S03.E07: Thirteen

[yellowfred]

So, the impression I got of Alie 2.0 is that it's meant to be more about understanding, while Alie 1.0 was more about controlling.  So, while 1.0 alters what people value (and think and feel and remember), 2.0 is more about keeping a record of it.  I don't think there's any implication that who Lexa was was affected by Alie 2.0 in any way.  There've been several references to the fact that, as a commander, she was notably different than her predecessors in her approach to things.  Several people who had known previous commanders have said, on the show, that she was special.  She may have had some extra information from the memories of past commanders in her dreams, but even those were more like suggestions that she decided, on her own, to either ignore or accept.  I doubt any influence from the chip was substantial enough to undermine her own role in what she was able to accomplish.  Plus, if she really had all the knowledge of the past commanders, then she would know everything that Becca knew and she'd have had a complete understanding of the technology embedded in the back of her neck.  

 

On a side note, after writing that paragraph, I had to go back and change a bunch of stuff to past tense, and now I'm sad again.

[FiveByFive]

Over time, I grew to love Lexa very much but she was going to die from the first moment we saw her side with Clark on anything. It wasn't a shock at all to me. It was only a matter of time. Sure, people are upset about the way she died. On the other hand, who more fitting to kill her for the drama points than her "teacher"/"advisor" by accident while attempting to take out the person she loved the most, Clark? He's also the one person, besides Clark herself, who we would least expect to do it since he obeyed her orders even if he didn't agree with them. 

 

I didn't get flashbacks of Tara on Buffy's death only because that was a complete shock. Tara didn't have people wanting to kill her at all times because of decisions she made which did not favorite the majority. Tara wasn't a leader with a target on her back. To me, Lexa's death is a case of, what happens when you make unpopular decisions during a war.  Her closest advisor snapped and it accidentally lead to her death. 

 

I'd say if this were another show he would have blamed the death on Skykru immediately, tried to have them killed then take the leadership spot for himself but it's a bit more complicated. 

 

Loved the Polaris flashbacks and the explanations about how the two groups are connected. I'd like to think the AI "knows" this so it was the reason why Skykru didn't get the axe repeatedly. It recognizes that they are a part of the group even if they came down and joined later on. I think that's why I believed Lexa when she said Clark's people would be protected. There may have been other Commanders who were different from Lexa but they were before Skykru came to Earth. Also, the AI could hopefully be the reason why we see Lexa or some version of her again. I'd welcome that. (I'd also welcome the same actress in whatever capacity she is available.) Maybe the second AI takes on the form of the last person that was Commander. 

 

I understood after Finn's death that no one on The 100 gets a happy ending, at least not yet. It's just going to be one of those kinds of shows. So while I'm attached to a few people like Octavia or Indra I know they could easily bite it the next episode. (And I'm genuinely happy that Adele Porter has found so much work post True Blood and American Horror Story. That woman has range and skills so I hope she sticks around but I could totally see her dying in battle so she can have a moment with Octavia.)

 

Finally, it seems that the symbol is rare enough so that there's def. only one the grounders know of and that's the one that gets passed from person to person and it probably contains a lot of data gathered over lifetimes. It would be interesting to see what goes on in the Commander's head. Is it similar to what happens in Jaha's where the AI is more of an advisor that has the ability to influence and alter brain responses or is it something entirely different. 

Edited March 4, 2016 by FiveByFive

[stealinghome]

The boy was the most promising candidate but I think there is some kind of competition to see who will become the next commander.

I got the implication that it was a duel to the death. Lexa and Clarke's postcoital conversation, where Clarke asked what happened to the 8th novitiate aside from Lexa and Lexa said she didn't want to talk about it, made me think she had to kill the other kid.

Which I think means Aden is done for, since making him the commander seems too obvious/easy at this point.

the impression I got of Alie 2.0 is that it's meant to be more about understanding, while Alie 1.0 was more about

ALIE 2.0 is The Machine, ALIE 1.0 is Samaritan. ;)

But, yes. I took away that ALIE 2.0 was supposed to understand humans and value human life above pretty much anything else.

Edited March 5, 2016 by stealinghome

[Jack Shaftoe]

Apparently Rothenberg invited some fans to the shooting of some scenes of the season 3 finale which included Lexa. In retrospect it seems like such a childish attempt to reassure and mislead the part of the audience that was savvy enough to see the writing on the wall.

 

Also, if we are going to compare Clarke/Lexa with say Bellamy/Gina, it has to be noted that Clarke and Lexa's actual romantic relationship was one kiss and a sex scene several months later. I.e. they barely had a romantic relationship. Sure, narratively it was probably more important than any other ship except possibly Lincoln/Octavia but that would have been the case if they were platonic friends because of them being the leaders of their respective groups. So let's not pretend the show gave us some amazing romantic storyline, so even if it ended tragically people should be happy. It gave us what would usually be termed the beginning of a romance plot. They did much the same with Jasper and Maya, mind you, but you rarely hear anyone describe that ship as all that memorable. Why? Because people tend to expect more of heterosexual couples and five minutes of happiness followed by a heartbreak usually brings a reaction along the lines of "You bastards!", rather than "You bastards! But at least you gave us this beautiful story so we are grateful".

 

Plus, as much as I was frustrated by Gina's fridging, her death was heroic - she made a literal gasp effort that saved the lives of Raven and Gaeta, I mean, Sinclair. Lexa was hit by a stray bullet and while dying forgave her murderer for no apparent reason other than Rothenberg getting his precious "pulling out the AI implant" scene.

[bmjax]

I have let this episode marinate for a while before commenting on it. Last season I would have been happy to see Lexa go, now I am mourning a kickass character. I am not surprised at her death, I have been waiting for it every episode and I am glad it is over with so I no longer have to dread it happening.

I really love the AI storyline and can't wait to see where this goes.

Lastly if anyone really wants Bellamy to be punished, just have him and Clarke have sex. She has a deadly vagina. Finn died, the poor trader girl was severely beaten and Lexa died. Nothing good comes from getting it on with Clarke.

[ottoDbusdriver]

And the grounders calling their leader commander because that was rank of the AI's creator (Becca)?

Actually it wasn't Becca's rank -- Roger Cross' character was the commander of the Polaris station (you saw it on his shirt and he stated that fact when Becca tried to pull the old 'but I own this station' move on him). Becca just grabbed the nearest space suit on her way to the escape pod and it just happened to have Commander stitched on the front of it.

So does this mean that all the survivors on the ground had basically become illiterate cave-dwelling idiots -- after only two years ?  I find it hard to believe that they reverted to cave paintings and god-like worship of a person that had "fallen from the sky" in such a short amount of time.  Because they would have still been aware of the concept of space stations, technology and such -- it's not like one or two generations had already gone by and immense amounts of common knowledge had been forgotten.  And adopting the name 'Polis' when Becca would have been right there to tell them that the actual name on the escape pod was 'Polaris' just seems incredibly stupid.  Everyone would have still been speaking English -- since she landed in the Virginia/Maryland/D.C. area.-- and there would have been no reason yet to have adopted a new language since the Mt. Weatherites probably wouldn't have even ventured outside by this time because it was still WAY too radioactive outside the mountain.

 

Lastly if anyone really wants Bellamy to be punished, just have him and Clarke have sex. She has a deadly vagina. Finn died, the poor trader girl was severely beaten and Lexa died. Nothing good comes from getting it on with Clarke.

 

That does seem to be the case.  I hope Murphy stays far away from her.

ETA: To cleanup some spelling/grammar mistakes.

Edited March 5, 2016 by ottoDbusdriver

[Jack Shaftoe]

 

Actually it wasn't Becca's rank -- Roger Cross' character was the commander of the Polaris station (you saw it on his shirt and he stated that fact when Becca tried to pull the old 'but I own this station' move on him. Becca just grabbed the nearest space suit on her way to the escape pod and it just happened to have Commander stitched on the front of it.

 

Thank you for the clarification, I have to admit I wasn't watching the flashbacks carefully because they broke of my suspension of disbelief into a million pieces and I was too worried for Lexa.

 

 

So does this means that all the survivors on the ground had basically become illiterate cave-dwelling idiots -- after only two years ?

 

The whole "they worship an AI" thing is one of those ideas that sound great when you initially think of them but are actually utter nonsense. These aren't some people who have never seen advanced technology. If anything, they have a very good reason to be wary of any advanced technology - as they are indeed wary of guns. They know what a spacecraft is, they must have known Becca wasn't a god. Come to think of it, if they grounders are so willing to worship "sky people" why didn't they start worshiping the 100 when they landed? The timeline does not work at all. If the grounders had lived for generations without any modern technologies, I could see them deciding the implant was a spirit but as it is - no, just no.

[Izeinwinter]

Eh, mostly, what appears to have happened is that Becca fell from the sky, chased down people dying from radiation-sickness - and I mean, just "Odds of survival the normal way: NIL, and injected them with the black blood, at which point, they got better, and able to use spent fuel rods for a pillow with no ill effects. I mean, the people she rescued know it was tech. But it was really bloody impressive tech. That got her made the boss, because literally everyone owed their survival to her. 

 

How the ever bloody hell they managed to go from that to primitives, especially since their leader has an AI implanted in her *head*... Did mount weather just launch drone strikes at everything that even looked like a school? 

[ottoDbusdriver]

The whole "they worship an AI" thing is one of those ideas that sound great when you initially think of them but are actually utter nonsense. These aren't some people who have never seen advanced technology. If anything, they have a very good reason to be wary of any advanced technology - as they are indeed wary of guns. They know what a spacecraft is, they must have known Becca wasn't a god. Come to think of it, if they grounders are so willing to worship "sky people" why didn't they start worshiping the 100 when they landed? The timeline does not work at all. If the grounders had lived for generations without any modern technologies, I could see them deciding the implant was a spirit but as it is - no, just no.

That's the even more confusing part -- why would the people that Becca encountered be wary of technology or guns ? Guns didn't cause the nuclear war. The nuclear war happened so fast that none of the survivors would even know that an AI had caused the entire thing -- they probably thought it was an unprovoked attack from a foreign country. It's not like they were still getting Twitter feed updates on who caused the apocalypse.

And after the nuclear war happened, I don't think anyone on the ground would give two shits about who actually started it. They would be more concerned with finding food and shelter and not dying of radiation poisoning.

[Jack Shaftoe]

I didn't mean they should be wary of technology because the AI caused the nuclear war - they might be wary of it because nuclear missiles themselves are a product of a very advanced and very deadly technology. Of course, jumping from there to living in actual tribes and using arrows and spears is a huge stretch but one that has been part of the premise of the show from the beginning. Adding to that already implausible premise the idea that at the same time they decided an astronaut was sent from God and that an AI makes it an even bigger mess, IMO.

 

 

Eh, mostly, what appears to have happened is that Becca fell from the sky, chased down people dying from radiation-sickness - and I mean, just "Odds of survival the normal way: NIL, and injected them with the black blood, at which point, they got better

 

That's not how radiation sickness works on this show, though. See the Mt. Weatherites who died in seconds from radiation that was presumably far lower than what it was 95 years ago. Come to think of it, if Becca made the grounders resistant to radiation how are the Arkadians even more resistant?

[Izeinwinter]

Black-blooded grounders are currently a minority of the grounder tribes, and presumably, Mount Weather never got their hands on any of them. If the black blood was universal, they'd not have issues with birth defects, and likely live longer in general.

Speaking of, the reaction of mount weather's inhabitants to rads was absolutely  nonsensical. The skin peeling off like that looks a lot more like an allergic reaction than anything else. And, well,That's Not How It Works. Radiation strong enough to kill you that quickly would leave a very intact looking corpse while your insides.. stop working. (and the surface just wouldn't be that hot 97 years after the war)

So.. maybe Becca locked them up in their mountain with a bio-weapon because they were assholes? If she can make you immune to rads, she could probably make you hypersensitive to them as well...  

[SourK]

I don't disagree with anything anyone said about the TV trope where lesbian characters get killed as soon as it looks like they might be happy, and, as a bi person, this whole story line where Clarke is bi and it's not a big deal had certainly been making me happy, but I still liked this episode a lot. In a way, I'm also glad that Lexa died while she was still awesome and didn't hang around long enough to become disappointing.

 

I was also really impressed with all the plot twists with the AI and, while I thought something bad would eventually happen due to Lexa's poor "Blood Must Not Have Blood" policies, I was surprised that she died right now. For me, this was probably one of the best episodes the series has ever had.

 

Please tell me, does ALIE 1.0 wants ALIE 2.0 gone? ALIE 1.0 is bad and ALIE 2.0 is the good one?

I won't be shocked if ALIE 2.0 goes inside Clarke at the end of this season too.

 

1) Part of me actually started to wonder if ALIE 1.0 is looking for ALIE 2.0 because -- unexpected plot twist -- she actually wants to be good in some way and needs the new code to do it.

 

2) This show is already a pastiche of so many other shows that I would be kind of okay with it if it just stole the ending from Dollhouse and Clarke had Lexa's memories implanted in her brain so they would be together always.

[jane1978]

I´m sad Lexa is gone, but she was always in a bad position. If her vision worked there would be no show. And if she just magically managed to surive coup and after coup it would get very repetitive. I think they could keep her alive longer and not kill her immediatelly after the first sex if ADC had not sign a contract with another show, but she couldn´t stay the commander forever. Besides, now we know there is no mysticism behind the choosing process and I´m sure the flamekeeper will not be happy when that smart but evil nighblood girl becomes new Heda. So I´m more and more convinced the longterm plan of the show is for Clark to eventually become the new Commander of united clans and fulfill Lexa´s original vision. 

 

And yeah, that probably means implanting the chip and having lots of cybersex as well. 

[FurryFury]

They did much the same with Jasper and Maya, mind you, but you rarely hear anyone describe that ship as all that memorable. Why? Because people tend to expect more of heterosexual couples and five minutes of happiness followed by a heartbreak usually brings a reaction along the lines of "You bastards!", rather than "You bastards! But at least you gave us this beautiful story so we are grateful".

 

I haven't seent his season much (stopped after episode 2 because of the spoilers - figured I would be too upset with the show's quality falling to watch it weekly), but in this case, I just can't agree. I'm personally not into slash or femmeslash, simply not my thing. But I get why people liked Clexa. I mean, were Lexa male, I'd probably ship them, which is more than I can say about 99% of canon gay ships which are generally popular because they are some canon representation rather than being good on their own (I was floored Korrasami had a huge fandom, because it felt like a joke for me, a clear last-minute asspull, as for Jack/Ianto on Torchwood, they were really badly written, even if at least somewhat developed). Lexa was actually a really cool character, unlike Maya (who was pretty unmemorable, and really, how many people consider Jasper their favorite character?)

 

Anyway, her death was obvious since last season (for me at least). I'd say Finn's was a bigger shock (of course, most - including me - were happy to see him gone).

[Kate213]

Yes, Lexa's death has been referenced all season, so the death itself didn't come as much of a shock, I think the issue that people are having (myself included) is the sequence of events leading to her on screen death, and the broader implications given to viewers.  In writing, death is serious and should be taken as such, even on a show like the 100 where their world is dangerous and deaths are not uncommon.  Especially when you're talking about the death of a character who represents a minority group in fiction (PoC, queer, non-Christians, etc).  The goal of the writers and show runners should be to show the audience that the death was completely necessary and not a trope.  And that's the problem with Lexa's death as it was written: it was a trope, technically several tropes all at once.  

 

There were millions of ways the writers could have gone that did not end in Lexa killed by an accidental bullet mere minutes after finally beginning a relationship that had been built up for numerous episodes.  Killed by her father figure who did not agree with said relationship and thought he was doing what was best for her.  Even though the big picture of Lexa's death was not due to her sexuality, the whole reason Titus was in that room with that gun was because Lexa loved Clarke. She got hit by a stray bullet because she loved Clarke.  And the death happened literally in the scene directly following the love scene.  This show had a choice, and it chose to purposefully build a female/female romance as a main relationship, only to poorly destroy it a few minutes later.  

 

Yes, shocking deaths are common on the 100.  It is not uncharacteristic in this show for main characters to die.  Finn's death was a shock and a twist but if you were a fan of Finn, chances are you'd been a fan of a hundred Finns before.  You can change the channel and quickly find another Finn to root for.  That is not the case with LGBTQ characters, particularly ones as fleshed out and beautifully portrayed as Lexa.  

 

ADC's contract status was known before any of the episodes were written. In fact they had to specifically negotiate with AMC to get her for 8 episodes this season (and potentially next season as well so it wasn't that her being in next season, if there is one, wasn't at all possible).  The showrunners decided to draw in a vulnerable group of young people desperate for representation, knowing that it was a great way to get ratings, acclaim and a path to a 4th season.  They gave interview after interview talking about how the 100 was progressive and different, how they were aware of the tropes and that fans didn't have to worry, that they would be 'very happy' with how Clarke and Lexa's relationship panned out.  They filmed the finale in public and invited fans to come watch, all the while knowing that they were being grievously misleading.  They held the show out out as a beacon of positive LGBTQ representation and happily basked in fans' and critics' praises, meanwhile soothing their (valid) concerns that this relationship would end like nearly every other queer relationship in the media: in a tragic, senseless death for shock value. 

 

The frustrating thing about The 100 is it could be so good. But all the problematic elements of the show detract from the story rather than adding to it. The show is not better because Anya is dead or Lincoln is sidelined (

soon to be dead

) or Raven is constantly beaten down or Bellamy suddenly turned into a ruthless mass murderer, and it won’t be better because Lexa is dead.

Edited March 5, 2016 by Kate213

[Jack Shaftoe]

 

So I´m more and more convinced the longterm plan of the show is for Clark to eventually become the new Commander of united clans and fulfill Lexa´s original vision.

 

Great, another plotline brimming with unfortunate implications.

 

 

I haven't seent his season much (stopped after episode 2 because of the spoilers - figured I would be too upset with the show's quality falling to watch it weekly), but in this case, I just can't agree. I'm personally not into slash or femmeslash, simply not my thing. But I get why people liked Clexa. I mean, were Lexa male, I'd probably ship them, which is more than I can say about 99% of canon gay ships which are generally popular because they are some canon representation rather than being good on their own (I was floored Korrasami had a huge fandom, because it felt like a joke for me, a clear last-minute asspull, as for Jack/Ianto on Torchwood, they were really badly written, even if at least somewhat developed). Lexa was actually a really cool character, unlike Maya (who was pretty unmemorable, and really, how many people consider Jasper their favorite character?)

 

Seems like we are not really disagreeing that much - as you said, it doesn't take much to get fans to like a canon gay ship. Hell, in some cases you can go no further than subtext and still gain a substantial following of people who are into F/F or M/M ships (for instance Warehouse 13). The point I was trying to make wasn't that Clarke/Lexa was necessarily badly written, it was that its very brevity is in sharp contrast with its popularity and that's because there are so very few other lesbian relationships on TV, let alone relationships involving the main protagonist.

 

 

Speaking of, the reaction of mount weather's inhabitants to rads was absolutely  nonsensical. The skin peeling off like that looks a lot more like an allergic reaction than anything else. And, well,That's Not How It Works. Radiation strong enough to kill you that quickly would leave a very intact looking corpse while your insides.. stop working. (and the surface just wouldn't be that hot 97 years after the war)

So.. maybe Becca locked them up in their mountain with a bio-weapon because they were assholes? If she can make you immune to rads, she could probably make you hypersensitive to them as well...

 

Sadly, the far more likely option is that the writers decided that real radiation sickness isn't nearly dramatic enough.

 

 

They filmed the finale in public and invited fans to come watch, all the while knowing that they were being grievously misleading.

 

Yes, I am still shaking my head at this ploy. I can't believe anyone would go to such lengths to mislead people in this gross fashion and not just any people but big fans of his own show. If the writers put as much of an effort into writing the episodes as they do into misleading people and defending their actions through interviews and social media activity, I am sure this would be a much better written show. Yesterday, Rothenberg tweeted a link to the AfterEllen recap of this episode - even though it is still somewhat critical of the episode and that it was absolutely lambasted in the comments where many people accused the site editors of selling out.

 

I really wish someone would ask the AMC suits if they really were adamant about not letting ADC come back for the possible season 4 or this is just another excuse. Sure they might refuse to answer but who knows. If her participation was in up in the air - it would have been quite simple to just finish her story this season with a cliffhanger which to later resolve based on whether the actress could return or not. But that would have required the writers to care more about character development and consistency than about shocking twists which is clearly not the case, especially this season.

Edited March 5, 2016 by Jack Shaftoe

[FurryFury]

Seems like we are not really disagreeing that much - as you said, it doesn't take much to get fans to like a canon gay ship. Hell, in some cases you can go no further than subtext and still gain a substantial following of people who are into F/F or M/M ships (for instance Warehouse 13). The point I was trying to make wasn't that Clarke/Lexa was necessarily badly written, it was that its very brevity is in sharp contrast with its popularity and that's because there are so very few other lesbian relationships on TV, let alone relationships involving the main protagonist.

 

Ah, I was more saying that it was an interesting and well-written relationship anyway, despite the relative brevity. I've seen heterosexual romances that weren't that long become pretty popular, too. So I think Clexa would be big even if it weren't queer. But yeah - maybe not quite as big, that's true.

 

Personally, I don't see anything bad or insulting in killing Lexa. This is something the show did well before she even appeared on it - remember Wells? 

[Duke Silver]

I agree w/ the general sentiment:  objectively, this was an awesome stand-alone episode.  HOWEVER, I despise what this means for the show going forward.  From a character standpoint, it's hard for me to see the show as being anything than on its last legs.  Lexa is gone; Bellamy is ruined.  What a shame, though inevitable.

[Ravenya003]

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. 

[Kate213]

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.  

 

 

Not sure the impact will be significant to the traditional ratings but I'd expect a noticeable drop, at least for the next few episodes.  For a show like The 100 (barely getting a 0.5-0.6 rating but regularly trending on Twitter), social media presence is almost as important as the actual viewing numbers.  You don't count for traditional ratings if you don't have a Nielson box so other factors impact whether a show is considered successful, such as delayed viewing, streaming, and social media.  These additional factors are the reason why The 100, with mediocre to bad ratings, is still on the air.  

 

The 100's showrunner, Jason Rothenberg, has lost 11% of his Twitter followers (121K to 108K) since Thursday night.  So if angry viewers continue to unfollow both him and the show, disengage from trending on social media and don't watch live (and therefore don't demonstrate an active fanbase on social media during the show's airing),  a drop of even a few percentage points could be considered important when paired with these other factors.  Fandom shippers may not affect traditional ratings significantly but they will certainly affect social media engagement.  For example, "Lexa Deserved Better" was trending on Twitter all day Friday with over 400K tweets/100 million impressions - those numbers are hard to ignore.  

 

More than likely, any overall impact will be short term and not overly devastating but it will probably be enough to get CW executives talking.

Edited March 5, 2016 by Kate213

[Ravenya003]

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. 

[stealinghome]

Some good media discussions of Lexa's death as well:

 

The 100 Pulled A Whedon, And It Was TERRIBLE (io9)

 

Why the Controversial Death on 'The 100' Matters (Variety)

 

The 100's Showrunner Explains Why

Had To Die (tvinsider) [side note: this one makes me think that Rothenberg is...not all that bright. "I don't want to talk about the trope, it's not something that factored into the decision" is basically saying "Yeah, I know all about the trope, and played right into it anyway!" Who the heck admits to that????]

Edited March 5, 2016 by stealinghome

[Jack Shaftoe]

 

Personally, I don't see anything bad or insulting in killing Lexa. This is something the show did well before she even appeared on it - remember Wells?

 

I sure do and I am still a bit annoyed that they killed him. Not because he was black but because I found him much more interesting than Bellamy and the likes. Personally I think killing off main characters is a tool that should be used very sparingly, rather than as a way of proving the show street credit as darker and edgier. Then again, I also happen to think the whole notion of darker and edgier is stupid.

 

 

Side note: this one makes me think that Rothenberg is...not all that bright. "I don't want to talk about the trope, it's not something that factored into the decision" is basically saying "Yeah, I know all about the trope, and played right into it anyway!" Who the heck admits to that????

 

Well, he couldn't very well play dumb considering he had given like ten interviews in anticipation of the reactions of the fans and apparently he has been repeatedly asked about this particular trope on twitter. If anyone is interested in Rothenberg's lengthy explanations, here is a lengthy podcast about the episode. I can't help but shake my head at him talking about his "brilliant" idea of the AI implant connecting the two major storylines and not being able to come up with another way of linking them other than killing Lexa. I didn't really like how he implied that the people who would drop the show now probably only watched it for Clarke/Lexa in the first place. But in all fairness I think he defended his position well. Just  too bad he is so much into the AI reincarnation nonsense,

 

I don't know how things go on the CW because I watch very few CW shows but there have been shows where the sinking the most popular ship led to cancellation (ABC Family's Chasing Life comes to mind as a recent example), so who knows.

[Clay38]

I don't know how things go on the CW because I watch very few CW shows but there have been shows where the sinking the most popular ship led to cancellation (ABC Family's Chasing Life comes to mind as a recent example), so who knows.

Not really ship related but apparently CW execs forced Marc Guggenheim to bring Sara Lance back to life after the fan backlash when she died on Arrow. And I don't think it was anywhere near as bad as this.

[Lion]

I think I may be in the minority in saying that I thought the ALIE 2.0 chip was well played and also the only thing that would have made sense.  Lexa mentioned last season how the commanders are chosen.  It's not a supernatural show so it was unlikely to be some supernatural version of reincarnation myths.  I figured some sort of election process or some version of the show's pseudo science, or a mix of both.  I think the show could have made the connection between the grounder and skaikru history sooner, but I thought it was pretty clear when they finally did reveal the 13th station to be Polaris, that Lexa will have swallowed a chip in order to have the past commanders "living within her".  Well, she didn't swallow the chip, but close enough.  

[piperkat]

After a few days and reading some of the replies, I can see why Lexa's death was germane to the story and even necessary to move along the ALIE and Becca storylines...it was just handled SO. DAMN. BADLY. that I have to think the writers were doing it deliberately.  It was lazy and cliche and didn't even make sense within the story--Clarke says she and Octavia are leaving within the hour, and yet she has time for sex, cuddling, apparently MORE sex, and then a trip back to her room? It would have made more sense for them to have a quick tender moment, the whole promise of "may we meet again", then Clarke goes back to her room to get her things and the scene plays out. I mean, you have a roomful of professional writers; you'd think one of them could come up with a way to get all the players into the room together without resorting to tired cliches like "sex == death". 

 

It also sucks because there were a lot of things I really liked about the episode. I liked the Becca backstory, I liked the tie-ins between the past and present, I liked Octavia and Indra, I liked the fact that we didn't see any of the idiot Ark people. If it hadn't been for That Crowning Moment of WTF, this would have been one of my favorite episodes this season. 

The writers need to take a cue from Vegas--your heroes need a winning episode once in a while, even a small one. If they just keep losing and losing, eventually it gets depressing and the players/viewers leave the table. 

 

On another note it looks like the Grounders' superstition about not using guns was only a little bit off--if a Grounder uses a gun, the Mountain Men won't kill them, they'll kill their Commander and eventually themselves off out of sheer incompetence. :-/

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

I Am The 100's Savior A.I. Vessel
And during my brief respite from living under the skin of Grounder commanders, I'm going to tell my story.

[Jonsi Igo]

Lexa's death was the biggest bullsh*t ever.

 

BTW, there's no Clarke in the next episode, so we don't even get to see her grieving. The showrunner confirmed this on one of the podcasts, plus we know Eliza Taylor was spending her time in LA and not in Vancouver at the time of shooting episode 308.

[RCharter]

Objectively: Brilliant episode.

 

Subjectively:  Fuck that shit.

 

Well put.

 

 

That said, finding out she had the chip all along was a twist I didn't see coming, and now I have no idea where this is heading.  How does it "pick" who the next commander will be?  Who is it going to be?  So many questions....

 

 

I thought Lexa picked that little boy to be the next commander?  Maybe only those with the "nightblood" can withstand having the AI implanted in them.  On the other hand, I think King Roan is going to come back into the picture and put in his bid to be the leader.  Especially if Lexa's pick is a young child.

 

 

I can't believe I wanted Murphy to be dead in the first two seasons, he has become one of the most entertaining characters on the show.

 

I felt so bad for him when he ran to the door and realized it was locked.  Poor Murphy!

Aw man. I wasn't a Lexa superfan (I liked her well enough but didn't love her) but what a crappy way to go. I actually feel really bad for her which is a surprise given i was mostly ehh about her character. They keep doing these Grounder commanders wrong. I'm still pissed off about how they killed Anya (though it was one of my favourite episodes purely for the Anya/Clarke misadventures).

I felt that they had Lexa "go" the way she did so Titus could blame Murphy/Clarke and get the war he has been angling for.  The death was behind closed doors, so only three people know what really happened.  Titus was already planning to kill Clarke and frame Murphy for it.  its the word of two untrustworthy skycrew against Titus.  

 

I thought the episode was great in that it explained so much.  If Jaha/ALIE take over Arkadia, I guess they may still go to war with the Grounders because that is how important ALIE 2.0 is to ALIE 1.0.  Unless, each version wants to destroy the other.

Edited March 6, 2016 by RCharter

[AnnaMayWong]

Lexa did need to expire so that The Plot can propel and expand. For instance -- 'fresh blood' transfusing the Becca storyline,...

Lexa helped erect the foundation, now, others need to complete the structure.

However, the decision for TheSexScene and immediate subsequent killing was carelessly developed and, seemingly, manufactured for, perhaps, unintentional juvenile effect--"Ooh, oooh, I know what we should do. Let's kill Lexa BUT before we do, Let's have her and Clarke have (ssh! ) SEX(!). Teehee (giggle, giggle) . That'll be so cool. Boy o' boy, the viewers are gonna luv it ! " (cue--*laughter and *high-fives all around) .

[RCharter]

So does this mean that all the survivors on the ground had basically become illiterate cave-dwelling idiots -- after only two years ?  I find it hard to believe that they reverted to cave paintings and god-like worship of a person that had "fallen from the sky" in such a short amount of time. 

The question of people's reaction to Becca is an interesting one.  I would imagine caves were the safest place to live if you survived a nuclear event.  And its possible that they wanted to use pictures instead of words simply because they may have been people from different regions, who didn't speak the same language.  And they thought that...a picture is worth a 1000 words in every language and would be interpreted the same by most people versus a written account. 

 

It sounds like ALIE 1.0 destroyed the world because there was "too many people."  So, to me, it sounds like there weren't enough resources on Earth, or something was happening that was forcing people to join the Ark.  Did everyone know about the Ark when Alie started the nuclear event?  Did people realize that they were going to be some left behind, or was this some sort of secret project?  If people didn't really know the nature of the Ark, or what was going on then Becca might just look like a magical woman falling out of the sky, in the wake of destruction....a destruction that they don't know the reason behind.  Although, I can see how they probably should have been savvy enough to figure out that she was injecting them with something so she was human, and not magical.  But then again, is that really what the cave drawings show?  They show a mushroom cloud, a woman coming to greet them, and maybe helping them.  It could be interpreted to show a mythical god like figure, or what actually happened.

[FurryFury]

Not really ship related but apparently CW execs forced Marc Guggenheim to bring Sara Lance back to life after the fan backlash when she died on Arrow. And I don't think it was anywhere near as bad as this.

Considering how much the writers of her show love Sara Lance (I've actually recently made a post about it in her thread in LoT forum), it shouldn't be compared to this event at all. We still don't know the who behind the scenes reasoning and all the Laurel/KC drama, and I doubt we'll ever get the whole of it. 

[stealinghome]

I felt that they had Lexa "go" the way she did so Titus could blame Murphy/Clarke and get the war he has been angling for.  The death was behind closed doors, so only three people know what really happened.  Titus was already planning to kill Clarke and frame Murphy for it.  its the word of two untrustworthy skycrew against Titus.

I am probably dreaming on this front, but I HOPE the show doesn't go the route of having Titus frame Clarke for Lexa's death. To me that would be a clear violation of the spirit of his vow to Lexa that he wouldn't (try to) hurt Clarke anymore, and I like to think that after murdering Lexa, he would at least fully honor his last vow to her. Holding Clarke and Murphy as potential bargaining chips/hostages for/in a Grounders-Arker war would be appropriately dickish without making him betray Lexa in death too. But I'm probably dreaming, yeah. (Though maybe he frames Murphy alone for the murder, but insists on holding Clarke as a chess piece against the Arkers. That would fulfill his wishes without breaking his vow.)

 

On the other hand, I think King Roan is going to come back into the picture and put in his bid to be the leader.  Especially if Lexa's pick is a young child.

I'm thinking Roan might come back into play too, but as an ambiguous ally for Clarke. I think we can all agree that Aiden is going to die before he becomes commander, since it makes things too easy for Clarke if he takes Lexa's spot. On the other hand, seems like you have to be a nightblood to be Commander. So I'm guessing Aiden will be killed before becoming commander and whatever nightblood does become commander is super anti-Grounder and wants to hold/execute Clarke and Murphy. But I'm thinking that Roan might help Clarke escape, since he seemed indifferent to the whole "let's go to war with everyone!!!!" thing his mom had going on, is smart enough to see that peace benefits everyone, and that Clarke is integral to peace. Plus I think he kind of begrudgingly likes Clarke.

 

We know Clarke/Polis isn't featured next episode...if you figure that at the end of episode 9, we find out who the new commander is, and in episode 10, Roan helps Clarke escape, that puts Clarke rolling back into Arkadia in episode 11, which seems about right to kick off the final third of the season.

 

Not really ship related but apparently CW execs forced Marc Guggenheim to bring Sara Lance back to life after the fan backlash when she died on Arrow. And I don't think it was anywhere near as bad as this.

Considering how much the writers of her show love Sara Lance (I've actually recently made a post about it in her thread in LoT forum), it shouldn't be compared to this event at all. We still don't know the who behind the scenes reasoning and all the Laurel/KC drama, and I doubt we'll ever get the whole of it.

I agree that it's probably not comparable, but for a few different reasons. First, Rothenberg has been using "ADC is a regular on Fear the Walking Dead" as an excuse for offing Lexa.* Who knows if it's true, but the actress being committed to another network gives everyone on the CW a clear out in saying "sorry, Lexa can't come back!" Second, I assume Sara Lance was brought back because a) Arrow is one of the CW's top shows and they don't want to alienate the fanbase and b) they saw a lot of potential for her in the spinoff. Neither of those things are true for The 100. A quick look at the ratings tells me it will likely get a S4, but I would guess beyond that is very much in doubt; it's not a show they'll try to milk forever and ever like Arrow. Nor is it one with much spinoff/shared universe potential. I'm just not sure the network cares that much about a marginally-rated show that probably won't be around for that much longer (and if the ratings tank, it's probably more likely that they'll just cancel it than try to fix it). Third, I actually don't think bringing Lexa back would help as much--I think a LOT of the damage has already been done and isn't going to go away. As others here have said, like 50% of the fandom's ire is springing from the feeling that they were deliberately played, and from the ridiculous way the show tried to pat itself on the back for being "diverse" and "progressive" and "an aspirational show" and then turned around and tried to duck out on taking responsibility for playing into a terrible cliche that they knew full well existed and that is the exact opposite of progressive. Bringing Lexa back, even though it's an acknowledgment that the show was very wrongheaded, isn't going to erase a lot of that ugliness. Damage is already done.

 

*side note, wouldn't it be terribly ironic if FtWD offs her character like 3 episodes into the new season?

 

 

ETA: Also the show keeps doubling down on Lexa being dead, so it would be huge egg on their face to bring her back.

 

The writer of the episode's mea culpa.

Edited March 6, 2016 by stealinghome

[Izeinwinter]

Eh, I figure the paintings happened substantially later. But lots of the world building on this show makes only very limited amounts of sense - for example, post nuclear apocalypse, a great deal of technology becomes unsustainable because there just aren't enough people to make the mass markets that allow for true mass production... But that shouldn't result in primitives, it should result in people using a weird-as-all hell mix of technologies, because a whole lot of our present knowledge can be applied by, and is insanely useful to, a village of 50 people. For example, sanitation. You want to know what is required to build a bio-gas sanitation system that sterilizes your shit so you can use it for fertilizer without stinking up the place and also provides natural gas to cook with? "The ability to make barrels or large jars, dirt and knowing how". In a similar vein, the most reliable contraceptive ever discovered could have been easily produced by a bronze age smith, because it's just a piece of copper bent into the right shape with no sharp edges. And so on and so forth. 

Basically, the grounders ought to be living in a really bizzare mix of technologies, and reading a bunch. 

 

Re: The chip - I figure the odds are very high it is going to end up in Clarke sooner or later. 

Edited March 6, 2016 by Izeinwinter

[Jack Shaftoe]

 

I felt that they had Lexa "go" the way she did so Titus could blame Murphy/Clarke and get the war he has been angling for.  The death was behind closed doors, so only three people know what really happened.  Titus was already planning to kill Clarke and frame Murphy for it.  its the word of two untrustworthy skycrew against Titus.

 

If this happens then Murphy and Clarke are too stupid to live. I don't understand why they didn't immediately try to kill Titus or raise the alarm or do something. They behaved as if someone else had shot Lexa and Titus still deserved trust. Murphy in particular isn't all that forgiving and he had no particular reason to give a damn that Lexa was dying, so him just standing there was bizarre to say the least.

 

 

BTW, there's no Clarke in the next episode, so we don't even get to see her grieving. The showrunner confirmed this on one of the podcasts, plus we know Eliza Taylor was spending her time in LA and not in Vancouver at the time of shooting episode 308.

 

Not that I have much desire to defend the writing choices at that point but it's entirely possible that 3.08 will simply take place at the same time as 3.07, only in Arkadia, so it wouldn't make sense to show the aftermath of Lexa's death just yet.

 

 

Although, I can see how they probably should have been savvy enough to figure out that she was injecting them with something so she was human, and not magical.

 

They should have but per the recent podcast Rothenberg thought Arthur Clarke's so called Third Law - "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" was just too cool to not use there - even though the people Becca met must have seen plenty of advanced technology, so this law doesn't really apply, IMO.

Edited March 6, 2016 by Jack Shaftoe

[yellowfred]

I felt that they had Lexa "go" the way she did so Titus could blame Murphy/Clarke and get the war he has been angling for.  The death was behind closed doors, so only three people know what really happened.  Titus was already planning to kill Clarke and frame Murphy for it.  its the word of two untrustworthy skycrew against Titus.  

 

The thing, though, is that Titus doesn't need to convince the people that they should go to war, he has to convince the commander.  The whole problem is that the people already want war and Lexa wouldn't let them have it.  He was hoping that making it look like some random sky person killed Clarke would be enough to get Lexa to declare war (a shaky plan, at best, but I think he was more than a little unhinged at this point).  Even if he did try to convince people that Skaikru killed the commander, there'll still be a new commander with at least enough of Lexa's memories to know that he's lying.  Plus, he made that whole deathbed promise to never hurt Clarke, and I think framing her for murder would qualify.  Personally, I think her death went the way it did specifically so that it would set up Titus and Clarke in kind of an awkward alliance, probably against Ontari, since she's probably going to be the next commander.

 

 

Although, I can see how they probably should have been savvy enough to figure out that she was injecting them with something so she was human, and not magical.  But then again, is that really what the cave drawings show?  They show a mushroom cloud, a woman coming to greet them, and maybe helping them.  It could be interpreted to show a mythical god like figure, or what actually happened.

 

That was sort of my interpretation also.  The first generation of people she met probably had a reasonably clear understanding of what the chip was, in the same way that most people now would have a reasonably clear understanding of it, meaning that they get what it is and what it's meant to do, but it's not like they really know how.  Then, over the course of subsequent generations, that understanding changed, in part because that type of technology might as well be mystical, compared to what people were living with in their every day lives.  I mean, I agree that 97 years is probably a little quickly for that to have happened, but there are some exacerbating factors, like the fact that they don't seem to have had any particularly reliable means of writing things down, that make it more feasible.  

[blixie]

 

Basically, the grounders ought to be living in a really bizzare mix of technologies, and reading a bunch.

 

Hypothetically yeah, but it's certainly not the first or only post-apocalyptic world vision to say when people lose access to resources like their technology, they resort to regressive primitive behaviors. I also think Becca was committed to this idea that humanities flaw was "guns" and technology mixed with guns, and possibly that more primitive culture could not destroy itself on the same scale ever again.

 

This show is such a hot mess, I can agree that on a surface level this episode was reasonably strong, but they can literally not make up their fucking minds about Octavia who spent half the episode haranguing Clarke for not supporting Arkadia, and the other half rallying Indra to go get REVENGE on Arkadia including her own brother? What in the entire fuck? I can't even talk about Bellamy's OOC bullshit (anti grounder? Sure? Mass murderer of total innocents, and slavish follower of authority figure? FUCK NO)

 

The one thing I welcomed was Lexa's death, that was the most predictable shit ever, as was them being reunited in figurative marriage after one spit in the face, despite her repeated betrayals merely to make her "death" hit harder. I've been predicting that since before the season, because I've seen TV before. Alycia was great, but guess what she's not the fucking lead of The 100 and the truth is she was in the way of Clarke's development, as long as Lexa breathed Clarke would be subordinate to her character and her story. Since Clarke is the lead, and she's still bisexual, I don't really think it's the same trope at all,the gay lead lives on to possibly GAY some more (again I lobby for Magarita Levieva),  and I did appreciate the folding in of the AI. Still I get why it rankles, but no more so than the total destruction Bellamy, Octavia, Lincoln, Jasper, Monty, and every other character that was not Lexa this season has been for me. They've all one under the Rothenberg Plot over Character Bus.

[ottoDbusdriver]

Eh, I figure the paintings happened substantially later. But lots of the world building on this show makes only very limited amounts of sense - for example, post nuclear apocalypse, a great deal of technology becomes unsustainable because there just aren't enough people to make the mass markets that allow for true mass production... But that shouldn't result in primitives, it should result in people using a weird-as-all hell mix of technologies, because a whole lot of our present knowledge can be applied by, and is insanely useful to, a village of 50 people. For example, sanitation. You want to know what is required to build a bio-gas sanitation system that sterilizes your shit so you can use it for fertilizer without stinking up the place and also provides natural gas to cook with? "The ability to make barrels or large jars, dirt and knowing how". In a similar vein, the most reliable contraceptive ever discovered could have been easily produced by a bronze age smith, because it's just a piece of copper bent into the right shape with no sharp edges. And so on and so forth. 

Basically, the grounders ought to be living in a really bizzare mix of technologies, and reading a bunch.

Especially after a 97 years or so, you would think it would be rather steampunkish at the minimum.

 

And the cave painting is even dumber because Becca probably would have been alive during the time that it was painted -- but that painting was made to look like it was done thousands of years ago by uneducated savages.

 

And the Polis being derived from Polaris makes even less sense, again because Rebecca would have been around -- and everyone she encountered would have spoken English.  And she could tell them that she came from the Polaris station.  And I'm pretty sure that everyone on Earth would have been aware of all the different space stations in orbit (wasn't one of them Mir 2 ?) before the apocalypse so it's not like it would have been a surprise that escape pod technology existed.

 

The mythos they are trying to build would probably be appropriate 20 or 30 generations after the nuclear war, but not 2 or 3 generations --  especially with a techno-savvy and AI-powered leader with the ability to pass on technical knowledge to commanders via the implant.

Edited March 9, 2016 by ottoDbusdriver

[kieyra]

I'm really sorry to do this so late in the game, but I was 100% unspoiled for this until literally ten minutes ago.

I know this is juvenile but I'm really thinking of quitting this show, especially if this was to set up Clarke/Bellamy later.

They just killed the one element that pulled me from "casual viewer" to "completely invested" in season 2, and the relationship was pretty groundbreaking for network television.

I know I can't be saying anything new, but I'm legit annoyed and disappointed. That was a bullshit death.

Edit: scrolling back and seeing that I'm NOT alone in this is only mildly comforting.

Bullshit.

Edited March 6, 2016 by kieyra

[Jack Shaftoe]

 

Personally, I think her death went the way it did specifically so that it would set up Titus and Clarke in kind of an awkward alliance, probably against Ontari, since she's probably going to be the next commander.

 

I think I might be done with the show if Titus not only suffers no repercussions but becomes Clarke's ally. We already have way too man Karma Houdinis in this show.

 

 

Alycia was great, but guess what she's not the fucking lead of The 100 and the truth is she was in the way of Clarke's development, as long as Lexa breathed Clarke would be subordinate to her character and her story.

 

That wasn't really the case last season, was it? Also, if there were no scheduling conflicts and Rothenberg didn't have such a fetish for "shocking" deaths Clarke would have simply gone back to Arkadia to bring down Pike or whatever she does next without Lexa being around.

 

 

The mythos they are trying to build would probably be appropriate 20 or 30 generations after the nuclear war, but not 2 or 3 generations --  especially with a techno-savvy and AI-powered leader with the ability to pass on technical knowledge to commanders via the implant.

 

Let's face it, the mythos is a mess. The Fallout series of post-apocalyptic video games has much more plausible mythos despite running on the rule of cool and rule of funny. There is no reason whatsoever for the grounders to abandon writing in favour of the oral tradition. It's not like they couldn't possibly find paper warehouses not destroyed by war or produce some primitive paper and pens. If certain groups of survivors scorned technology then others who didn't would have killed them or at least displaced them to more inhospitable territories with the help of guns.

Edited March 6, 2016 by Jack Shaftoe

[blixie]

 

That wasn't really the case last season, was it?

 

Yeah I think it was, Lexa was an *established* and successful leader from whom Clarke took HER "lead" so yeah I think she was has been destined for death from her introduction, regardless of her availability vis a vis the Walking Dead spinoff as so many have pointed out it simply was never true ADC wasn't available to be recurring on this show for the rest of the season. It would be different if immediately upon seeing what they had in Lexa they made her full time regular, the story would have progressed differently and she'd have been less mentor-lover extraordinaire out the gate. They would have strung that OTP along they would given the massive BETRAYAL it's emotional due, and not had them gay married in fifteen seconds this season. I want to make it clear that I loved Lexa and appreciated Clexa while also not being a fan of it, because there really was nothing to them BUT the electricity Alycia Debnam Carey brought to the role/relationship, while Liza just stand around looking stiffly perplexed by her fiery glowers. The writing though? Like so much else on this show it's compressed and lazy.

 

I don't know what to do with people who are in still shocked in 2016 that showrunners lie and stuff about their faves. Rothenberg least of all, this guy is full on douche canoe about every damn thing, and I really don't get why I as Bellamy fan I  should be happy MY fave has been utterly destroyed to service the story of Clexa right this second, because the showrunner doesn't want to give Bellarke "shippers" any oxygen...until he does because you know a bolt of lightening is going to come down and turn a mass murdering child killing sister and friend betraying punk into a hero because Rothenberg said so. This all atrocities are equal dawg stuff has got to stop.

[Ravenya003]

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. 

Edited March 7, 2016 by Ravenya003

[Jack Shaftoe]

 

Yeah I think it was, Lexa was an *established* and successful leader from whom Clarke took HER "lead" so yeah I think she was has been destined for death from her introduction, regardless of her availability vis a vis the Walking Dead spinoff as so many have pointed out it simply was never true ADC wasn't available to be recurring on this show for the rest of the season.

 

I am still not seeing how Clarke was subordinate to Lexa's character and her story. She learned things from Lexa but Lexa learned a lot from her too. Clarke wasn't the formal leader of the Arkers but she was very much the de facto one.  Plus, even if Lexa were primarily a mentor figure for Clarke - so what? Most main characters have mentor figures and manage to not be overshadowed by them.

 

 

Rothenberg least of all, this guy is full on douche canoe about every damn thing, and I really don't get why I as Bellamy fan I  should be happy MY fave has been utterly destroyed to service the story of Clexa right this second, because the showrunner doesn't want to give Bellarke "shippers" any oxygen

 

What does Clexa have to do with Bellamy's turn to the dark side? Clarke and Lexa had already reconciled before Clarke learned that Bellamy had drunk Pike's Kool-aid. It's not like his stupidity drove her into Lexa's arms.

[kieyra]

Lexa never struck me as the mentor archetype, most definitely not in the Obi-Wan, "old generation must die so the new can flourish" hero's-journey sense that is being suggested here. And if the writers are saying that's canonically what happened, they need to go back to Joseph Campbell school. She was pretty clearly the Shapeshifter.

And she and Clarke were closer to equals, and they learned from each other. More significantly, each made the other character vastly more interesting.

This was a massive chemistry squander, akin to the butchering of Sleepy Hollow when the showrunner decided to try to replace his POC female lead with his white crush, completely ignoring the fact that his two actual leads were what made the show something you couldn't look away from.

Edited March 7, 2016 by kieyra

[Minneapple]

I don't know what to do with people who are in still shocked in 2016 that showrunners lie and stuff about their faves.

 

I don't know if anyone remembers...but Rothenberg used to tweet pro-Bellarke stuff. This was back when the show had zero buzz and nobody in the media cared. I guess Rothenberg got tired of the Bellarke shippers tweeting at him so he got angry and turned on them. Something like that anyway. So this behavior from him is nothing new. Even during the Clexa storyline he was hashtagging #clexa, then threw a tantrum a couple weeks ago and said he hated shipping. 

What does Clexa have to do with Bellamy's turn to the dark side? Clarke and Lexa had already reconciled before Clarke learned that Bellamy had drunk Pike's Kool-aid. It's not like his stupidity drove her into Lexa's arms.

Rothenberg ruined Bellamy's character to soften Lexa's betrayal. It's happened before in TV writing. You see it a lot in love triangles. Trashing one character is a really lazy way of building up another character. In this case it was a massive waste of both Bellamy and Lexa since Lexa was only going to die anyway. So...congrats, writers! You've fucked everything up.

 

More significantly, each made the other character vastly more interesting.

 

I disagree. Clarke was already interesting. In fact I would argue that the reason the Arkers' plot this season is boring is because Clarke is not involved with it. 

Edited March 7, 2016 by Minneapple

[kieyra]

And here's another thing that's bullshit: I don't even know who shot Lexa (or whatever happened), because I was distracted and apparently it was a blink-and-you-miss-it death. Whatever the cause, it can't have been terribly significant, and this was a character who deserved to go out at the head of an army.

[shantown]

Also the show keeps doubling down on Lexa being dead, so it would be huge egg on their face to bring her back.

From the above link: "The 100 has never done that. When we kill characters, they’re dead."

 

Am I mis-remembering in season one when Jasper got a spear through the heart and was left strung up in a tree for days? Dude was dead...  but here we are in season 3 listening to him whine.

[blixie]

 

What does Clexa have to do with Bellamy's turn to the dark side?

 

It has to do with total amount of screen time spent SHOWING the story, it has to do with the care taken in telling the story of Lexa and Clarke and totally blowing off the Bellamy and Monty sides of the story, it has to do with Monty getting ONE FUCKING LINE about how he's had it rough but like he's coping and stuff by killing little babies YO, even JASPER had more story than Monty or Bellamy who were just as emotionally impacted by their GROUP decision to gas Mt. Weather as goddamn Clarke. And yes I think Bellamy has been shortchanged of story, I think everyone in Arkadia has been shortchanged out of story because JR wanted to spend all his "real work" on introducing us to Polis, and that stuff has been great, but when you sacrifice 3/4's of your show for one small slice catering to one small piece of your fans, fans you plan to fuck over by the way by killing off said piece of the story than like get bent, you suck as a writer, but I guess we can only be critical of the writing if it negatively affects Lexa's character, and impacts representational issues?

 

 

 

I am still not seeing how Clarke was subordinate to Lexa's character and her story.

IDK you seem shocked and  ticked off about Lexa dying, because you didn't recognize the story Jason Rothenberg was telling, I did and knew she was going to bite it, and here she is dead. To me it was very obviously the story he was telling, that he down the line has plans for Clarke to "unite" the 13 tribes and yes in that case Lexa is quite obviously literally IN THE WAY of Clarke's journey. You can disagree all you want and Lexa will still be dead, and she will still have died literally FOR Clarke how much clearer could it be? I'm not like approving his story at all, it would have been a lot more interesting to see their relationship played out for longer with more depth, but this was never gonna be the show to do it.

 

 

Trashing one character is a really lazy way of building up another character.

 

I don't even really think it's THAT, it's like Mo Ryan and Ryan McGhee said he is just one bone lazy bitch of a writer and had NOTHING to say for about these characters in the first third of the season, eh... don't know what to do with them, SO we'll have them slaughter innocents and figure that shit out later. It's pretty sad when you can't manage to cough up a good meaty story for three quarters of your regular full time cast. This idiot actually DOES want to move onto Bellarke, but he wanted to utterly ruin it before he moved on to it. Because he's in some bizarro commercial television universe where this kind of thing works? He's funny like a clown.

[ParadoxLost]

From the above link: "The 100 has never done that. When we kill characters, they’re dead."

 

Am I mis-remembering in season one when Jasper got a spear through the heart and was left strung up in a tree for days? Dude was dead...  but here we are in season 3 listening to him whine.

 

We are moving onto a storyline where one AI brings dead characters back to the life in the City of Light and the other AI has the Commander have discussions with past Commanders in dreams.  I tend to think its possible that they have already filmed a scene with an avatar Lexa.  But her other show is the thing that will keep her from coming back in a permanent way.

Edited March 7, 2016 by ParadoxLost

[stealinghome]

From the above link: "The 100 has never done that. When we kill characters, they’re dead."

 

Am I mis-remembering in season one when Jasper got a spear through the heart and was left strung up in a tree for days? Dude was dead...  but here we are in season 3 listening to him whine.

He's a straight white male, though--rules don't apply!

 

Rothenberg ruined Bellamy's character to soften Lexa's betrayal. It's happened before in TV writing.

I don't really think that's the case. I honestly think Rothenberg is just not that bright and thinks that he can write a Great Redemption Narrative for Bellamy, and the 12-16 year old girls who watch the show for Bellamy will swoon over how much of "a tortured woobie that does the right thing when the chips are down even though he's messed up before" he is, and that's going to be that, Bellamy will be welcomed back with open arms as the sympathetic Male Lead, now with even more Manpain! Also, I think the writers wanted one of the 100 to side with Pike for ~dramatic conflict, and Bellamy made the least least sense (not that he made sense but everyone else made even less sense), and also has the male lead get out of jail free card. And, lbr...for a large part of this show's audience, that WILL be enough.

 

I mean, look, one of his writers just flat-out admitted "yeah, we played into the Dead Lesbian trope, but we thought our ~superfantastic writing would make everyone overlook our use of the trope!" That tells you a LOT about what Rothenberg thinks, both of his "great writing" and of the audience to whom he's writing.

 

but I guess we can only be critical of the writing if it negatively affects Lexa's character, and impacts representational issues?

I've seen plenty of people be critical of the way Bellamy (and Pike, and S3) have been written in previous episode threads. But when the writing plays into a massively harmful, representationally awful, frankly utterly gross trope like it did in this episode, I also think it's only to be expected that people are going to be especially critical.

 

I agree that I've always thought Lexa was destined to die, btw. But imo the character had more story to tell at the point they killed her (and it goes without saying that the way they wrote her off was totally gross).