortured so many times that this was barely a love tap by comparison

[SourK]

Here's the thing -- in a scenario where Raven told prisoncru the truth, and That One Robber decided to help anyway, and then the radiation turned out to be worse than Raven thought, and That One Robber died, That One Robber's girlfriend would still go completely berserk and swear revenge on everyone else.

So, why did we need this to be a convoluted story about a not-very-convincing lie?

If the point was partly for Raven to betray prisoncru, they could have just left in the part where, once she realized they were getting hit with fatal radiation, she decided not to tell them.

On 6/3/2020 at 11:50 PM, thuganomics85 said:

At least Emori got to be a badass here.  I'm hoping against hope Murphy/Emori survive all of this and keep being the wiseass, self-serving, but surprisingly loving and refreshingly honest powerhouse couple that they are.

 

I'm also rooting for them, though I have a bad feeling that one or the other will have to die before the end. In the meantime, I'm enjoying their Prime fashions.

7 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

How did two of the smartest people on this show create a kid as stupid as Jordan? Like, obviously they're manipulating you, you know this guy isn't trustworthy (he and his people killed his kind of girlfriend to wear her body like a prom dress!) and yet your just going along with it! 

 

I think it was more like two gentle people raising a gentle kid, but I agree that he's not clicking as a character.

[foxfreakinmulder]

On ‎6‎/‎3‎/‎2020 at 8:18 PM, Lady Calypso said:

Jordan...is still an annoying character. He's just written badly. He could have been a more interesting character with his background, but they insist on making him as annoying as possible.

I agree. And how old is he supposed to be? When he was outside talking to Clark and crew it looked like he had gray hair.

They were going to burn (can't remember his name) at the stake but he gets shot so they rush him to medical to save his life, what am I missing?

Did anyone else notice the large lump on the throat of the girlfriend that was beating up Raven? That does not look healthy to me and I don't mean that in a sarcastic way.  

[Ziggy]

On 6/5/2020 at 11:55 AM, foxfreakinmulder said:

I agree. And how old is he supposed to be? When he was outside talking to Clark and crew it looked like he had gray hair.

I want to say Jordan was around 33 or 35 when Monty and Harper placed him in kryo, but I could be wrong.

On 6/5/2020 at 11:55 AM, foxfreakinmulder said:

They were going to burn (can't remember his name) at the stake but he gets shot so they rush him to medical to save his life, what am I missing?

They were afraid that if he died this way, he would be viewed as a martyr.

I think he's going to be viewed by some as a martyr not matter what, but someone (Clark?) mentioned that.

The first thing I thought of was that in the Uniteded States, when a prisoner is scheduled for execution, they want that prisoner to be healthy for the execution.  Why?  No idea.  I just know that many tv shows have used that as a plot devise.  It's entirely possible that it's not even an actual truth, but I have seen it on medical shows when a condemned prisoner is brought in as a patient and the staff has to deal with their own thoughts/feelings.

[AudienceofOne]

This episode was beyond stupid. Every piece of conflict was so contrived.

We haven't heard anything from the prisoners and now we get them right in the middle of a philosophical argument about whether to cooperate or not right when Raven decides to march some of them to their deaths.

Don't get me started on the Sheidheda nonsense. Surely they could have done this plotline without Russell secretly being a megalomaniac Heda. And Jordan remains beyond stupid.

On 6/4/2020 at 1:18 PM, Lady Calypso said:

But now, Raven has made a choice that did lead to four deaths.

Which is fine and I agree that High Horse Raven really pisses me off, especially when she's benefited from all of Clark's hard decisions. The problem is that she lied to them from the beginning for no reason. She could have told them the risks as she knew them, that way it would have been more powerful and more poignant when the situation spiralled out of her control. The girlfriend would have still been furious and the story would have been a genuine tragedy. 

As it is I found this episode completely tiresome. I remember when things falling apart was done organically. But it is admittedly a distant memory. 

[Grammaeryn]

On 6/4/2020 at 5:26 PM, quarks said:

 ...

5. Why was Sanctum running on nuclear power and not, say, solar power? Or wind power? And since they were running on nuclear power, why weren't more of the Sanctum residents trained in how to maintain a nuclear reactor, or, failing that, basic welding? I know that the actual answer to this question is, because The 100 is absolutely fixated on the subject of nuclear power/weapons and their dangers, but it still doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

Because a writer wanted to do their own version of HBOs Chernobyl?

Edited June 8, 2020 by Grammaeryn