S01.E07: Contents Under Pressure

[radishcake]

Clarke and Raven make contact with the Ark, and Abby guides Clarke through a dangerous procedure in a desperate move to save one of their own. Meanwhile, on the Ark, Abby is removed from the council, and former Chancellor Diana Sydney takes her place. Jaha reveals to Abby that there are not enough drop ships for everyone on the Ark to go down to Earth, and Kane begins to deal with his guilt over his recent decision.

 

[Joystickenvy]

Well I guess that answers the question of how they get Earth, though if they have multiple drop ships, I don't get why they couldn't use one to send the people they murderized to save air down to Earth, and maybe give them an f'in radio, unless they think they are somehow going to last on an already failing ark until the Earth suddenly becomes "safe."

[tricksterson]

At that point most of the Council still thought the Earth was uninhabitable.  As for the "not enough drop ships"  presumably they can send enough down to fix the environmental problems and let those who stay do so indefinitely. 

[Joystickenvy]

I know, but if the people are going to die anyway, what difference does it make? They don't have confirmation the earth is uninhabitable, but they know suffocation is fatal, so why not give them a chance to live, send them with a radio and some tools to test the environment and reduce ark population, thereby killing a bunch of birds with one stone?

As for staying indefinitely, even just a fraction will use the ark up eventually, plus unless they are all one gender or something keep reproducing until they are back at square one.

[shapeshifter]

This show could go a lot of ways. They could get the Ark repaired, but run out of enough handwavium to send more folks down to earth.

[Stinger97]

And with that, we learn that the Grounders (at least the one currently tied up) speak English. I was a little uncomfortable with a POC being tied up and beaten by a bunch of white kids, but perhaps I was being overly sensitive. And was that a drawing of Octavia in his diary? I'm interested in learning about what their connection is. 

 

I know that Abby lost her position on the Council, but was the new woman, Diana, appointed to Abby's old position or did Jaha step down as Chancellor? Apparently I wasn't paying enough attention. Either way, I expect Diana has ulterior motives judging from the way she shot that look at the Dude Pissed About His Wife's Pointless Death. 

 

I'm familiar with Lindsey Morgan from General Hospital, and her character there was sent away to school (I think?) because Lindsey couldn't act. And, IMO, she's not doing any better here. When she was ordering everyone around while Clarke worked on Finn, I wasn't impressed. However, I did kind of love her look of "Oh great..." after realizing the girl who slept with her boyfriend just saved his life. 

 

And I'm rolling my eyes at the Ark folks having to make MORE sacrifices next week, once everyone realizes there are 2000+ folks on the Ark, but only room for 700 people on the pods headed to Earth. Only one sacrifice montage a season, please. 

[ottoDbusdriver]

Whoever writes this show needs to take a remedial course in geography.  The drop pod landed in northern Virginia (they've made that abundantly clear) -- that hurricane pictured on the monitor on the Ark was centered in the Gulf of Mexico, and the entire Northeast US has clear skies.  So where is the storm coming from ? Is it magic ?  Plus that shot shows that North America is in daylight (white clouds and greenery), so why is it night at the camp ?

 

That was some perfect timing -- knife comes out of Finn, tree branches manage to penetrate a spaceship in multiple places, from the wind no less, complete with little puffs of dust at each puncture point (where the little explosives went off to open each hole).  Since when does metal pulverize to dust on impact -- from wood.

Clarke pulls out the knife -- and that's it ??  No blood, no screaming in pain by Finn -- he's ok.  What was the point of her mother guiding her with instructions ?? Any one could have done that.  Then Clarke sews up the wound, no muss, no fuss -- but what about the interior damage, because that was a deep wound ?  Did they disinfect the interior so he doesn't get an infection ?

 

You need to take the Rob Ford approach to interrogation/PR -- they just didn't ask the grounder the right question. 
They should have asked him "Who is your daddy, and what does he do ?"

 

So the grounder can count (at least up to 102). And draw. And can speak English.  Definite boyfriend material for Octavia (she of the "I'll poison myself to get the interrogation answers because grounder wuvs me" school of thought).

 

Apparently Bigfoot was just waiting for all the humans to leave so they could repopulate the woods -- according to the grounder's drawings.

 

Clarke's shirt is soaked with blood -- how soon before that just mysteriously disappears ?

Finn starts to have a seizure, Raven tells Clarke not to let him die and all Clarke does is hold his shoulders down. Why didn't Raven just hold down his shoulders ?

 

How come the poison didn't take effect until AFTER the knife was removed ?  The knife had been in Finn for a couple of hours at that point.

 

If the blue wires were hooked up to the solar panels, and it was night time during a storm, why was there any voltage at all when Raven tortured the grounder ?

 

And Clarke breaks the radio because she's pissed at her mom -- well done.

 

The grounder has a hole in his hand -- just washing away the blood won't fix it.

 

I thought in the first episode it was stated that there were 4000 people on the Ark -- 102 went earthside and 300 or so were killed last week, but yet there are 2237 left on board. That math doesn't add up.

[Joystickenvy]

My first thought was, why don't they just cut the grounder with the poison knife in the hopes that he'll fess up to save himself, but clearly poisoning yourself in the hope that twoo wuv will triumph is the better plan.

As for ark math......not even gonna try. I'm now confused about how long they are supposed to have been on the ark, since apparently they needed 100 years to magic some new ships or build a teleporter or whatever the plan was.

New council woman with obvious ulterior motives took Dr. Clark's mom's seat. Chancellor no homo bro is still chancellor.

The actress who plays Clarke is bugging me with her lack of acting ability much more than anyone else right now. I did love how ms. Tough, resourceful mcguyvering a radio Raven, suddenly couldn't handle simple taskes like turning Finn on his side without explicit instructions from Clarke.

I guess this is why the only other show I have tried to watch on the CW (the tomorrow people) I gave up on a few eps in. Guess I'll hate watch this one for a few, since it's not quite as boring and teenagery yet.

I'm gonna give Clarke the benefit of the doubt and say she just switched the radio frequency, rather than destroying the radio entirely in a fit of pique.

I wonder if the magic hurricane was made of fart clouds.

[Ariah]

As for ark math......not even gonna try. I'm now confused about how long they are supposed to have been on the ark, since apparently they needed 100 years to magic some new ships or build a teleporter or whatever the plan was.

 

I don't think there were supposed to be any new ships to get even more people down - but the current generation was sure it is not their problem. Like "ok, we'll live our lives in space, and our grandchildren's children will have to deal with the problem... Good we won't have to draw straws!"

[tricksterson]

I don't see the problem.  Okay, so 700 people go down.  Assuming they fix the oxygen problem that leaves enough resources for the rest to survive indefinitely or at least long enough for something to be worked out.

[Helena Dax]

"It isn't easy to be in charge, is it?".

 

No,  Bellamy, especially when you're the other one in charge, making stupid decisions all the time and having people murdered. 

 

I'm still interested in the Grounders. I knew they spoke English! And I guess it makes sense that they can't write, but the survivors should have kept that ability alive. It should have given them access to a lot of information.

[Joystickenvy]

I don't see the problem.  Okay, so 700 people go down.  Assuming they fix the oxygen problem that leaves enough resources for the rest to survive indefinitely or at least long enough for something to be worked out.

Clarke's dad claimed the oxygen thing couldn't be fixed, though whether he meant can't be fixed to support the current population or is going to keep getting worse until it stops working entirely wasn't really clear.

Perhaps putting him on ark arrest & having him work on fixing the problem would have been a better idea than blowing him out the airlock.....

If the ark can support a reduced population for a couple generations or so, it's entirely possible a good portion of people would rather stay on the relatively cushy ark than go rough it on the ground with the fart clouds and Morlock grounders, making the secrecy tactic completely moronic.

However, if we are to assume that the ark is plain old dying, then DRAMA! I'm sure somehow the old fogies will either not make it to the ground at all or will land very far away from teen town.

[marcee]

My first thought was, why don't they just cut the grounder with the poison knife in the hopes that he'll fess up to save himself, but clearly poisoning yourself in the hope that twoo wuv will triumph is the better plan.

Right there with you. If you could think of it...and I could think of it...and OCTAVIA WHO LIVED IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND HER WHOLE LIFE could think of it, why couldn't Smart-Girls-Clarke & That's-so-Raven? Lame plot contrivance if you ask me. I did, however, know far in advance that Octavia would be the one to cut herself, I just thought it would happen MUCH MUCH sooner. Electrocution? Really?

 

I'm wondering if Grounder-man isn't Bellamy/Octavia's father?

[tricksterson]

Nice to see he speaks English, disappointed that he speaks English exactly like they do!  I'm not expecting, in fact it would be insulting, a semi understandable pidgin, especially just from two words, but would some kind of accent be too much to ask?   Oh and we have a name 

Lincoln

.  Take that for whatever symbolism you think it's worth.

[shapeshifter]

If they cut Grounder with the poisoned knife, he might have chosen to die with his secret.

Torture is so stupid. Everyone knows it doesn't work. The only reason it persists is because of sickos who enjoy doing it and/or watching it. If this show is going to continue to feature stupid torture scenes, I'm done. That's why I quit Revolution too. </end rant>

[Joystickenvy]

The poison apparently takes hours to work. Plenty of time to try their other methods if he didn't confess. Probably considerably less risk of pre-mature death than stringing him up in a position where his arms could easily dislocate resulting in asphyxiation, beating him, impaling him and then electrocuting him.

Plus under-grounder girl could still try her twoo wuv method as a last resort.....or she coulda just jumped straight to it and saved the dude a lot of beatings.

[Stinger97]

I know we're calling it "twoo wuv," but was that really expressed in the episode? It appeared to me that her overprotectiveness of the Grounder came from her gratitude for him saving her from certain death. Like, maybe they're headed in that direction and, being a CW series I wouldn't be surprised, but that's not what I'm seeing yet. 

[Joystickenvy]

I agree, what I'm referring to is her assumption that he cares so very much about her specifically that he'd fess up to save her, when he wouldn't to save himself. Maybe he just didn't like Finn's face, but it seems we're meant to believe she gives him feels for whatever reason.

Maybe she's a god like C3PO to the Ewoks.

[shapeshifter]

Maybe Grounder and Octavia share a great great grandmother, whose picture she looks like.

[bluebonnet]

I was sort of expecting his notebook to contain pictures of butterflies and it turn out that the girl who gets covered by glowing butterflies is the answer to some sort of prophecy or something.  

[patchwork]

It's unlikely but I'm hoping the Grounders don't talk much and use sign language as their main form of communication as a holdover from previous generations needing to conserve oxygen in whatever Ark like thing enabled them to survive. 

 

I'm not liking this Octavia/Grounder development much, one of the few poc in the cast and he gets tortured by a bunch of white kids and I find his attachment to Ocatvia weird and creepy. While he might be protective and he did save her life the question is: saved it for what? He found her unconscious and injured but instead of taking her back to her people or putting her somewhere they would find her he locks her up in a cave and when she manages to escape he takes her back and chains her to a wall. None of this says trustworthy to me, I find it suspicious and I definitely don't feel it's romantic in any way.

Edited May 3, 2014 by patchwork

[ottoDbusdriver]

While he might be protective and he did save her life the question is: saved it for what? He found her unconscious and injured but instead of taking her back to her people or putting her somewhere they would find her he locks her up in a cave and when she manages to escape he takes her back and chains her to a wall. None of this says trustworthy to me, I find it suspicious and I definitely don't feel it's romantic in any way.

 

But isn't this the same grounder that impaled and then healed Jasper before using him as panther bait -- does that mean Jasper should be in love with the grounder too, since he did save him only after causing the injury ?

 

Octavia's reading a lot into the grounder's actions -- he may have just been healing her/buttering her up in his own way (imprisoning her, chaining her up) in order to get laid.  Plus, they are way out in the middle of nowhere and I've yet to see any lady grounders.

[Izeinwinter]

I think the grounder was keeping his trap shut because he is a lot less braindamaged than the 100 - People say things they shouldn't if they think you don't understand, and torturing someone who cant speak your language for information is idiotic. Which is actually the main reason they should have gone straight for the "Cut the guy" option. Nick him with a poisoned blade and show him his stuff, and it will be quite clear enough what you want to know. I mean, consider the scenario where the guy speaks only Russian. So they show him his stuff, yell a bunch of things with zero information content and beat him some. Even if he desperately wants the beating to stop... what the heck do they actually want? Are they saying "That's a neat poison, which plant is it from?" "Antidote please?" "We want more glass vials, where did you find them?" 

 

I hate torture scenes, but this one I couldn't even get to the part where I was morally outraged, because the bit where there was every chance they were hoping a beating would magically instill english into his brain was just painful. 

[millahnna]

 

But isn't this the same grounder that impaled and then healed Jasper before using him as panther bait

 

I doubt it.  As of the previous episode and this one, it appears that there are at least two different grounder factions: the ones throwing spears/setting traps and this guy (who so far seems to be working solo).  My guess would be that he saved Jasper, as well, but thinking back on the pilot it seems like a pretty tight timeline. 

[marcee]

Does no one agree that he might be her father? He seems way too old to be a love interest to me.

I'm not sure bout the 'two factions' theory. I came to the same conclusion as (I think it was) Finn did - that this grounder blew the warning horn to make his bretheren head for shelter so he could help the kids (namely Octavia, but maybe even the rest) escape. I tend to think they're all in the same community and this guy just doesn't necessarily agree with the 'kill-em-all' mentality of his brothers. Or maybe there's a specific reason he wanted to save Octavia (and possibly Bellamy) - I still say he's related to them.

[shapeshifter]

Does no one agree that he might be her father? He seems way too old to be a love interest to me.

I considered that for a moment, but decided it would be too hard to explain--unless there was another landing party that we don't know about.

Plus, he's not quite father age for her. That's why I suggested above that they are cousins who share the same female ancestor, who looks a lot like her, and whose picture he has seen.

[Joystickenvy]

Didn't look old enough to be her dad, plus I don't know why he'd lock her up in a cave instead of saying oh btw I'm your dad.

[Stinger97]

I definitely think they're related, but I highly doubt he's her father. I'd wager she's in her mid to late teens, and he looked no older than 30. I mean, I guess that's possible, but I just don't think the show'll go there. Perhaps he's a very, very removed cousin? 

[marcee]

Didn't look old enough to be her dad, plus I don't know why he'd lock her up in a cave instead of saying oh btw I'm your dad.

If I had to guess, I'd say he put her in the cave to protect her from the rest of the Grounders, to fix her wound and give her time to heal. There wasn't much time for chatting between the rescue, her fainting and her escape. Besides, he probably doesn't know for sure - and what kind of weird, awkward conversation would that be... "Um, hi. You look familiar. I might be your dad." I'm not sure how well that would go over. Does anyone remember what backstory we got on her father, if any?

[Andromeda]

Whoever writes this show needs to take a remedial course in geography.  The drop pod landed in northern Virginia (they've made that abundantly clear) -- that hurricane pictured on the monitor on the Ark was centered in the Gulf of Mexico, and the entire Northeast US has clear skies.  So where is the storm coming from ? Is it magic ?  Plus that shot shows that North America is in daylight (white clouds and greenery), so why is it night at the camp ?

 

That was some perfect timing -- knife comes out of Finn, tree branches manage to penetrate a spaceship in multiple places, from the wind no less, complete with little puffs of dust at each puncture point (where the little explosives went off to open each hole).  Since when does metal pulverize to dust on impact -- from wood.

Clarke pulls out the knife -- and that's it ??  No blood, no screaming in pain by Finn -- he's ok.  What was the point of her mother guiding her with instructions ?? Any one could have done that.  Then Clarke sews up the wound, no muss, no fuss -- but what about the interior damage, because that was a deep wound ?  Did they disinfect the interior so he doesn't get an infection ?

 

You need to take the Rob Ford approach to interrogation/PR -- they just didn't ask the grounder the right question. 

They should have asked him "Who is your daddy, and what does he do ?"

 

So the grounder can count (at least up to 102). And draw. And can speak English.  Definite boyfriend material for Octavia (she of the "I'll poison myself to get the interrogation answers because grounder wuvs me" school of thought).

 

Apparently Bigfoot was just waiting for all the humans to leave so they could repopulate the woods -- according to the grounder's drawings.

 

Clarke's shirt is soaked with blood -- how soon before that just mysteriously disappears ?

Finn starts to have a seizure, Raven tells Clarke not to let him die and all Clarke does is hold his shoulders down. Why didn't Raven just hold down his shoulders ?

 

How come the poison didn't take effect until AFTER the knife was removed ?  The knife had been in Finn for a couple of hours at that point.

 

If the blue wires were hooked up to the solar panels, and it was night time during a storm, why was there any voltage at all when Raven tortured the grounder ?

 

And Clarke breaks the radio because she's pissed at her mom -- well done.

 

The grounder has a hole in his hand -- just washing away the blood won't fix it.

 

I thought in the first episode it was stated that there were 4000 people on the Ark -- 102 went earthside and 300 or so were killed last week, but yet there are 2237 left on board. That math doesn't add up.

Good questions pointing out all the illogic. On the solar panels, I was only half watching, but solar panels store energy in batteries, so maybe it was the battery leads that contained the power.

 

I don't see the problem.  Okay, so 700 people go down.  Assuming they fix the oxygen problem that leaves enough resources for the rest to survive indefinitely or at least long enough for something to be worked out.

Exactly. Mostly I'm confused about why the Ark doesn't just start sending people down immediately. What's the deal with that? Obviously the kids are alive (as are grounders), so get going and start sending people down. If it's just a delay to keep it a teen show, that's just a major fail. I've been marathoning it, but if they don't explain this adequately, I may not watch season 2.

 

Plus, have none of the Arkies ever hears of a lottery? It's a very egaliarian way to determine who gets seats (after a few essential types are sent, like the soldiers).

Edited July 25, 2014 by Andromeda

[wanderingstar]

And Clarke breaks the radio because she's pissed at her mom -- well done.

 

 

Yes, this bugged me as well. Clarke annoys me in general, though, so that may have been clouding my judgment.