S02.E04: Many Happy Returns

[shapeshifter]

After being betrayed by someone she thought she could trust, Clarke takes matters into her own hands and proves she’s not going down without a flight. Bellamy, Finn and Murphy race against time to save a stranger. Meanwhile, tensions rise between Raven and Wick while working together, and an unexpected reunion occurs.

I'm now beyond hate watching. I'm ironing watching.

Sorry true blue fans.

And I would like to see Octavia and Lincoln reunited. And yes, I realize it's totally Stockholm.

[thuganomics85]

Wow, so the role reversal is getting even worse.  Finn has now gone from merely executing Grounders, to seeing a former Ark person in peril, and going "Nope, it will take too long.  Just let her drop and be done with it!"  Meanwhile, Bellamy not only puts his own life on the line to save her, he even trust Murphy to help out.  What is going on, here?

 

But, I'm glad Octavia met up with them, and is no longer by herself.  But, it sounds like she and Bellamy are going back to the camp, while Finn and Murphy are going to continue on.  Yeah, I bet that's going to be fun.

 

Had a feeling Anya was going to bite it, tonight.  I will miss her her crazy ass and back tattoo.  At least Clarke got back, but she now has a bullet wound, and guns pointed in her face.  It's never easy!

 

Garza!  Should have known Luvia Peterson would show up; everyone from Continuum is bound to appear on this show, eventually! Jaha is still alive, but she just sold him to some bad guy, so I don't think his journey is going to be very fun.

 

Raven had problems adjusting to not having her leg working.  Where was Abbie, in all of this?  I would think she'd try to offer her some support.

[bluebonnet]

I have no idea why but I burst out laughing when that guy fell to his death.  I still didn't know who he was.  

[ottoDbusdriver]

As soon as that redshirt climbed down that rockface with the rope, you knew he was doomed.  Quick question -- where did any of the 100 pick rock-climbing experience like it's something they've done all their life ?  Apparently they didn't teach knot-tying on the Ark, because that was the shittiest knot he tied around that tree stump.  Bonus points for the three stooges plus a redshirt just standing around with their thumbs up their asses as the other redshirt fell.

 

There is no way Clarke should have been able to grab that dart from the tree without being noticed by Anya -- Anya was literally dragging her through the woods. Let alone she manages to hide it in her palm for several miles -- I don't think so.

 

Finn needs to chilll the fuck out.  He's cranked up to 11 about finding someone that may not even be alive (Bellamy had a good point about this).

 

Jaha gets picked up by some grounders -- and gets quickly introduced to the Survivor food challenge.  And then makes friends with grounder's son, Zorn -- Zorn's facial makeup was not the greatest, it looked fake.

 

Where is this City of Light that the grounder is talking about ?  Because Jaha landed in what was left of New York ?  Could it be one of the two cities they show in the new intro (anyone else notice that the intro appears to have been shortened this episode) ?

 

Raven is up and about from her back injury -- albeit with one bum leg so she has to use crutches.  But she still thinks that she's supergirl and can do anything -- except for climbing a radio transmission tower.  But Raven finally relents and accepts Wick's help with the leg brace for her bum leg -- you know these two will be banging soon.

 

Anya goes full-on walker and bites the tracking device out of her own arm -- well done.

 

How did all the dead people from that wrecked ark site all manage to conveniently be right beside the path to the cliff's edge ?

 

Instead of tying the seatbelts together to MacGyver a new rope, one of the three stooges left the seatbelt intact and, surprise, comes unlatched.  What a bunch of idiots ?  They all deserve to fall off the cliff, except they are interrupted by a grounder arrow attack.  And the redshirt takes an arrow in the leg -- that's why we call them redshirts.  And it was so incredibly obvious that the arrow in the redshirt's leg was held on by a wrap under her pants (you could see the lines).  And voila, we have a new love interest for Finn.

 

And Octavia has successfully marched the 50+ miles back from D.C. to the Mt. Weather area -- in a day.  Sure she has.  And now she is this fully-experienced woodsperson?  Did the redshirt kill all the grounders Octavia was traveling behind/with.

 

That map was ridiculous -- almost as bad as the map to the Time Machine in the movie 'Idiocracy'.  Where was the amusement park on the map ?  Did they pass it walking to the cliff's edge by the ark crash site -- because the map made it appear so.

 

All that running around to get away from the Mt. Weatherites and Clarke and Anya-in-the-travois have only made it as far as the dropship.

 

Can Anya punch Clarke a few more times ?  Yes !!! And Anya kicks the shit out of Clarke -- even recovering from a tranquilizer dart Anya still has better fighting moves than Clarke.   So, in addition to the huge and multiply-stitched tear in Clarke's right arm, she now has a slice on her left arm -- AND -- and slash across her stomach.  And while punching Anya, with both arms she acts like she has no wounds on either arm.  But I'm sure she'll be fine.  When Clarke paused and looked up at the balloon, Anya should have made her move.  Anya's makeup looked terrible, and she still had all her teeth after that flurry of punches by Clarke.

 

Security chief shoots down the balloon beacon -- that was too funny. 

 

There is a bounty on sky people ? Hold on, the grounder and Jaha are all the way in New York, and yet somehow grounder communications are so fast that the grounder knows about a bounty for sky people after a couple of days ?  How would she know that there were sky people in the first place -- she's living alone in 'the Dead Zone' with her son ?  Does she or her husband go to grounder town meetings nightly ?  And Jaha gets clubbed for good measure and left to die by both the grounder on the horse and the family he just befriended.  Welcome to Earth Jaha !!!

 

Clarke and Anya come to an agreement to work together (Awwwwwwww) and then shake on it -- and Anya clasps Clarke's arm as part of the handshake that is all stitched up and Clarke doesn't even wince in pain.  And then Anya gets shot in the back for good measure and Clarke gets shot in the right shoulder -- how does Clarke have any blood left with all these open wounds ?  I love it how Clarke tries to stop Anya's bleeding by covering the hole in Anya's chest, completely forgetting about the hole in her back.  Clarke yells "You're Ok, you're ok" -- only not so much.

 

And the cherry on this shit sundae of a show -- Clarke gets cracked in the head by a rifle butt to close the episode.  Awesome.

 

Here's my prediction -- when Clarke next encounters the grounders, she will announce that she had a deal with Anya to defeat the Mt. Weatherites and the grounders need to honor it.

Edited November 13, 2014 by ottoDbusdriver

[shapeshifter]

...There is no way Clarke should have been able to grab that dart from the tree without being noticed by Anya -- Anya was literally dragging her through the woods. Let alone she manages to hide it in her palm for several miles -- I don't think so.....

I was sure I missed something while I was ironing, because that dart seemed to appear out of thin air, but no? Or yes? And it had such pretty red plastic decorations!

...Did the redshirt kill all the grounders Octavia was traveling behind/with....

Ooo, ooo, I actually got this one! Octavia had snared a horn (a literal horn from an animal, I think?) used by the Grounders to warn when the acid fog was coming. She expertly blew the horn, causing all the attacking Grounders to head for the hills.

[ottoDbusdriver]

I was sure I missed something while I was ironing, because that dart seemed to appear out of thin air, but no? Or yes? And it had such pretty red plastic decorations!

 

That dart was a tranq dart fired by the Mt. Weatherites.  The Mt. Weatherites fired a lot of them and missed every time.

 

Ooo, ooo, I actually got this one! Octavia had snared a horn (a literal horn from an animal, I think?) used by the Grounders to warn when the acid fog was coming. She expertly blew the horn, causing all the attacking Grounders to head for the hills.

 

Thanks @shapeshifter, I missed that -- it's been so long since the acid fog horn has been blown (wasn't that back in the 2nd episode last season).  It would have been helpful if they had shown Octavia acquiring said acid fog horn at some point in her travels (since she didn't have it at the end of last episode), otherwise it just looks like the writers needed and out and decided to go with that.  Otherwise, I could snark about Octavia being horny and blowing things -- I wonder when she will announce that she's pregnant with a baby grounder, and somehow this baby will be the bridge that brings peace between the sky people and the grounders ('cause you just know that's going to happen at some point soon).  Who's been braiding Octavia's hair since she parted ways with the grounders ?  Has she had a lot of quality downtime in her march from D.C. to the Mt. Weather area or can she braid while walking (these walking times between locations are getting ridiculously short considering the distance they are supposed to be -- I'd almost think that there were nanite wormholes in place leftover from 'Revolution')?

 

ETA:  What happened to Kane and his search for the grounders to negotiate a peace treaty ?  That was the big deal at the end of last episode was Kane's march out of the Alpha Station on his quest for grounders.

Edited November 13, 2014 by ottoDbusdriver

[Asha124]

So Raven nearly died three days ago and now she is walking around the camp like nothning happened while Murphy's face still looks like someone put it in a blender? I just can't with this show...

[bluebonnet]

So Raven nearly died three days ago and now she is walking around the camp like nothning happened while Murphy's face still looks like someone put it in a blender? I just can't with this show...

You must think positively!  This means Anya will be with us once more.

[maczero]

As soon as that redshirt climbed down that rockface with the rope, you knew he was doomed.  Quick question -- where did any of the 100 pick rock-climbing experience like it's something they've done all their life ?  Apparently they didn't teach knot-tying on the Ark, because that was the shittiest knot he tied around that tree stump.  Bonus points for the three stooges plus a redshirt just standing around with their thumbs up their asses as the other redshirt fell.

Totally agree about that knot.  I'm horrible at tying knots so I can't say one of mine would have been any better but I will say I'm smart enough not to trust my life on one of my knots.  And his buddies not either bothering to hold the line  while he climbed down was even dumber.  Are we sure they didn't want him to fall?

 

Also, why couldn't they lower the rope down to her and pull her back up?  It seems like even more work to send someone down and then have to pull two people back up.

 

I will say one thing about this show, they do a great job of making every one look like they've really been roughing it.  The dirty faces and facial cuts makes me wonder why none of them haven't suffered from any type of infections.  Even relatively clean Jaha had some wickedly chapped lips.  I honestly found his peeling skin more disturbing than mutant boy's face.

Edited November 13, 2014 by maczero

[FurryFury]

Another episode, and I'm still digging the hell out of the show. Seriously, I can't believe it's the same soapy and predictable drama from last season. Everything's bigger and better and much more dynamic. At least enough for me to overlook any silly stuff and inconsistencies (which I'm sure are still there, I just don't give a damn anymore).

 

Anyway, I'll start with the not-so-great stuff, and there isn't much. Jaha's story was not only disconnected from everything else, but also paced in a much different way. I still think it could have worked, if only the writers would tell us more about the world using the location where he's landed and the people who saved them. I'd even forgive the slower pace, I just want more worldbuilding. Still, I liked that vignette, kinda. It has a nice, realistic ending.

However, I'm still far from convinced the show needs Jaha at all. He death was probably the most genuinely emotional scene on the show thus far.

 

And speaking about deaths, holy shit, Anya! Just when I've started to really dig her relationship with Clark! I'm really kinda mad right now, but it does make sense narratively, because it would be just too easy to establish the Grounder/Ark survivors relationship with her alive and on good terms with Clarke.
Still, she was so cool. And her pulling the tracker beacon out with her TEETH? That was a badass moment if I've ever seen one.

 

The good stuff:

 

Bellamy/Octavia reunion! It's like the writers read my mind. One of my favorite relationships on the show, plus the suddenly badass Octavia of the last few eps was pulling at my suspension of disbelief pretty hard. And considering how many storylines the show has going on (seriously, this episode had four plots), I wasn't looking forward to more Octavia-only (plus guest stars) scenes.

 

Bellamy development! In my headcanon (and quite possibly in the subtext), Finn's behavior reminded him of himself in the past, thus his resolve to be a better leader and human being. I approve.

Also, he kinda sorta forgave Murphy. Which means that the next episode, Murphy's gonna die. Although I'd definitely prefer if it happened to Finn, who still sucks, even if in a different way than before.

 

Clarke and Anya - everything about them, and, especially, Clarke saving herself and finding the way to the settlement. I mean, I was almost ready to roll my eyes at Finn saving her and leading her home, and they don't even meet! Thank you, the writers!

 

Raven's plot was absolutely heartbreaking, and I don't consider her angst overdone. In such a harsh world, losing a limb sucks even more than in ours. And the actress did a good job, too.

Also, the engineer guy is cute. Possible love interest alert! And I don't mind, she deserves something good. Although with this show, he'll probably die horribly before the end of the season.

[marcee]

I can't lie. I love the crap out of this show. And for all the questions, I feel like they did a really good job of explaining things without ridiculous exposition. There was a quick line about how the girl wouldn't be able to pull herself up, so that's why they had to go down. There was a line about acid fog after the horn blew and another line explaining that no acid fog was actually coming because Octavia blew the horn to save them. There was good continuity with trusting/not trusting Murphy. I loved the bad-ass-girlery between Clarke and Anya (although I do agree, Clarke pulling that dart from the tree so easily and undetected was a stretch). And, sure, Raven looks awfully good post torture-surgery but I'm glad she didn't make it up the radio tower like other shows may have allowed.

 

Of course there's gotta be a ton of suspension of disbelief, but I think they do a good job making it super fun, if not super-realistic. The premise doesn't work in reality to begin with, so I just go along for the very enjoyable ride. I did, however, miss Lincoln. More Lincoln, less Finn please. PLEASE.

[In2You]

I'm about to give up on this show because the writing continues to be awful and theres still horrible character development. 

[SourK]

I think I'm sensing a pattern of one episode good -- one episode not so good. It felt like a lot of filler this time.

 

Octavia being smart enough to sound the fog horn worked a lot better for me than Octavia kidnapping some huge dude and walking into a Grounder camp with him.

 

As others have said, I kept wondering where Abby was.

 

Totally agree about that knot.  I'm horrible at tying knots so I can't say one of mine would have been any better but I will say I'm smart enough not to trust my life on one of my knots.  And his buddies not either bothering to hold the line  while he climbed down was even dumber.  Are we sure they didn't want him to fall?

 

For sure, the most hillarious part was watching them all stand there doing eff-all while that one guy climbed down the cliffside and fell to his death. Seriously, did it not occur to them at all that they should brace the rope?

 

And man, that girl can hang onto a tree branch for a long-ass time. She was already there when they arrived, and then she was there the whole time what's-his-face was climbing down, and the whole time they were making a new rope, and the whole time Bellamy was climbing down... I noticed that her sweater was tied around the branch at one point (maybe to hide a harness or something?) and then it magically untied itself as soon as she hugged Bellamy, and that whole thing was strange to me as well. Also, she was obviously standing with one foot on the ground in some shots.

 

Oh, show.

[susan vance]

The most important aspect of a show to me is whether I care about the characters and what's happening to them, if the story turns are unpredictable without being unearned. The 100 totally succeeds on those points, and honestly, realism or what-would-actually-happen is not inherently interesting or important to me. Would Raven be up and around within a day or two of spinal surgery? Of course not. Do I want to watch weeks of her in bed struggling to recover? Not on this show. The writers aren't stupid - they know that it's impossible for Raven to be up and walking that soon after such a significant injury. But they made the choice to expedite her recovery because it moves the story forward more easily by having her recovered enough to be an active participant in other stories. I do like that she's not 100% recovered and that she likely will never be.

 

Even things like the rope being badly tied and the other characters standing by idly while he rappelled down didn't bother me. It was stupid and careless, but stupid and careless in a way that I found believable - these are a bunch of teenagers who just managed to capture, contain, and kill a grounder. In their overconfidence, they made a stupid mistake and paid a high price for it, and - to me the most important thing - learned from it. The moment underscored how young all of them are, and how dangerous their world is.

 

I love this show because I think it handles its characters and the dilemmas they face with more respect and greater complexity than I expected. It may not be accurate in terms of physics, time, science, or geography, but I think it's got psychological complexity and emotional depth. Those are the story turns I really love. I like the ambiguity of whether Jasper's Mount Weather girlfriend is intentionally misleading Monty and Jasper about Clarke. I dug the grounder giving information we know is untrue to Bellamy and Finn when a gun was put to his head. I love that Clarke's consistently stubborn and heroic nature is a grade-A drag to those around her (unless shit is going down, in which case, they all expect her to save them).  

 

This show has evolved from something I started watching as a joke, then became halfway-interested in, and now it's one of the few shows I'm sure to watch the evening it airs instead of time-shifting it to the weekend. 

[shapeshifter]

...Raven's plot was absolutely heartbreaking, and I don't consider her angst overdone. In such a harsh world, losing a limb sucks even more than in ours. And the actress did a good job, too.

Also, the engineer guy is cute. Possible love interest alert! And I don't mind, she deserves something good. Although with this show, he'll probably die horribly before the end of the season.

I sort of hope not because an engineer is so much more worthy of her than a Fickle Finn. I decided to fanwank Engineer Boy's southern drawl as being a hip way of talking all the cool kids on The Ark were doing.

In the middle of all the unbelievable plots was an interestingly thoughtful plot (though still weakly executed): The parents of the deformed boy were supposed to leave him outside to die--a policy that created the radiation resistant Grounders. But given the opportunity, they sacrificed Jaha for a horse to get to the "City of Light." Is that Mt. Weather? Or the Ark camp (that Clarke was in awe of with its glowing lights right before they started shooting at her--heck of a welcome party)?

Edited November 14, 2014 by shapeshifter

[FurryFury]

I've read that this engineer (Wicks or something) has actually already been on the show, somewhere during s1. If so, props for continuity!

[Smug47]

I've read that this engineer (Wicks or something) has actually already been on the show, somewhere during s1. If so, props for continuity!

Yeah, he was the dude on the Ark who helped Kane crawl through hot vents and pull debris from the control room so they could get to Jaha. He also had a lot of great lines, which was why I remembered him at all. This show has its fair share of redshirts, but I dig this guy.

[In2You]

I dont think this show is very good at character writing. They'll throw characters into different situations but most of the time they skip alot of the meotional beats you need to be attached to a character.

[Smug47]

I definitely get a lot of Battlestar Galactica vibes with this show, but the thing that elevated that show was the depth of darkness and different facets every character had. I feel like this show could get there and be (almost) as good as BSG (and I think with characters like Raven, it's getting super close) and The 100 is definitely not shying away from violence and hard situations, but yes. A lot of the characters are not that developed, or maybe they need better actors and actresses behind them. Regardless, I enjoy this show and can still handwave a lot of the logic gaps, so I'll keep watching until it's cancelled.

[DrLar]

At least nobody is looking pretty, other than the Mt. Weather people, our "100"s still look all beaten up, man Clarke has surely been mistreated...

 

Man I hoped Anya made it another episode, so all the effort to rescue and save her was for nothing? now Anya's people will become even more enraged because happy trigger soldiers killed her

[kieyra]

This episode felt about a million hours long, especially once I realized that "idiots plus cliff plus ropes" and "Anya plus Clarke plus mud plus ropes" was going to be 90% of the episode.

I do find it interesting that some people are achieving suspension of disbelief with the show. Wish I could. I liked the season opener mount weather stuff, but at this point it just feels like there are about eight groups of random people with varying levels of mud walking around endlessly trying to find other people with similar mud levels, and frequently getting tranq-shotted.

[edra]

I think the funniest part, was watching the 3 stooges stare down the cliff, rather than hold the thin rope, that was loosely tied to a stump, and barely could hold the weight of 2 people.

 

Also, I wonder if the role reversal is due to the actor playing Finn, complaining about not being a major part of the episodes last season. They seem to be abandoning him as Clarke's OTP, since more people preferred Clark and Bellamy. Similarly, they have given Raven her own new love interest.

 

I have to say the show is bigger and has more story this season. I still think a show like this would be suited to a cable channel or even Netflix. Being on the CW limits the show a bit.

[FurryFury]

I agree, but on the other hand, it would probably be canceled just a few episodes in (if on a network) or not even get greenliit (if on cable). I mean, season 1 wasn't exactly groundbreaking, or even consistently good, TV, so at least they gave it enough time to find its footing. Of course, the show had to pay for it by including the insufferable love triangle, but hey, at least it's over now.

Edited November 15, 2014 by FurryFury

[kingshearte]

Given how many times Jaha has basically allowed himself to die but ended up surviving, I'm starting to look for whiskers... He must be almost out of lives by now.

 

Raven is up and about from her back injury -- albeit with one bum leg so she has to use crutches.  But she still thinks that she's supergirl and can do anything -- except for climbing a radio transmission tower.  But Raven finally relents and accepts Wick's help with the leg brace for her bum leg -- you know these two will be banging soon.

Oh yeah. A few lines into their first scene together, I turned to my husband and started singing "Can you feel the love tonight?" Predictable, but vastly preferable to whatever love polygon was happening at the end of last season.

 

Sad that they killed Anya. She was awesome. I was also pleasantly surprised how, given the opportunity, TPTB actually made Clarke & Anya legit ugly fight, rather than engage in some of kind of sexy girl-on-girl mudfight. There was really nothing sexy about that fight.

[shapeshifter]

Given how many times Jaha has basically allowed himself to die but ended up surviving, I'm starting to look for whiskers... He must be almost out of lives by now.

Yeah, he's giving Michael Shanks' various characters some competition in the coming back from the dead contest.

[viajero]

I took advantage of a 10 hour flight yesterday to catch up on the first 4 episodes of the season and I got to say that this show has dramatically improved over Season 1. A lot of it is that it seems a lot less CW and more BSG.  Plus there has been some positive character development (particularly Clarke, Bellamy and Octavia).

 

Of course I still have to suspend disbelief several times each episode, but its become easier to do because of the overall improvement of the show. The one that I still have the most trouble getting past is that the pieces of the arc didn't all burn up on re-entry. But I guess we wouldn't have much of a story had they tried to be more realistic about that.

 

I see that some have questioned the progression of Octavia's character in particular, but I don't have much of a problem with that.  I think its natural that she would have toughened up and its not like she's suddenly become some kind of expert woodsman or fighter.

[WebosFritos]

I caught up with this show in the last few weeks and I’m enjoying it so far. It’s a fun adventure and the short format is great, although they seem to have added more episodes this season. I like the pace, even though the editing could do with a little work. As some of you said, the make-up crew has been doing a great job of making them all look really worn down.

 

I’m disappointed that Anya was killed. I guess it makes sense (they couldn’t have the grounders and the ark people working together so soon) but she was an interesting character that had a lot of potential. And she kicked ass; her fight with Clarke was really well done. I’m really sad the Clarke and Anya show is over.

 

Wow, so the role reversal is getting even worse.  Finn has now gone from merely executing Grounders, to seeing a former Ark person in peril, and going "Nope, it will take too long.  Just let her drop and be done with it!"  Meanwhile, Bellamy not only puts his own life on the line to save her, he even trust Murphy to help out.  What is going on, here?

 

 

It's worse, Bellamy actually agreed with Finn about coming back later for her, until Sterling decided for them. I don’t think either of them has the moral high ground here. They’ve both done some pretty shady stuff and they’re both jerks, most of the time. I can’t believe I’m writing this but, as far as they know, rescuing the girl did pretty much screw over their plans. They think all of their friends might soon be killed by the grounders, Bellamy might be arrested as soon as he rejoins the others, Sterling is dead, Monroe is out of commission and Finn has to count on Murphy. Talk about a rescue mission.

[Sulis]

I have also been catching up on the show over the last few weeks (I started watching in the UK where it's a way behind) and I'm really enjoying it, with a few exceptions. I can quite happily suspend disbelief for many things though, such as geography and how the Ark got to the Earth, as long as it's believable in the service of the story and characters. In fact, I pretty much agree with everything Susan Vance said upthread.

 

Jaha's storyline feels the most far-fetched and unnecessary to me, though the City of Light might be interesting. With Finn I've gone from meh, to how the hell did that happen? His character 180 cannot seriously be because he's so in lurve with Clarke, surely? It feels very jarring. And sorry to see Anya go. Liking Bellamy and Octavia back together since her badassness was seriously straining my suspension of disbelief.