CooperTV September 17, 2020 Share September 17, 2020 (edited) Quote Imagine, if you will, an alternate reality where we got an episode like A Sort of Homecoming, with reunions and hugs and great dialogue and action and a touching death scene (look at that, they DO know how to give a beloved character a good death), and heroism and banter and cute dancing… and it WASN’T preceded by the needless murder of the leading man. It’s really getting my goat how good this episode could’ve been, if it weren’t for the burning rage festering in our hearts. *sad, defeated sigh* Bellamy all but forgotten, the episode barreled forward with strategy and booze and banter, pretending like his death wouldn’t have completely rocked the foundation of most of the characters on this show. Octavia struggled more with her Blodreina legacy than she did with her brother’s murder (a struggle that would’ve been SO GOOD in the alternate reality). Echo took a moment to be sad, stoically reminiscing about her own issues rather than the love she lost (again, her alternate-reality struggle with her past would’ve been so compelling), and Murphy, Emori and Raven (the always alluring trio) spent the episode all business, talking about how hot Murphy is while emulating Bellamy, barely acknowledging the death of their ‘family’ member. Even Miller’s one-sentence about Bellamy segued into his father’s sacrifice. Is it just me, or did this episode seem like it was written BEFORE the decision to kill Bellamy solidified in the writter’s treehouse? Like they just shoehorned in a few Bellamy-related lines, and left the episode the way it was meant to be before all the… you know, stuff. ... I mean… at this point, what even is TV? You know? After wandering through FernGully 2: The Magical Rescue, Clarke told her pals that she murdered the heart of the show. They insta-forgave her (in their eyes, nothing to forgive, really), because she “really tried” not to do it. Clarke “really tried” not to murder her bestie in cold blood in the same way I “really try” when I ask my mom where something is and she’s all, “just look for it,” and I’m like, “I TRIED,” and then she rolls her eyes and opens the freezer and points to the ice cream, like, “did you, Toni? DID YOU?” Bellamy’s ladies group-hugged about the fact that he was lost to them ‘a long time ago’, and now they just have to suck it up and get on with the plot their lives. In fairness to them, he was brainwashed by a cult almost a full week ago, and it’s not like Octavia and Echo are the type to go to extremes for the people they love or anything (in an alternate universe this group hug could’ve been about saving him, but whatever, hahahaha THE FUN WE HAVE). The 100 “A Sort of Homecoming” Photo-Recap; SIGH Quote Everything wrong with ‘The 100’ season 7, episode 14 Okay, that about covers the good parts. Keep reading if you, like me, are processing all this nonsense by reading and listening to all our fellow fans’ savage takedowns on Twitter, in reviews and podcasts. I certainly don’t want to deprive anyone of my salt, as much as it annoys me that I have to be salty at all. But overall I am, frankly, just exhausted and disappointed. There came a point this episode when I stopped noting down the inconsistencies, because the show is just drowning in them. None of it matters, and none of this is done in the service of the characters and their stories. It is all just a means to an end; a disregard for the journey to force a certain ending. (An ending that I’m still convinced won’t be nihilistic – it will see humanity’s good sides win out over the bad, and it will see them transcend. Religious propaganda, maybe, but not exactly nihilistic. And it can still be good! It just won’t make any of this less bad.) I really don’t feel like there is enough depth and weight here to warrant me trying to make sense of it, so, a compromise. I’m just going to list all my wayward complaints, and you can take it or leave it. Oh, and beware of swear words. I’ve been saving them up for six years. So Earth… is just… fine now? Lol okay fuck Monty I guess. Trees do not grow that tall that quickly. Raven and Octavia hugged? Bullshit. They haven’t interacted since Octavia was Blodreina. This is meaningless. Octavia UNDERSTANDS that Clarke killed Bellamy? Because of what context or evidence, exactly? Because she found a new family to be loyal to while he was out there desperately trying to save her? Because they had one interaction after reuniting and that basically convinced her that he was beyond hope, and therefore disposable? Wow, if so. The only way any of this makes sense is if we take their word for Bellamy being gone “a long time ago,” but how can anyone who has been paying attention actually do that? It hasn’t been a long time, and they made zero effort to understand his point of view. Compare that to how the delinquents were willing to go to the ends of the Earth to save Raven after she took the ALIE chip in season 3, and it is so clear that this is plot driving character, and driving it into the damn ground. Clarke has to seek Echo’s forgiveness? And she forgives her? Are you kidding me? ECHO ALMOST COMMITTED GENOCIDE FOR BELLAMY THREE DAYS AGO. “I tried everything, I promise.” No she fucking didn’t, stop lying. As bad as it is that Echo and Octavia are absolving Clarke for murdering Bellamy, it is so much worse that Clarke works so hard this episode to absolve HERSELF. Nothing but excuses and lies and self-pity. “I will not lose anyone else” has ZERO power anymore, she’s said that way too many times. Also, she’s not everyone’s mom, why does she get to control where anyone but Madi goes? On Gaia’s “I am no man” line… I will say it’s pretty satisfying for them to copy such an iconic line and give it to a Black woman, but the direct copying of Lord of the Rings is so extreme now, it’s getting a bit ridiculous. Gabriel wants to get back to his people? What people? They were all executed. Could Octavia and Hope not have spent a single moment together in this episode? At this point it seems moot to try to question the logic of anything, but why does Cadogan even need Madi when he already has Sheidheda, who knows about the stone and the last war as well? Who’s to say Madi has memories Sheidheda doesn’t? Could we at least entertain the possibility? And since when did Sheidheda have a giant tattoo on his shoulder? Lol @ continuity. Those warp pills are absurd and were clearly invented specifically for this episode, otherwise they would have given them to Hope to use on Octavia in season 6. Murphy is right, he isn’t a hero just because he doesn’t want to leave the people of Sanctum to suffer. The bar for heroics really is just that low. Did he really say that Bellamy… manipulated Raven? On the ring? Why would he even do that? There was nothing to manipulate her into doing. What the actual hell. I am also super peeved at how much the show focuses on Murphy being a “hero” when Emori is right there. Call a woman a hero sometime dot com. That it took Bellamy dying for Echo to finally reclaim her identity as Ash is… kind of emblematic of why I always disliked that dynamic. I really wanted better for Echo. Niylah was named for Queen Nia, because her mother was Azgeda. That’s a cool detail and I wish I could believe it was a real thing that informed her character before they invented it for this episode. Raven: literally sees the stone located underground in the arena. Raven half an hour later: has no idea where the stone is. “We are who we choose to be” is basically the endgame of the show in a sentence. We are capable of both good and evil, and they’ll win or lose the war based on what side of humanity they choose to embrace. How much better would all of this have gone over if Bellamy had gotten Gabriel’s death scene? What if, instead of Gaia, Bellamy had been taken to Earth and chilled there off screen until everyone arrived, reunited and had a good time. Then he had a soft moment with Madi and died to save her life, surrounded by his friends and family and sent off with the traveler’s blessing. It really would have made all the difference. (…Was this the original plan? Because if so, damn. I’m sorry. That would have been great.) But hey, RIP Gabriel. A class act to his final breath, which he used to stop Jackson from saving his life because he refused to suffer through another second of this nonsense. I respect that. ‘The 100’ season 7, episode 14 review: Two to go, by Selina Wilken Edited September 17, 2020 by CooperTV Link to comment
CooperTV September 18, 2020 Share September 18, 2020 Quote How do you come back from having a beloved character die with seemingly no rhyme or reason? You have two more characters behave completely out of character, apparently! That’s where we find ourselves at the top of “A Sort of Homecoming.” (If I still sound salty, well, I am. It’s been six years since the How I Met Your Mother finale aired and I’m still angry. I hold TV grudges for a long time.) Clarke is hurled back to the Second Dawn bunker, “otherwise known as hell,” as Jackson says, where everyone — including Gaia — is waiting. That’s right, we’re back on Earth (and I’ll be honest, I’m patting myself on the back for predicting this at the beginning of the season!). The Shepherd has no interest in staying, so he swallows a nano tracker and blips out of there. “May we meet again,” he says in one last jab at Clarke. They go out and wake up Octavia and the first group to go through. It’s reunions all around, but everyone quickly notices Bellamy is missing. Clarke says that he’s dead, and just when you think she’s not going to take responsibility for it, she says, “I killed him.” Octavia and Echo start to walk toward her as she explains how he had Madi’s sketchbooks and knew she had memories the Shepherd would try to use. “I tried everything — I promise,” Clarke says. Octavia gets right up next to her and hugs her. “I understand,” she says, “so would the old Bellamy.” Do I believe she would have empathy for someone killing her only sibling that quickly? The woman who literally made people eat one another not that long ago? Absolutely not. But, okay, I’ll go with it. But then Echo follows suit: She says that Cadogan helped Bellamy give meaning to all the violence he’d been part of. She hugs Clarke, too, and as the intro rolls, I am scratching my head and wondering who those people are I just watched. The 100 recap: And they’re back on Earth (again) By Dalene Rovenstine (Entertainment Weekly) Link to comment
tv echo September 21, 2020 Share September 21, 2020 (edited) Showrunners Who Punished Characters Because Of The Actors Who Played Them BY ABIGAIL CAMPOS, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO September 20, 2020https://studybreaks.com/tvfilm/showrunners-who-punished-characters-because-of-the-actors-who-played-them/ Quote Jason Rothenberg, “The 100” Jason Rothenberg takes the title of “Showrunner Most Likely To Ruin His Characters, Plot Line and Entire Message of His Show To Punish His Actors in the Final Season of His Show.” This post-apocalyptic CW drama might seem like your average teen spectacle. Well, it really isn’t. It gets dark and it goes places you never expect it to go with its characters — including writing characters off the show simply to chastise actors. The first time it happened was with Ricky Whittle, who played Lincoln, a peaceful “grounder” who was shot in the head quite grotesquely. This death was not well-received. Not long after, the actor came out with accusations of experiencing abuse on set from Rothenberg. Now, it has happened again with Rothenberg’s detested decision to kill off his male lead and fan-favorite in the most obscene and unnecessary way possible. Bob Morley, who played Bellamy Blake, was noted to be missing from set while the final season was still in production. It seems that fans’ worst fears came to fruition earlier this month when his entire character arc ended with his dying in a puddle of blood after being callously murdered by his best friend. Rothenberg has stated that the actor’s absence was a result of Morley requesting time off, and the death was just a consequence of nihilistic storytelling. There have been many accounts that have surfaced that have refuted this assertion. Morley has yet to speak up about the incident, but I’m sure this is far from the whole story. Edited September 21, 2020 by tv echo 1 Link to comment
CooperTV September 24, 2020 Share September 24, 2020 Quote This isn’t the first time I’ve felt a personal connection to something that happens in the show, and I know The 100 is not reality. I never expect a 1:1 real-world correlation. I am perfectly capable of setting aside my own knowledge and experience in order to consider the fiction of a thing, and in this case, the fact that the fiction is a trigger-happy post-apocalypse obviously changes the rules of these people’s existence in many significant ways. Exactly because this is the post-apocalypse, I could potentially allow for the possibility — just as Jasper killed himself because there was no community infrastructure to give him the help he needed (until suddenly Jackson was a therapist in season 7, but ok) – that Madi really couldn’t survive without the use of her body, regardless of whether her mind still worked. (Even then, however, I still don’t think it would have been okay to put this scene on air without critical examination or commentary, which is also how I feel about Jasper’s death.) But we can’t actually apply that argument in this instance, because the characters are currently in the opposite of a post-apocalypse: this violation of Madi’s mind and body was done in a place with some of the most advanced medical science equipment in the universe. Even if they had bothered to state that nothing could be done to restore her motor functions, they canonically have the tools and skills and knowledge available for Madi to express her thoughts and needs to Clarke — in that very room. And even if they had to leave Bardo, there is still plenty of accessibility tools and medical equipment in Sanctum. Plus, they have the technology to make brain implants! If you want your viewers to accept the reality of your fiction when it comes to such serious, potentially triggering topics like these, the fiction needs to at least accept the reality of itself, which is just not the case here. No options are considered. No nuance is allowed. Instead of anything resembling a fair and considered approach to a topic that should not be thrown in for shock value in the show’s 11th hour, we have to contend with the fact that in this universe, upon learning that Madi is paralyzed but fully conscious, Clarke and Octavia instantly reach the conclusion that she has to be murdered. They make this choice for her, without hesitation: that death is better than living in her disabled body. And not only do they make this choice; we really stew in the moment. We milk the emotion. The music swells, everyone cries, we keep cutting to Madi’s dead eyes (that we have been told are still full of life and emotion), as the fiction lulls us into sympathizing with Clarke. (Clarke, who is once again making Madi’s existence all about herself, with this scene bringing us to the apex of her selfishness regarding this child, for whom she has now removed all autonomy: Madi is hers, to the point where she feels entitled to put her down like a sick pet. “Motherhood,” this is not.) See? the scene says, see how sad this is for Clarke? She’s lost Madi now, too, just like she “lost” Bellamy. Isn’t it tragic, how these losses keep happening to her? And not only is Madi ‘gone,’ Clarke is left with no choice but to ‘end the suffering’ of her child herself. Because now that Madi is disabled, she obviously has to be instantly euthanized. Poor Clarke. ‘The 100’ season 7, episode 15 review: The dying of delight And that's one of the more positive reviews out there, with Selina admitting she enjoyed most of the episode. Link to comment
tv echo September 25, 2020 Share September 25, 2020 (edited) Does The 100 Series Finale Need To End On A Reset? LAURA HURLEY SEP. 24. 2020 https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2555490/does-the-100-series-finale-need-to-end-on-a-reset Quote I know that The 100 isn't the kind of show guaranteed to deliver a happy ending, but everything seems so miserable for most of the major characters that I almost don't know what I should be rooting for. Clarke seems like she'll burn out if she's pushed much farther, and Murphy could snap if Emori dies. Even if the last war is actually a last test leading to transcendence, I just don't know that the ending can be emotionally satisfying after the last few critical episodes. Unless, of course, there is a reset. Now, before I go into what a reset could mean for The 100, I want to go on the record as generally hating when TV shows and movies use resets. I still haven't forgiven the Arrowverse and "Crisis on Infinite Earths" for resetting Arrow right before its series finale, and I have issues with a whole incarnation of The Doctor on Doctor Who because his seasons generally ended in resets. Resets are why I still get annoyed when The Flash meddles with time travel. 99.99% of the time, I want what's done to be done, and characters (and viewers) to deal with the consequences. So it's a sign of how hopeless I really feel for the sake of these characters that I would be on board for a reset of some kind. That's not to say I wouldn't call shenanigans along with the whole fandom if the series finale ends with 17-year-old Clarke waking up on the Ark from a very long, very dark, and very elaborate dream, but there aren't exactly a lot of rules when it comes to this final war and what it means to transcend. There are a lot of potential loopholes. * * * I'm not suggesting that The 100 suddenly changes into a show that ends happily for everybody, but this is 2020! If the show delivers a reset to fix some of what went wrong and led to so much misery for these characters we've been watching for so long in the finale, I'll go along with it. If not a reset, then I'm hoping that the show has some twists in store to end on a high note for at least some of the characters. I don't think Clarke has any chance of real happiness unless Madi and Bellamy are somehow restored to her, but others aren't too far gone. After all, the prospect of a spinoff set in the past when the future is guaranteed to end on a grim note isn't too appealing, in my book. For now, we can only wait and see what The 100 has in store with the series finale, called "The Last War." Fittingly, the series finale will also be Episode 100, and you can find it on The CW on Wednesday, September 30 at 8 p.m. ET. Be sure to vote in our poll about whether a reset is in order, and don't forget to check out our 2020 fall TV premiere schedule for what you can watch once The 100 has come to an end. Edited September 25, 2020 by tv echo 1 Link to comment
CooperTV September 25, 2020 Share September 25, 2020 1 hour ago, tv echo said: I don't think Clarke has any chance of real happiness unless Madi and Bellamy are somehow restored to her, but others aren't too far gone. Thank to the writers' dubious decisions this season, I don't think season 7!Clarke deserves to have Bellamy or Madi back. Nor she deserves representing humanity as a whole in some Last Test or whatever. Clarke was made by the writers first to kill Bellamy for no reason, and later tried (also because of the writers' weird idea of character development/regression/assassination) to kill her disabled child (again, for no reason, as she left her all alone the moment Cadogan was in sight and Clarke was sure he wouldn't kill Madi himself). 1 Link to comment
quarks September 25, 2020 Share September 25, 2020 3 hours ago, CooperTV said: Thank to the writers' dubious decisions this season, I don't think season 7!Clarke deserves to have Bellamy or Madi back. Nor she deserves representing humanity as a whole in some Last Test or whatever. Clarke was made by the writers first to kill Bellamy for no reason, and later tried (also because of the writers' weird idea of character development/regression/assassination) to kill her disabled child (again, for no reason, as she left her all alone the moment Cadogan was in sight and Clarke was sure he wouldn't kill Madi himself). I've been 100% sure that Clarke would be the person to take this test from the moment it was mentioned, but I also tend to agree with you. Clarke has been one of the more ethically/morally dubious characters on this show since at least season 2, but up until season 5 - and even at various points afterwards - we could at least argue that she was acting in defense of her people and trying to save humanity. This MADI MADI MADI obsession now makes it incredibly difficult to make that argument. It's not just that Clarke shot Bellamy, either, but that Clarke in the last few episodes also essentially abandoned Sanctum to the Bardo people -- in the name of MADI MADI MADI nothing else matters but MADI. Yeah, the current Sanctum population includes the criminals from Eligius IV, but it also includes the remaining members of Wonkru, some of whom are Clarke's people from the Ark, AND the normal people of Sanctum who were honestly leading happy if brainwashed lives before Clarke and Company turned out, and who are at this point the most ethical group remaining on the show. Which is to say, they are innocents, and if that can't exactly be said for the Eligius or the Wonkru people, they also don't deserve to be killed off by the Bardo people or EvilHeda when/if he returns. And Clarke followed this up by basically abandoning the rest of her friends - who, in the previous episode, had been the only people that mattered, like, uh, what? and who were trapped in the collapsed bunker - for MADI MADI MADI. Despite - again - knowing that the Bardo people could show up and massacre the remaining people there at any point. And then she released EvilHeda, thereby ensuring the massacre of various Bardo people. Sigh. But I still expect her to be the person to take the test, even if at this point, virtually anyone else on the show would arguably be a better pick. Ok, maybe not EvilHeda or Cadogan, but otherwise, virtually anyone else on the show. Ah well. At least we know Clarke is good at pulling levers. 1 Link to comment
tv echo September 26, 2020 Share September 26, 2020 (edited) The 100 Review: The Dying of the Light (Season 7 Episode 15) September 24, 2020 Lauren Busserhttps://telltaletv.com/2020/09/the-100-review-the-dying-of-the-light-season-7-episode-15/ Quote ... This episode is frustrating beyond belief and feels completely nihilistic. The 100 is a series where there are no boundaries and no one is safe, but the fact that we leave this episode with Madi having had a massive stroke after Cadogen relentlessly tortured her in M-Cap is unconscionable. * * * Too many people have been making choices for Madi since she joined the cast on The 100 Season 5, and she deserves to have her own voice. Not be a pawn. * * * Which just brings me back to one of my main issues with the season. The fact that the cast is split into different cells acting independently of one another. * * * John and Emori were the underdogs who survived by any means necessary, and through most of The 100 Season 7, it was uplifting to see them not have to fight for survival. They are the couple that I most want to see get a happy ending, as slight as that may be. * * * There seems to be so much heartbreak, and trauma, and violence that it feels like there is no way to a happy ending. Telling us it will be a happy ending isn’t going to be good enough, and painting it as the best possible scenario is also going to feel like a copout. There has to be a light at the end of the tunnel for a few of these characters, otherwise, what is the point of it all? * * * The 100 is really out there trying to ruthlessly tell us that survival is more important above anything else isn’t it? Who wants to guess that by the end of the finale someone ends up forming a cult that starts preaching ‘love is weakness?’ They’d just have to take what Cadogen started and amplify it! Edited September 26, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
CooperTV September 30, 2020 Share September 30, 2020 (edited) This is twit from Selina Wilken, the author of Hypable, who was always supportive of the show before season 7. Eliza Taylor at the recent Instagram interview: Edited September 30, 2020 by CooperTV Link to comment
tv echo September 30, 2020 Share September 30, 2020 (edited) Bob Morley, Tasya Teles and Chelsey Reist will be participating in this year's virtual New York Comic Con titled "NYCC X MCM Comic Con’s Metaverse" - it doesn't look like there's a The 100 panel scheduled, but apparently you can purchase one-on-one virtual chats for Oct. 11... Programming Schedule:https://www.findthemetaverse.com/schedule Tix Page:https://purchase.growtix.com/eh/ReedPop_Metaverse_October/42186/334673 Quote Cast of The 100 From the Ark to the Metaverse – Meet the cast of The 100 Always wanted to know the best survival tips for post-apocalypse? Well we’ve got you covered with The 100 cast members Bob Morley (Bellamy Blake), Tasya Teles (Echo) and Chelsey Reist (Harper McIntyre). Join us for 1:1 private digital meet and greets, autographs or get a personalized video for yourself or a gift for that special someone who just loves The 100. For more information about digital meet and greets, click here. For more information about personalized videos, click here. Edited September 30, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo September 30, 2020 Share September 30, 2020 (edited) No spoilers... The 100's Jason Rothenberg Teases the CW Show's End BY SAM STONE SEPTEMBER 29, 2020https://www.cbr.com/interview-jason-rothenberg-teases-end-the-100/ Quote In an exclusive interview with CBR, Rothenberg discusses the daunting task of making his directorial debut in the sweeping series finale, how the production managed to wrap just before COVID-19 shut down television productions across North America and one of his personal favorite character arcs set to culminate in the finale. Be sure to keep an eye out after the finale airs for a spoiler-filled postgame interview with Rothenberg about the creative decisions and overall message of the series. This episode is your directorial debut. What made you want to start with one of the most ambitious, emotionally raw episodes in the series? Jason Rothenberg: Can I plead temporary insanity? [Laughs] It was something that I wanted to do...I hadn't been wanting to direct for that long. I felt there was so much to do as the showrunner that it would take myself out of the writers' roomer which has to happen if you're directing for prep -- in this case, it was a 2+ week prep -- and then you're gone! It just never made sense for me to do it. Now, finales are a different story because the writing is done but they're all so big that, as a first-time director, I felt uncomfortable doing the finale. We always had such a great group of directors whose job it really was to do those big episodes. * * *You guys were also racing the clock with this, you were one of the last television productions to wrap in Vancouver before the pandemic spread into the area. How was that experience? Rothenberg: It was crazy, we may have been the last show shooting in North America! They called when we had three days left on set and they said "We're closing things and everybody's shutting down but you can finish if you want to." They kind of left it up to me and nobody knew how serious this would get at that time and I had three days left of the entire series; it's not like we were a show that was coming back next year or had five more episodes left to shoot. And, as it turns out, if we had not finished those last days and scenes, it would've been daring if we would've had a chance to do so. We made a decision to pull up a day: We combined three days' work into two days that were epically long. We were doing 14-15 hour days, the studio was gracious enough to let us do that, from Monday up until Saturday so we finished on Saturday night and then we all went home. It was weirdly anticlimactic, there was supposed to be a big party and that was cancelled. As soon as we wrapped, everybody went into lockdown and that's kind of where we've been ever since. Very strange emotionally as a result. I know you get asked this all the time but is there any update on the spinoff? Rothenberg: I wish I could say yes to that. We're in the same kind of holding pattern waiting for the powers that be to decide. If there's any good news it's just that they're still talking about it. To me, that's good news; we have a pulse. As the culmination of the season and series, one of the characters that really steps up is Richard Harmon's John Murphy. I've always loved his arc from the pilot to where we see him at the end. How was it finding his voice and the character's path over the course of writing the show? Rothenberg: First of all, same: I love Murphy so much and I love Richard so much. It was just one of those things, I found the voice pretty early -- I feel like Richard, obviously, helped with that quite a lot. At the end of Season 1, he still hadn't been given a name yet, I don't think, and I felt like we missed an opportunity with such a good actor to dimensionalize his character. He's such a jerk in Season 1 and so it was kind of a mission of mine as we started Season 2 to add some meat to the bone and complexity to the character and understand why he was the way he was. And I think Richard's performance in [the Season 2 premiere] with Raven in the dropship, I think, really began that. I think that's when a lot of people really started to like the character for the first time, as opposed to Season 1 when they did not like the character. And it was incremental; he was always there for comic relief. It was always fun to write jokes for him, there wasn't a lot of opportunities for that in the show, you really do need that levity to lighten up the darker moments that we have. So he was really important for that reason too and he's so funny. And I agree with you, I think his arc this season was becoming almost a sort of romantic leading man which was really surprising from where he started. * * *The old saying goes "Don't be afraid to kill your darlings" but was there any character you wished you could've spent a little more time with? Rothenberg: No, not really. I feel like decisions about character deaths...you'd like it to be purely creative all the time but sometimes outside factors come into play and take the choice away and you make the best of it. They're always hard, especially when an actor doesn't want to leave the show and you're kind of ending their job. That's always the hardest call that the showrunner has to make, to call an actor and tell them that their character isn't going to make it. Now Season 7 is a little bit different because everybody's job is ending. [Laughs] But that, to me, has always been the worst part about the job and something that we willingly took on because we're making a show where characters could die and it was important to the drama that was real and continuing. Edited September 30, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo September 30, 2020 Share September 30, 2020 (edited) The 100 Series Finale Interview with Jason Rothenberg: Part 1 Craig Byrne Sep 29, 2020http://www.ksitetv.com/the-100/the-100-series-finale-interview-with-jason-rothenberg-part-1/205454/ Quote In any event… this is our last interview with Jason Rothenberg for The 100, though as we discuss in the interview, the potential spinoff teased in the “Anaconda” is still in play, so we may meet again very soon. * * * One final note regarding this interview: Because we know the fans would have a lot of questions about the finale, we’re saving a lot of the answers to run after the season finale airs. You know, so we can talk about the Kelly Hu cameo and all that without spoiling anyone. Kidding. Kelly Hu does not show up. Or does she? Seriously, though. If it seems that this interview could use a lot more, it is because there will be a lot more, which you can find on KSiteTV Wednesday night after the episode has aired. Follow us on Twitter if you want to be informed of when it’s up. * * *With the death of Bellamy earlier this season, can you talk about juggling what the fans say they want versus what might make for a better story? First of all, the whole show is written, season after season, long before it airs, so there’s nothing we could do once people start reacting to episodes as they air, certainly within a season. Between seasons, obviously, we have time to kind of take stock and look at how the season was received, but the truth is, I try not to let fan reaction, either good or bad, dictate what we’re gonna do. We have a story that we’re going to tell, and we tell it, and hope that the audience comes with us. Once we’ve put it out there, it’s up to them to decide whether they’re going to take the ride or not. The show obviously is hard to watch sometimes. It’s not designed to be a pleasant, enjoyable, happy ride. If you can’t sign up for a ride like that, knowing that you’re going to lose characters that you love, for instance, then you shouldn’t. Don’t watch the show if you cannot handle losing characters that you love. Now that we’re done airing, I can say that. Telling people not to watch the show is probably not the smartest business move, but he truth is, it’s not an easy show. * * *If for some reason The 100: Second Dawn spinoff does not happen, will we ever see Callie again? We’ll definitely see Iola Evans again, because that girl’s a star. Whether or not it’s in our show, she will be seen on your TV and movie screens for sure. Is the spinoff still in play? It is. It’s still in play. No decision has been made, but the fact that it’s still in play, I would take as a good sign. Edited September 30, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo October 1, 2020 Share October 1, 2020 (edited) The 100 Series Finale Interview with Jason Rothenberg: Part 2 Craig Byrne September 30, 2020http://www.ksitetv.com/the-100/the-100-series-finale-interview-with-jason-rothenberg-part-2/205475/ Quote KSITETV’s CRAIG BYRNE: Was it always the plan to get Alycia Debnam-Carey back for the series finale, and can you talk about the scenes that she and Eliza Taylor shared? [JASON ROTHENBERG:] Was it always the plan? Well, from the moment that we knew Clarke was going to face the judge after killing Cadogan, it became the logical choice in the room when we were breaking that story. We were talking about who might be, and I was like “you know… what about Lexa?” and everybody in the room and one was like, “YEAH!” And then it became about “well, what if she won’t do it?” And so, it became about me as a producer trying to persuade first her people, and then her to come back, and it turns out it wasn’t hard. I had several conversations with Alycia. She loved Lexa. She loved the show. She wanted to come back. She just wanted to make sure that we were not doing it an exploitive way. I agreed that we weren’t gonna hype it all, or promote it at all, so it comes as a surprise. I’m so glad that – at least as we speak today, on Monday – it’s still hasn’t leaked. Then directing the two of them, that was a great experience, too. There was a lot of pressure, but ultimately, they’re both such pros, and they’re always great to each other, and great together. It was a blast and I’m glad it happened. There is some joy to be had or seen in the series finale. Can you talk about that? We don’t often go for the “feel good moment” but I definitely wanted to show to end with an ironic sort of punctuation, so that there was some joy to be had, and for sure, Clarke coming along that beach and seeing her friends, that found family having chosen to stay with her, it’s a super emotional in a positive way. I do want people to leave the show ultimately feeling good. Ultimately, the message is, we spent seven years saying tribalism is bad and we’re doomed to repeat the cycle of violence if we keep killing each other, and I wanted to sort of answer that with “if we can somehow figure out how to lower our weapons and realize that we’re all in this together, then anything is possible.” Including the next evolution of the species. To dramatize that, obviously, was a happier direction than most of our episodes. Which character do you think learned the most on this seven year journey? Probably Octavia. I mean, she had the biggest arc, certainly; through the most changes, anyway, and comes ultimately to the realization that the only way to win is not to play the game, a la War Games. Time to put down the weapons. And she instills that in the others, so I would say Octavia. But, you know, obviously Murphy… he learned a lot, changed a lot. I feel like Clark changed a lot in a negative direction, which is, by the way, sometimes the way characters progress. I feel like sometimes audiences only want their heroes to be heroes. In my mind, Clarke is an incredibly complex, flawed, beautiful character, but she’s also done some awful things. I feel like ultimately she learned a lesson, but as she said at the end, she would do it again, so maybe she hasn’t learned a lesson. Was it special to be on set when you and the actors all started to realize “Hey, this is the end?” It was like a rolling emotional tidal wave. It doesn’t happen in the first few days, but every now and then, and certainly as the production of the episode wore on, actors are filming their last scenes, and you do a clap out, you know, a series rap, and these were huge series wraps, for serious regulars have been there from the beginning, and those became more and more emotional as the episode wore on, ending with Eliza in the last scene. We saved her for last. The whole thing was really emotional. Edited October 1, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo October 1, 2020 Share October 1, 2020 The 100 Boss on That Shocking Finale Return and an Alternate Bellamy Ending BY LINDSAY MACDONALD SEP 30, 2020https://www.tvguide.com/news/the-100-series-finale-lexa-return-bellamy-alternate-ending/ When you first started breaking this finale, did you know right away that Lexa was going to be Clarke's judge in the final test? Rothenberg: I knew when I broke the story — when we broke the story in the room that I wanted it to be Lexa. I wanted the judge to take the shape of Lexa for Clarke because of how much Lexa meant to Clarke. And I thought it would be a nice moment obviously for the fans as well. And I hoped that Alycia would be looking for some closure in her own right, and, in fact, she was. So it was kind of a meeting of the minds. * * *I also loved the moment Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) and Levitt (Jason Diaz) realize they've sent Wanheda to take the test on behalf of humanity. Rothenberg: You know, there's a line in a scene that unfortunately had to be omitted. When Clarke goes in... Octavia puts her arm around Clarke and is like, "Who's going to go in?" Is it Octavia or Clarke? And she says, "It's Wanheda or Blodreina." * * *When you first started writing the show way back when, did you have the broad strokes of how you wanted the series to end? Or in the final season did you say, "OK, this is where we are, let's figure out the ending." Rothenberg: Are you asking me if I knew how it was going to end back in Season 1? [Laughs] No, I did not. In the beginning, you're just trying to get your show ordered to series, and then you're trying to figure out what your show is. And then you're kind of dancing for your life hoping that they pick it up for another season.. I feel like I kind of knew how I wanted it to feel at the end. And if we were lucky enough to get to write our own ending and sort of pick our own ending, which we were, then I knew how I wanted to feel. And once the network and studio agreed to that, which was probably I think somewhere around the beginning of Season 6...we began to kind of flesh out what the specifics of that [ending] were going to be. * * *Did you ever consider having Bellamy return for that beach scene? Or did you not want to invalidate his death? Rothenberg: In the beginning of the season, before we had to make the changes that we made to accommodate Bob this year, he was supposed to be there. But, you know, ultimately, the way it broke down where we came up with the rules of transcendence, and that if you are not alive — I think it's what Levitt says to Octavia, when she ask is Bellamy's going to transcend, and he says no... only the living shall transcend — once the rules were established, then it was fairly clear that only the living could be there Do you consider this to be a happy ending for these characters, having them choose to be with one another over the transcendence that they were offered? Rothenberg: I'm hoping that the audience feels good at the end of this episode. We often did not aim for that. Most of the time, I was not trying to write a show that made people feel good. We were trying to make you emotional, make you feel something, but often it was either anger or sadness. That's what the show was. And so I definitely wanted people to walk away feeling good. I feel like it's an ironic ending. It's not fully happy. But it's hard to deny the sort of joy of the found-family coming together at the end, kind of giving up transcendence to stay with Clarke and be together. Link to comment
tv echo October 1, 2020 Share October 1, 2020 (edited) ‘The 100’ Series Finale: Our 5 Biggest Questions Answered Margeaux Sippell | September 30, 2020 @ 6:03 PMhttps://www.thewrap.com/the-100-series-finale-transcend-clarke-griffin/ Quote We asked showrunner Jason Rothenberg, who wrote and directed that final episode “The Last War,” all of our lingering questions — so you don’t have to wonder. Our first one was a no-brainer… Why wasn’t Clarke allowed to transcend with everybody else? “Clarke is the angel of death in the finale,” Rothenberg said. “As Lexa avatar said to her in the very end, nobody in the history of any species in the universe has ever committed murder during the test. So there was always a kind of Moses story that we were going for with Clarke where she’s not allowed to go into the promised land at the end of the story.” He also thought it was a “beautiful” touch to have her friends choose to stay with her in that final scene instead of going up into the sky in that little ball of light. “They didn’t want her to be alone,” he said. * * *So now once everyone who stayed on Earth with Clarke dies, that’s it for them? That was the deal, essentially. You could imagine a scene probably between them and some weigh station beam of light who told them what the rules were if they chose to stay. So to them, it’s not mandatory that you leave this body, but if you chose not to, then you are choosing — you’re not gonna then get a second chance at it later when you die for real. So they made that choice willingly to stay together as a unit, as a family, and also obviously to keep Clarke company. * * *And no exception could be made for Bellamy, who was killed off earlier this season? That was prior to transcendence, and ‘only the living shall transcend’ is what Cadogan wrote in [his book.] The idea was, as long as they held on long enough to still be drawing breath — whether even having their hearts pumped through CPR or actually breathing — at the moment of transcendence, that they themselves would transcend. That was something that I always, obviously, knew was going to happen. Emori physically did die, [but] her mind was still ‘alive’ in the mind space, so she transcended. Is transcendence essentially another version of Heaven? Depending on a person’s religious beliefs, they could interpret the story that way. As a show, we’re saying that it is essentially higher beings joining the universal consciousness. That is the next level of humanity. It’s not a religious concept necessarily. It’s the reality-based next step in human evolution. * * *What was the moral of the story in the end? The moral of the story all along has been that tribalism is bad. Until we transcend, pun intended, our instincts to fight for our side, or our party or our country or whatever, we’re not going to evolve. We’re not going to survive until we realize that we’re all in this together. That’s what that boiled down to on the battlefield in that moment when they lowered their weapons and made the choice to stop fighting. That was the key that unlocked transcendence for them. Edited October 1, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo October 1, 2020 Share October 1, 2020 (edited) The 100 creator breaks down that series finale ending and explains 'the moral of the story' By Sydney Bucksbaum September 30, 2020 at 09:00 PM EDThttps://ew.com/tv/the-100-series-finale-spoilers-jason-rothenberg/ Quote ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What were you trying to say with that ending, as all our favorite characters choose to stay on Earth with Clarke instead of transcending? JASON ROTHENBERG: We wanted the moral of the story to be, simply stated, "Until we stop fighting, we're doomed." Until we stop killing each other in the name of country or tribe or even family, we're doomed to keep repeating that cycle of violence. And once we do and we link arms and we realize we're all in this together, then we can get to whatever comes next. In this case, it's transcendence. That was the moral of the story. Clarke doesn't get the gift of transcendence because of her actions; her actions have a cost, as the Lexa avatar said to her on the beach. Like Moses not getting to go into the promised land, she's going to be alone – until she sees her friends. We thought that it was the most beautiful way to say found family is important. They know that Clarke sacrificed so much for them, gave up so much of herself for them, that they were not going to let her be by herself. They are foregoing whatever transcendence is, they're giving that up to be together. As dark as the show has been at times, I feel like the ending – and I always say I was not trying to make people feel good most of the time and the show is not a show that was supposed to bring you joy, it's supposed to move you and make you feel sad or angry even – but here we were definitely aiming for people walking away feeling uplifted. Why have all the main characters make that choice except for Clarke's daughter Madi? Lexa on the beach, she says that Madi knew that Clarke would not want her to come back and be the only child. They're not going to have children, this is the last generation, they can't have offspring. And so, as a mother, Clarke would have obviously preferred for her daughter to transcend and go to whatever the next journey/adventure/whatever it is, it's obviously something special and unique and beautiful, as opposed to staying on the ground with her. That choice was made easier for Madi by the fact that Clarke wasn't going to be alone. Was this always your original idea for how to end the show? I can't really remember that we ever had the details of an ending. I always wanted to have it have the moral of the story be told, which is what I just told you. So however that was going to manifest, that was going to be the takeaway. And of course, as the world expanded and we went to another planet and we met other characters and we started exploring the universe via the interstellar subway system of the stones, the details of how we got there obviously changed. But the point was always going to be that. Now let’s talk about some of the returning faces we saw in the finale – Lexa, Abby, and Callie. Did you always know you were going to have them come back for cameos? It happened organically, for sure. Once we settled on what the rules of the test were, the idea that the judge takes the form of a person's greatest love, greatest teacher, or greatest enemy, then it became clear that it was going to be Callie for Cadogan, Lexa was my first choice for Clarke, and fortunately, Alycia agreed to come back and do it, and Abby obviously would've been for Clarke as well if Alycia hadn't agreed to come back. But it also made perfect sense that when we knew Raven was going to be the one to come in and appeal the verdict once Clarke failed, that relationship was so important to Raven that there was a beauty to that being her person too. The decisions were dictated by who was going to face the judges and what the rules of the test are. * * *Were there any other characters you wanted back for the finale as well but it didn’t work out because of scheduling or other issues? When we landed on what the rules were, it was about who those special people would be. We'd already played Dad [Chris Browning], we already had Monty [Christopher Larkin] come back in a really special way, we'd already played a few of those cards in a previous season. So no, there was never anybody that we wanted to come back and didn't come back. What about Bellamy? After his shocking death a few episodes back, did you ever consider having him back in the finale as well? For me, it was Lexa all the way. When that idea came up in the room, it was one of those moments where, it doesn't happen very often, there was unanimity of excitement. Then it was about getting her to agree to come back. And we couldn't have Bellamy return in the end, because the rules of transcendence were only the living shall transcend. And so, unfortunately, he died short of that finish line, so he couldn't be there in the end, which is another tragic realization for Octavia certainly in the finale. So why did you want to kill Bellamy in the way that you did when the show was so close to giving all the characters some kind of a happy ending? Bellamy's storyline changed hugely this season as a result of needing to give Bob time at the beginning of the season. Everything kind of downhill was affected by that, including the ending. You want the decisions to always be driven creatively, and certainly when it comes to character deaths. Sometimes unfortunately though we have to react to situations outside of the writing, outside of the creative. That's not necessarily the case for him, but definitely, over the course of seven years, lots of characters died, and sometimes it was out of our control and we made the best of it. * * *Now that The 100 is over, do you have any updates on the potential prequel series? All I can really say about the prequel is that conversations are ongoing. I'm hoping to be able to continue this universe because I feel like it's so rich and there is so much story to tell. But the discussions are far, far above my pay grade at the moment. The same day you find out is when I’ll find out. Where do you see Clarke and co. going in the future now that they’ve all reunited on Earth and are starting a new life for themselves? We're leaving them together, making that choice to stay together and live out their days peacefully. There's no one left to fight with. Jokingly, I suppose I could see like 70-year-old Murphy and 70-year-old Clarke are in like a blood feud and everybody else is lined up one one side or the other, except they're too old to really do any damage to each other. [Laughs] But truthfully the ending is supposed to imply that it's not happily ever after, but it's certainly peacefully ever after. What are you most proud of, looking back on the entire series? The legacy of the show, that we were bold, we pulled no punches, we told big stories, we had kickass female characters, and one of the most diverse casts on television. I'm proud that the show will exist and that people can discover it now in streaming. Hopefully, when it's consumed in a binge all at once, some of the things that perhaps didn't work for people will work better for the audience as they're coming to it consuming the entire series in two weeks rather than over seven years. It's bittersweet to come to the ending of something that has occupied such a huge part of my life for as long as the show has. It's been a long ride, we rode it to the end, and that's great but it's sad at the same time. Edited October 1, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo October 1, 2020 Share October 1, 2020 (edited) ‘The 100’ Creator Jason Rothenberg Breaks Down That Finale Ending & Shares Hopes for the Future BY CHRISTINA RADISH SEPTEMBER 30, 2020https://collider.com/the-100-finale-ending-explained-jason-rothenberg/ Quote Collider: When we first spoke at the start of the season, you told me that the biggest threat of Season 7 just might be humanity’s propensity to fight because we could all be doomed, if we never get over that. Why was that something that you really wanted to explore and dig into in this last season, and then leave that choice up to them? JASON ROTHENBERG: I mean, look out the window or turn on the TV. Until we, as a species, realize that we’re all in this together, we are doomed. I feel like end times are definitely upon us. At some level, it feels like that. With this show, we were trying to say that until we make that realization, things will be bad. Once we do, then we can transcend and go to whatever comes next for us, as a species. Why was it important to give Octavia that moment on the battlefield and essentially have her end the war when she’s also been the cause of so much bloodshed? ROTHENBERG: That’s a great question. I feel like she’d learned the lesson of Wonkru, which is what she was applying on a global level now. She did not quite get that, at the end of Season 5. We arced her, over the last two seasons, to a zen Octavia place, so it just made sense to me that she was the one that got it first and was going to have that battlefield moment where she honors her brother and the fact that he saw it first, and convinces both sides, starting with her side, Wonkru, to lay down their weapons. It felt like poetic closure. With everything that he did, it’s amazing that Murphy made it to the end. What did you most enjoy about his character journey and are you surprised that he actually made it to the end of the series? ROTHENBERG: No, I’m not surprised. First of all, I adore Richard Harmon. I think he is just such a special talent and as a cockroach, as we call him on the show, I knew he was gonna be there. There were definitely moments where we talked about, maybe he’s the only person that survived because the cockroaches are gonna outlive us all. I loved everything about working with him, to be honest with you. From the beginning, from the pilot, he jumped and leapt off the screen. He was John #1 in the pilot. He didn’t even have a last name. He was such an asshole, for lack of a better word, as a character in Season 1. I remember, at the end of Season 1, I said to Richard, “I feel like we left something on the table with that character.” We didn’t dimensionalize him enough and I really wanted to do that in Season 2. And right away, in the beginning of Season 2, we had those scenes with Raven in the drop ship, after he shot her, where he talks about why he is the way he is, and immediately the audience was with him. Transforming it from there, all the way to the romantic lead almost, certainly of his own story, to me, was a special arc. I think a lot of that is attributable to Richard’s talent. And by the way, early in the season, he pitched me the idea for the ending of his character and I was like, “Oh, my God, that’s beautiful.” He did it on video, and I’d like to be able to share that, at some point. I’ll talk to him about it. It stuck. I’m always looking for good ideas from everywhere. There’s always been a lot of controversy surrounding the death of Lexa. What was it like for you to be able to bring that character back and have some sort of closure with that storyline, and to get Alycia Debnam-Carey back? Was that hard to do to, logistically? ROTHENBERG: First of all, it was amazing to get her back in the costume and in the make-up. Was it hard? She was game, for sure. I had to have multiple conversations with her to explain exactly what we were going for and what it was, and that we weren’t doing it in an exploitive way, at all. And so, ultimately, yes, she was totally game and up for it. I’m very, very grateful that she did it and I’m grateful that I was able to direct those scenes with her and with them. Because so much of Clarke has been defined by that relationship, even though it’s been absent for awhile now, how did Eliza Taylor also feel about those characters reuniting? ROTHENBERG: Timing is weird. We live in a world where the show lasted seven or eight years, and yet for them, it hasn’t been as long but [Lexa] is the love of [Clarke’s] life. I can’t speak for Eliza. She would have to answer that question. I know that it was really great having them together. We had a lot of fun on those days. I felt a lot of pressure, as the director, having the responsibility of honoring that character, and yet realizing that it wasn’t actually Lexa and knowing that we had to find the line of how much Lexa to bring to it. Alycia did a good job of showing moments where we see Lexa and moments where it’s clearly not her. How do you feel about the journey that you took Clarke on, in this series overall, as well as specifically in this final season, and what was it like to see what Eliza Taylor did with the material, from season to season? ROTHENBERG: I feel like watching Eliza Taylor grow as an actress, from the beginning, was really a special experience. She was great from the beginning but when she found her legs as the lead, she took ownership and was like, “This is my show and I’m gonna set the example. I’ll just show up first and I’m gonna work the hardest.” That was really great to watch. As an actress and as a performer, she got even more confident as the season went on. As a character, I wouldn’t call Clarke our hero. She’s definitely our protagonist and our perspective character but she did some awful things. She’s deeply flawed and ultimately broken and, on some level, controversial in the fandom because of that. One of the things I’m proudest of is that we were able to subvert expectations of a protagonist. At the beginning of the run, early on in Season 2 when she pulled the lever in Mount Weather, we cheered for that, even though it was a horrible thing that she was doing. Now, in Season 7, she’s done horrible things to protect Madi but it’s against people that we love too. The audience was in the seat of someone in Mount Weather. We know what it feels like to be on the other side of Wanheda and it isn’t so comfortable for people. She’s broken by the end of the story and she goes full angel of death in the finale. Had you always felt as though Clarke would survive to the end of this story or was there ever a world where she didn’t make it to the end of the series? ROTHENBERG: There definitely were times where we thought that she might not make it to the end but, like I said, she’s our protagonist and our perspective character and it made the most sense to have her survive to the end. I love the idea that, like Moses at the end, she’s not allowed into the promised land. But unlike Moses, although I don’t know the story of Moses well enough after the promised land denial, her friends are there. They’ve chosen to stay with her because of how much she sacrificed for them, of herself and of her soul. * * *How are you feeling about where things are at with the spin-off? Are you still hopeful that will happen? ROTHENBERG: I’m totally hopeful. It’s obviously nail-biting time. COVID really changed everything. Decision-making is weird and it’s taking longer than it should or would normally, and yet conversations are taking place. I have really very little to do with it, at this point. I’m just waiting for the phone to ring. I’ll hear about it probably five minutes before the rest of the world hears about it. Edited October 1, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo October 1, 2020 Share October 1, 2020 (edited) ‘The 100’ left fans outraged and in tears. Why they’re still as devoted as ever By EMILY ZEMLER SEP. 30, 2020https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-09-30/the-100-season-7-cw-finale Quote “For me, every season was designed to be almost like a new show and a new story,” says Rothenberg, who was pitched the series by the CW and wrote the pilot at the same time Kass Morgan wrote her young adult novel, on which “The 100” is loosely based. “I approached it as a feature writer coming into television for the first time, as each of these seasons was a movie broken down into 13 or 16 parts. That’s why the show changes so drastically season to season, which is one of the things I love about it.” * * * “Jokingly, I could say they gave us enough rope to hang ourselves with” Rothenberg notes. “We should take full blame for things that people didn’t like. But I was always amazed by how much we got away with.” * * * While Rothenberg and his writers have never shied away from killing off beloved characters, often in brutal ways, the show stumbled into its first big controversy in Season 3 when Clarke’s lover, Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey), died immediately after the pair consummated their relationship. Outraged critics accused Rothenberg of playing into the “Bury Your Gays” phenomenon, a problematic storytelling trope in which LGBTQ characters’ lives are treated as expendable. The showrunner responded with a lengthy post on Medium apologizing to fans, but the pain has lingered. Evelyn Ulrich, head journalist and site manager for “The 100” fan site Grounders Source, feels that of all the character deaths over seven seasons, Lexa’s was handled the most poorly, calling it “abrupt and sad.” “I created a world where gender didn’t matter and race didn’t matter and sexual orientation didn’t matter,” Rothenberg responds, citing Lexa’s death as his biggest regret on the series. “None of those things are issues in ‘The 100.’ There’s not a lot of dialogue about any of those things. We’re not portraying the life situation of people in the real world and so I felt kind of immune to that, that everybody in the show could die and that extended to her. And obviously I misjudged the intensity of that. I wish I could get it back and do things differently, but you can’t.” “This show is ruthless with killing off beloved characters,” Taylor adds, emphasizing the impact the Clarke-Lexa relationship has had on the series’ LGBTQ fans, including a convention, ClexaCon, named after the pair. “And this one wasn’t handled as delicately as it should have been.” For fans, the more recent loss of Bellamy (Bob Morley), may be even worse. There was a long-held assumption that he would end up with Clarke — Twitter is filled with the #Bellarke hashtag and there are numerous websites supporting their relationship. (The characters do end up together in Morgan’s book series.) But instead of playing into that endgame, Rothenberg had Clarke kill Bellamy to save her adopted daughter, infuriating many viewers. * * * “I don’t necessarily agree with Bellamy’s death, or a lot of other deaths,” replies Taylor, who is married to Morley in real life. “But it’s just the nature of the beast. Our show doesn’t shy away from killing off its loved ones.” [Fan Jacqueline] Washo is particularly incensed because she can point to tweets from Rothenberg responding to fans in 2015 saying the show wouldn’t kill off a main character and that “without Bellamy there would be nothing.” Rothenberg knows he got too entangled on Twitter and says he’s stepped back in recent years. “It’s one of the things I now realize I shouldn’t have done,” he says. “Because clearly I put out some ideas and planted some messages that we didn’t follow through on or were inflammatory. We make the show and then we put it out there for the audience and it’s theirs. It’s a Rorschach test and it’s up to them to interpret it. I really regret getting online and defending or explaining things.” * * * “I definitely had worked quite a bit playing a certain type of character for years,” Harmon says. “Always bad guys. This show gave me the opportunity to expand what I can do as an actor because I never thought I would play a hero. Here I am seven years later and Murphy is trying his darnedest to do the right thing. People can change, it’s just hard.” * * * “The show has always been about the idea that tribalism is bad and until you can overcome that, and realize the person on the other side of that gun is just like you, you’re going to keep perpetrating this cycle of violence that leads to apocalypse,” Rothenberg says of finding the right ending for the series. “And look out the window — we’re not far from that now, unfortunately. I needed to get to a point where there [was] a resolution to that idea, that there is something we can achieve or do to make that leap evolutionarily. One of the things I want to leave the audience with is that, until we all realize we’re in this together, we’re f—.” Edited October 1, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo October 1, 2020 Share October 1, 2020 (edited) The 100 EP Breaks Down Series Finale's Biggest Moments: Humanity's Fate, Those Epic Returns and Much More By Andy Swift / September 30 2020https://tvline.com/2020/09/30/the-100-recap-season-7-episode-16-series-finale-ending-explained/ Quote TVLINE | This show has always had strong religious undertones, but you kept it vague with this “judge” character. Did you want to avoid being too preachy? [JASON ROTHENBERG:] Depending on a person’s perspective on religion, there’s certainly a religious interpretation that one can draw from the finale. That wasn’t my intention. I’m saying that we all have energy, our consciousness is energy, and our energy can neither be created nor destroyed — only transformed from one form to another. And this is the next evolution of human consciousness, to join a higher universal consciousness. It’s the science fiction explanation for where religion draws its inspiration from. * * *TVLINE | I think the fans probably hoped to see Bellamy in this episode. I certainly did. Was there any talk of bringing him back in some form? As Levitt says to Octavia in the hallway while they’re protecting Clarke, only the living can transcend. That’s a crushingly sad moment for Octavia to realize, that Bellamy was right. That was just the rule we established for transcendence, so it didn’t make sense at that point [to bring Bellamy back]. * * *TVLINE | What’s next for Clarke and the rest of the people who chose not to transcend? They can never procreate and they can’t transcend, so this is it for them. They’re going to live their days together as a family, grow old together, and when they die, the human race is over. It’s OK, though, because we transcended and joined the universal consciousness. So it’s a happy ending for the human race TVLINE | The judge agreed to spare humanity when it saw that people could learn to lay down their weapons and get along. Is that the thesis of this show, that the human race is all really Wonkru? Yeah, that is absolutely the message of the show, simplistic as it sounds. Tribalism is bad. The whole show was dramatizing the dark side of tribalism, of killing the other guy because you’re protecting your own people, as opposed to realizing that we are all sharing this space together. We are all Wonkru on planet earth, and until we realize that, we’re doomed. Edited October 1, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo October 1, 2020 Share October 1, 2020 The 100 Series Finale Ending Explained By Kayti Burt September 30, 2020https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-100-series-finale-ending-explained/ Does The 100 Have a Happy Ending? You will have to decide this for yourself. On the one hand, it’s pretty dark that The 100 ends with most of the human race opting out of corporeal existence—like they have a choice and they decide that they’d rather be part of an alien hive mind than continue to be human. (Honestly, a very 2020 vibe.) While the Lexa-faced Judge tells Clarke that humanity has “added so much to us already,” for a show that depicted murder as a valid life choice more or less right up until the end, it’s not really clear what those qualities might be. On the other hand, some humans do survive. They seemingly get a pristine Earth to live on, and they don’t have anyone left to fight besides one another. Still, for an episode that has a surface-level message of anti-tribalism, the final scene seems to hammer a different message home: a peaceful existence is possible when everyone but your family is dead. Link to comment
tv echo October 1, 2020 Share October 1, 2020 (edited) The 100 Creator Opens Up About Bringing Back THOSE Characters BY SAM STONE SEPTEMBER 30, 2020https://www.cbr.com/the-100-creator-series-finale-returning-characters/ Quote "There was definitely a lot of discussions about who the judges should be, but once we kind of landed what the rules were -- which is that it's either your greatest love, your greatest teacher or your greatest enemy -- then it started to become clear as to who those judges would be," Rothenberg told CBR. "Once we landed on who the three characters that were going to be facing the judges were going to be, it became an exercise of, can we get certain people, like Alycia Debnam-Carey for example, to do the episode? That took some conversation, for sure, and thankfully she agreed to do it. Same with Paige Turco. Paige was not on the show anymore, and she was so game and open into coming back, and it was so amazing to have her." * * * "Although Iola Evans, who plays Callie, and will hopefully continue to play Callie, wasn't with us very long, it was pretty great working with her on the prequel," Rothenberg continued. "So to get the opportunity to direct her, even though it was only in those one or two moments, was great for me. She is such a special talent." The 100 Creator on the Complex Nature of Clarke's Final Fate BY SAM STONE OCTOBER 1, 2020https://www.cbr.com/100-creator-clarke-final-fate/ Quote While the species was indeed determined to be worthy and transcended from their physical forms, longtime protagonist Clarke Griffin was ultimately denied her own ascension and left alone in her normal state. According to series creator Jason Rothenberg in an exclusive interview with CBR, this decision was due to Clarke's character arc since the start of the series, growing more hardened and ruthlessly violent over time in order to survive. "We start Clarke in a place of pure heroism, almost too good, and obviously she ends in a place where she's the last human being on Earth because she was not allowed to transcend because of all that she's done. To me, that was always a fascinating challenge... she's not a villain, of course, she's our protagonist, but she's not a hero," Rothenberg told CBR. "She's a broken, flawed character who, ultimately, was doing awful things early on, and we were cheering for her because she was doing it to people we didn't care about or were rooting against -- Mount Weather, for instance, even though there were innocents there -- and kind of putting the audience in the role of Mount Weather by Season 7." Over the course of the series' seven-season run, Clarke had gone from idealistic leader of the hundred wayward youths sent to recolonize Earth to warrior woman who had personally left a trail of dead in defense of herself and her friends. As Clarke began to make increasingly morally questionable decisions, she had turned on friends that had broken bad when they became a threat themselves. For Rothenberg, this provided an interesting creative challenge. "We now know what it's like to be on the other end of Wanheda's gun, because she was killing people who we care about," Rothenberg observed. "I think there was something delicious and subversive about that -- and the audience has to be judge, of course -- but it was not your typical arc for the protagonist of a show, for sure." Edited October 1, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo October 1, 2020 Share October 1, 2020 (edited) The 100: Creator Jason Rothenberg Breaks Down the Series Finale By RUSS BURLINGAME - September 30, 2020 https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/the-100-creator-jason-rothenberg-breaks-down-the-series-finale/ Quote Rothenberg joined ComicBook.com to discuss tonight's finale. * * *It felt. like a really classic-TV kind of finale, almost like Six Feet Under, giving each major character a quick thread. Was that intentional? Well, obviously, you watch a lot of TV. We wanted to fit the ending for the characters and for the show thematically, and have it feel complete at the end. There was that powerful little touch -- that was nothing of my doing, that our editor, Jeff Granzow, did -- where the very last shot, as we pull back above our heroes on the beach, is superimposed against the very first shot of Clarke on the floor of her cell drawing, and the whole full circle of it, closing the book on it. When I first saw that, when I first watched his editor's cut, I was like, "Holy..." That blew me away and I obviously kept it in the show. So yeah, a sense of closure or a sense of... exhalation is a good word for it, I guess. Just being done with something that you're proud of, that's got a full beginning, middle and end. We weren't ended prematurely, which so many shows are unfortunately forced to do. I'm happy about it, proud of it, bittersweet that it's over, and it's time for everybody to move on. The world of the show, and the cast, got huge over the years. But for the most part, the finale still focused on Clarke, Octavia, and Raven. What went into that decision? I feel like Clarke, Octavia, and Raven are the three people who contribute most to the human race's ultimate transcendence. Obviously, Clarke almost doomed our transcendence, and then Raven makes the appeal to the judge, and then obviously Octavia has the final speech that gets us over the goal line. But you have the John Murphy and Emori story, and there are other things happening in the episode that we were trying to emotionally find room for. You're right, it's a big show, it's a big cast. It's always been hard to get screen time for everybody. There's so many fan favorites that don't get enough time. Unfortunately, there's still 42 minutes in an episode. In this one we have 43 minutes, we were granted an extra minute, but that's all we could get. Because you know, people have got to brush their teeth. How kind of early in the process, I guess, did you know what actors you wanted to get back for the finale? I think it really came down to who was facing the judges, and we determined that the rules of the test were that the judge takes the form of your greatest love, or your greatest teacher. Then it became clear that obviously Cadogan was going to see his daughter, Clarke was going to see Lexa and Raven seeing Abby perhaps is a little bit more of a stretch, but you know, when you think about who meant the most to her in the series, Abby was the one. That's sort of what the determining factor was. Obviously had Octavia been the one that went in and saw the judge, it probably would have been Lincoln or someone, or her brother perhaps, Bellamy, but ultimately that was determined by who was taking the test or who was facing the judge. You mentioned Bellamy. You know the fans of this show better than anybody, how incredibly passionate they are. When you guys were breaking story and realized, "Okay, we're going to fake kill him, and then we're going to kill him for real, like 10 minutes later," did you expect the kind of seismic reaction that you got from each of the three kind of beats in that? Of course, we can anticipate it a hundred percent. That said, we never shied away from telling a story based on what we thought the fan reaction might be. Obviously that's a tough story. That's a hard thing to watch. We have Clarke, who's our protagonist, essentially putting us in the role of people in Mount Weather. We cheered Clarke on when she pulled the lever in Mount Weather, but now she's aiming the gun at someone we care about, and we don't like the way that feels as much. That was by design, obviously. Bellamy's story this season had to change a lot based on things we've talked about before and I've mentioned publicly before, we had broken something like seven episodes, written five, had the whole season mapped out when Bob came to us and needed to take time off. A lot of things changed after that that we had no control over, that we did our best to roll with and give him the space he needed. * * *There was a bit of the finale that felt like an indictment of religion, because these pseudo-gods are so imperfect, but at the same time it did feel like there were pieces of the episode where essentially you had these characters delivering these very impassioned speeches that almost felt like sermons. Was that dichotomy on purpose? I think yes and no. Definitely, I wasn't trying to make an indictment of religion for sure. But we were trying to tell the story of how energy consciousness can evolve, right? Ultimately to me, this is the story of one potential way that the human race could transcend. I kind of believe in it myself. So, it's not about religion. It's more about we were trying to kind of find a natural phenomenon through which to explain evolution to the next level of consciousness, whatever that may be. There will be some people who bring a religious interpretation to it, and that's fine. Again, once we put the story out, it's open to everybody's interpretation. Why did you decide Clarke was going to be the only person who couldn't transcend? Yeah. I feel like obviously we knew that Clarke's journey was going to be in a downward direction, I guess, would be the way to put it. She's definitely broken. She's gone through so much. She's borne so much so that everybody else didn't have to, as we said early in the series and it's broken her. She's devolved on some level and obviously, through having to kill Bellamy, to protect Madi and losing Madi anyway. Losing Madi in the way that she did really, I think, was the straw that broke the camel's back and we see her kind of like a recruiting as the angel of death. You know, the commander of death is back, Wanheda's back at that finale. And, as a result of her actions, she doesn't get to go into the promised land with everybody else a la Moses to bring it back to religion for a second, not intentionally. But ultimately she's then joined by her friends who have chosen to forego transcendence and immortality and whatever else lies beyond this plane of existence in order to be with her because she sacrificed so much for them. They're going to live out their days immortally and hopefully in peace. That was a choice that they made because obviously, you're not forced to transcend, it's just never been chosen before the judge tells us. * * *This kind of reminded me of the end of Cheers. It was the thing where you spend the whole episode being promised that Sam is going to make one of two choices and then it's like, "No, I'm going to choose Choice C because that's where I belong". Did it almost... do you feel like that grounded these particular characters in a sense of humanity that brought them, no pun intended, back to earth after how big and cosmic and weird the last season got? Yeah. First of all, even to compare it in any way to Cheers, that's such a nice thing to hear. I loved that show. Obviously, they're different shows, but all I remember the finale is them turning the lights out at the end, but I feel like it was really important to us that it was back on earth. It was back where they started on some level, obviously not on the ark, but on the ground and that they were together and that they were the found family and that they were going to have peace finally. That was what was important to me. They'd fought for so long and now their fight is over. I mean that both in a [inaudible 00:20:02] way and in a literal way. They're done fighting and obviously they don't get to transcend, and this is the end for them, but it won't be an awful life. It'll be a good life. Edited October 1, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo October 1, 2020 Share October 1, 2020 (edited) ‘The 100’ Boss Reveals Levitt’s ‘Emotional’ Scene That Had to Be ‘Sacrificed’ From Series Finale Margeaux Sippell | September 30, 2020https://www.thewrap.com/the-100-boss-reveals-levitts-emotional-scene-that-had-to-be-sacrificed-from-series-finale/ Quote Wednesday’s series finale of The CW’s “The 100” packed plenty of drama, but one particularly heart-wrenching scene between Levitt (Jason Diaz) and Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) had to be “sacrificed” at the last minute, showrunner Jason Rothenberg told TheWrap. * * *“Levitt was supposed to shoot somebody when they walked into the Stone Room, and that beat alone with the stunt and the effects and the blood on the wall would have taken an extra hour that we didn’t have, so I cut that,” he said. The scene was supposed to have taken place just after Bill Cadogan (John Pyper-Ferguson) is killed off. “When they walk into the Stone Room and they see that Cadogan is gone, there was supposed to be a [Disciple] character there who surprises them and is going to shoot Octavia,” Rothenberg continued. “But Levitt shoots him, having his first kill — you know, blood on his hands. It was supposed to be an emotional beat for him that had to get sacrificed for time.” That would make sense, considering how, later on in the episode, Octavia desperately tries to return the favor by saving Levitt’s life after Sheidheda shoots him on the battlefield — right in the middle of his impassioned speech for everyone to put down their weapons. In case you’re wondering, though, even if the earlier scene had been kept in, it was never going to affect Levitt’s ultimate fate. “He was always supposed to get shot on the battlefield and transcend the way he did,” Rothenberg said. Edited October 1, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
quarks October 1, 2020 Share October 1, 2020 I want to address this: "The moral of the story all along has been that tribalism is bad. Until we transcend, pun intended, our instincts to fight for our side, or our party or our country or whatever, we’re not going to evolve. We’re not going to survive until we realize that we’re all in this together. That’s what that boiled down to on the battlefield in that moment when they lowered their weapons and made the choice to stop fighting. That was the key that unlocked transcendence for them." "We wanted the moral of the story to be, simply stated, "Until we stop fighting, we're doomed." Until we stop killing each other in the name of country or tribe or even family, we're doomed to keep repeating that cycle of violence. And once we do and we link arms and we realize we're all in this together, then we can get to whatever comes next. In this case, it's transcendence. That was the moral of the story." Ok, sure, but - Not all of the surviving members of humanity were on that battlefield. In canon, all of the non-combatants of Bardo (including the kids and teachers we saw earlier in the season) and a number of people on Sanctum (later seen by Clarke as glowing trees), as well as the remaining people from Eligius III (who, granted, might be dead - they kinda vanished from the narrative), weren't on that battlefield, and thus never linked arms and realized they were all in this together and could get to whatever comes next, transcendence. And sure, all of those people (except for maybe the Eligius III people since it's not clear what happened to them) were considerably more innocent than any of the people on that battlefield, and thus arguably more "deserving" of transcendence - but, again, you can't argue that you get to transcend once you realize that we're all in this together while simultaneously showing people transcending who never got to make that realization. 1 Link to comment
CooperTV October 1, 2020 Share October 1, 2020 (edited) Edited October 1, 2020 by CooperTV 1 Link to comment
tv echo October 2, 2020 Share October 2, 2020 (edited) The 100 Prequel Update: Potential Spinoff Remains 'Up in the Air' By Andy Swift / October 1 2020,https://tvline.com/2020/10/01/the-100-prequel-update-spinoff-ordered-cancelled/ Quote The status of the sci-fi drama’s proposed spinoff, potentially titled The 100: Second Dawn, remains “up in the air,” showrunner Jason Rothenberg tells TVLine. “The conversations are now happening at such a high level, they don’t include me. I hope to get a call one of these days and get some good news about it. I’d love to be able to continue those adventures. I love those actors and I love the world of the show so much.” Set 97 years before the events of The 100, the potential spinoff was introduced through a backdoor pilot in the show’s final season. The episode introduced viewers to Cadogan’s daughter Callie (played by Iola Evans) and son Reese (played by Adain Bradley), each of whom hold vastly different opinions about their father. Leo Howard, who played a young musician named August in the backdoor pilot, was recently made a series regular on The CW’s Legacies. Rothenberg shared some of his ideas for the prequel with TVLine, including “Lost-style flashback episodes” to pre-apocalypse times, as well as a plan to get the characters up to space at some point. “Clarke’s great, great, great grandparents are up there on the Ark,” he noted. “Same with Bellamy, Raven and all the characters. I have a plan to get us up there and meet the ancestors. If we’re lucky enough to tell that story, we’ll meet Great Great Grandpappy Blake.” Edited October 2, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo October 2, 2020 Share October 2, 2020 (edited) ‘The 100’ Series Finale: Creator Jason Rothenberg On Tonight’s Surprises & Who Might Return For The Prequel By Anthony D'Alessandro September 30, 2020https://deadline.com/2020/09/the-100-series-finale-creator-jason-rothenberg-interview-prequel-spoilers-guests-1234589053/ Quote DEADLINE: OK, let’s talk the prequel, the prequel, the prequel. I know we had episode 8 “Anaconda” this past season, but do you think The 100 prequel series could land at HBO Max? ROTHENBERG: I wish I had good answers for you. What I can say is in terms of whether or not it’s going to happen is that there are discussions that are still happening at the highest level. You know, I think probably I’d be talking out of turn if I mentioned where those conversations were happening, unfortunately, but there is a chance, a good chance, I guess, that it could come back. I wish I had news this week, it would be great to announce it this week, I don’t think that’s going to happen. DEADLINE: You’ve mentioned that the prequel will be a Cain and Abel story between Callie and her brother Reese, but are we going to see some of the characters from this show in the prequel? I mean it’s The 100 and everyone can time warp and travel. ROTHENBERG: Yeah, I hear what you’re saying. I don’t think we’ll see the characters from the original show. I mean, again, I would say never just because you don’t know what’s going to happen if you are lucky enough to run for a while. Eventually, you do tell a story. I do know that one of the things I want to do is get it back up to space because concurrent with the timeline of the prequel, what’s happening in space is all the space stations, that were separate at the time of the nuclear holocaust, are coming together to form the ark. So, up there is where we would meet the great, great, great grandmother and grandfather of all of our heroes, Clarke’s great grandparents, great-great grandparents, Bellamy’s, Octavia’s, obviously, and so we could tell a story that way. Some of the actors have already tried to make the pitch that their great-great grandfathers and grandmothers look exactly like them. I doubt that’s going to happen. We’ll see. But I do know that that is somewhere where I want to take the prequel if we’re lucky enough to get it ordered. DEADLINE: Is the prequel ultimately about Cadogan’s fall from grace, about him being a Greek tragic hero? ROTHENBERG: We certainly could. I mean, we certainly could. I love John Pyper-Ferguson, I thought he brought such an interesting flavor to the show and to the role, for sure. We know he leaves Earth. In the prequel, he goes through the wormhole and goes back into our story on Sanctum, but we also know that that stone is still there, so yeah, he could theoretically in series show up again before they bury that thing and close that Earth. Edited October 2, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo October 2, 2020 Share October 2, 2020 (edited) The 100 Series Finale Completely Misses the Point of the Show Natalie Zutter Oct. 1, 2020https://www.tor.com/2020/10/01/the-100-series-finale-completely-misses-the-point-of-the-show/ Quote Ultimately, The 1oo’s series finale felt like another television casualty, a series that lost sight of its original, dynamic premise and scrambled to throw together something adequate. It wasn’t quite Game of Thrones-level fumbling, but the final product is just as narratively sloppy. * * * Instead, all of the mishigas about the “Last War” reads like someone skimmed the CliffsNotes for this series and decided, Hey yeah, let’s make it all about them being the ones who are judged worthy of survival for once! By omnipotent, ascended, alien beings, no less—despite the series never once engaging with the presence of extraterrestrials. While the characters fit naturally into season 6’s plot, almost all of the “arcs” this season felt shoehorned in: the time dilation skewing everyone’s relative senses of time, Bellamy going full sheep and Clarke killing him to save Madi, last week’s ableist outcome in which Clarke almost killed a locked-in Madi without her consent. The only character who really benefited from this season’s wacky wormholes and time loops was Octavia (more on that later). * * * The problem with the Last Test, and with transcendence, is that the rules are never made clear until we’re in the moment. We know nothing about these ascended beings other than that they have the power to invite other civilizations to become “infinite” with them, or to annihilate them by way of reforming them into crystal statues as a testament to their failure. The beings seem to be so far beyond any human emotion or experience—yet they are supposed to possess the nuance to judge human behavior—so their solution is to appear as a crucial figure to the test-taker. * * * In the early seasons, Clarke represented the best and worst of humanity: She was the one willing to make impossible decisions, to pull the literal lever that places humanity permanently on the other side of a devastating choice. More than once she sentenced herself to death or exile or isolation so that she could bear that pain while others could prosper. But this final season has warped her character into a shrill, single-minded maternal figure who is so short-sighted she can’t consider anything beyond her adoptive teenage daughter’s safety, treating Madi like a helpless infant instead of someone the same age that she, as a juvenile delinquent, was sent to Earth to fend for herself. * * * The thing is, our heroes had no interest in transcending their existence before they came across the Disciples. Even though their every encounter with another civilization ended in competition and bloodshed, they never gave up on the hope that the next time they would be able to co-exist with another set of humans. Remember that Clarke chose to destroy the City of Light and its weird digital afterlife, knowing that Praimfaya was on its way, because that sterile approximation of existence was not the way humanity was meant to continue on. * * * And then the final scene undoes everything in this episode and in the series as a whole, all due to another twist of new information not previously available: Transcendence is a choice, and all of Clarke’s friends have chosen to reject it in favor of joining her back on Earth. That means Murphy, Emori, Niylah, Jackson, Miller, Octavia, Levitt, Hope, and Jordan all chose mortality over some City of Light-esque infinite existence, just so Clarke wouldn’t spend the rest of her days talking into a radio with no one to listen on the other end. (No Madi, because she knew Clarke wouldn’t want a future with no peers or love interests for her, and that’s fair, give the poor girl a break already.) Frankly, this makes sense; as I said above, these characters never even wanted transcendence; they just didn’t want to be annihilated. So they came back to try again * * * But the most disturbing fallout of this narrative choice is that The 100, a series about humanity’s constant struggles to co-exist, ends on the message that everything is fine when there’s no one you have to put aside differences with. Paradise for Clarke and co. is being with each other and not having to worry about invading anyone’s land, or assimilating with anyone else’s culture, or being tempted to wipe out any supposed enemies for their own survival. It’s one thing for them to have realized it’s possible not to fight when faced with an opposing army, but to reward them with a lifetime in which they will never have to fight with another conflicting force doesn’t feel like they actually learned anything valuable. Edited October 2, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
CooperTV October 2, 2020 Share October 2, 2020 1 hour ago, tv echo said: So they came back to try again Except the fact they lost the ability to have children so they'll just die, not try again and create the new world. Link to comment
dippydee October 2, 2020 Share October 2, 2020 34 minutes ago, CooperTV said: Except the fact they lost the ability to have children so they'll just die, not try again and create the new world. Don’t those embryo things and the lab still exist on Bardo? If they wanted kids they could just make them. It’d also be more genetically diverse too. Link to comment
KittenPokerCheater October 2, 2020 Share October 2, 2020 30 minutes ago, dippydee said: Except the fact they lost the ability to have children so they'll just die, not try again and create the new world. LA-LA-LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU! These are plucky and inventive people- they'll figure a way. Link to comment
CooperTV October 2, 2020 Share October 2, 2020 3 hours ago, dippydee said: Don’t those embryo things and the lab still exist on Bardo? If they wanted kids they could just make them. It’d also be more genetically diverse too. But they're on Earth. And the human race is dead. Link to comment
dippydee October 2, 2020 Share October 2, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, CooperTV said: But they're on Earth. And the human race is dead. The stones still work. Clarke went from Bardo to Sanctum (and picked up the dog) then went to Earth. Either way I said elsewhere no way are these guys gonna stay put and do nothing. I totally imagine them using the stones to find other alien civilisations and do more stupid things in my imaginary version of season 8 where the show was run by better show runners 😉 Edited October 2, 2020 by dippydee 2 Link to comment
CooperTV October 3, 2020 Share October 3, 2020 6 hours ago, dippydee said: The stones still work. Clarke went from Bardo to Sanctum (and picked up the dog) then went to Earth. Either way I said elsewhere no way are these guys gonna stay put and do nothing. I totally imagine them using the stones to find other alien civilisations and do more stupid things in my imaginary version of season 8 where the show was run by better show runners 😉 This is about the show in-universe and about Jason Rothenberg as a showrunner, it seems. Link to comment
dippydee October 3, 2020 Share October 3, 2020 30 minutes ago, CooperTV said: This is about the show in-universe and about Jason Rothenberg as a showrunner, it seems. Ok but the point still stands, Bardo and the lab are still there should they want to use them. Unless the aliens removed them I guess. Link to comment
CooperTV October 3, 2020 Share October 3, 2020 (edited) Quote To be clear, The 100 tripped over its own feet, jumped 12 sharks, and shattered its reputation with viewers long before Game of Thrones boffed it. But the Game of Thrones finale has quickly become synonymous with missing the landing harder than a drunk gymnast on the vault so here we are, comparing the two after The 100 had an absolutely wild finale that I cannot get over. One the one hand, The 100 turned its young blond heroine into a villain seasons ago, while Game of Thrones pulled a heel turn in the second to last episode of the show. One the other hand, Game of Thrones did not end its whole-ass show with a U2 song. I could say more but maybe you’re planning to catch up when it comes to Netflix and I don’t want to ruin this experience for you! You should witness this on your own terms and in your own space. So let’s just drop a little spoiler tag. *** This week’s series finale, “The Last War,” immediately confirmed the whole alien judgment day thing is 100% real, and then Clarke immediately—like without a single breath—murders the zealot leader and splatters his blood all over a celestial being. Things promptly get...real...Christian. I don’t mean that in a good or bad way, it just very quickly and clearly starts feeling like one of those plays you had to do if you ever attended vacation bible school. Only, because it’s Clarke, she sees the celestial being as Lexa, and also because it’s Clarke she admits to committing genocide and horrible crimes to protect those she loves. Just another day. Celestial Lexa is unimpressed by Clarke’s absolutely terrible defense of humanity, largely because Clarke truly is a terrible person. She has not bathed since season two, and we all know she’s killed a lot of people, including Bellamy, to protect “her” people. She has never sought peace or unity and has always been out just for herself. It made her an interesting central character, but like Dany melting Westeros alive, it’s made her a villain. The 100 Series Finale Pulled a Game of Thrones and I'm Still Laughing Edited October 3, 2020 by CooperTV 1 Link to comment
tv echo October 3, 2020 Share October 3, 2020 (edited) 15 TV Moments From This Week That We Can't Stop Talking About Nora Dominick October 2, 2020https://www.buzzfeed.com/noradominick/tv-moments-of-week-10-2-20 Quote 10. Also on The 100, the series ended with Murphy, Raven, Octavia, and the rest of the crew deciding to stay with Clarke, who didn't achieve "transcendence," so they could live out the rest of their days together. Yes, this is all super confusing and even though I watched every single episode of this show, I can't even explain what happened. Does SNL's Biden Favor Count Olaf? Was The 100's Ending Too Bleak? Best Fargo Season 4 Name? And More Qs! By Vlada Gelman, Matt Webb Mitovich, Kimberly Roots, Andy Swift, Dave Nemetz, Rebecca Iannucci, Ryan Schwartz and Nick Caruso / October 2 2020https://tvline.com/2020/10/02/the-100-series-finale-ending-tv-questions-answers/ Quote 9 | Did The 100‘s “judge” overturn its verdict a little too easily in the series finale? And could that ending have been any more bleak? Edited October 3, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo October 4, 2020 Share October 4, 2020 (edited) CW’s ‘The 100’ Ruthlessly Sabotaged Its Final Season BY ABIGAIL CAMPOS OCTOBER 4, 2020https://studybreaks.com/tvfilm/the-100-bellamy-final-season/ Quote To every person that I advised to watch the catastrophe that is “The 100,” I would like to first and foremost apologize. If I had known it would turn into an on-fire garbage can, then I never would’ve looked twice at it. * * * The show has changed and morphed over time but has successfully kept the central tone of the series throughout most of its run. Survival is hard, but as long as our characters are still breathing, there’s hope for the future. However, the same cannot be said about the final season of “The 100,” which has essentially transformed itself into the epitome of a sci-fi acid trip, with a limping recognition of the stories and characters seen in the previous seasons. Perhaps this direction has worked for general viewers, but for noncausal fans, it completely abandoned so many aspects that made the show so memorable. * * * Not to say that the show didn’t have its flaws before this season. Deaths like Lexa’s and Lincoln’s drastically affected the show, both on and off screen. The loss of LGBTQ+ character Lexa made “The 100” and its executive producer, Jason Rothenberg, an accomplice to the bury-your-gays trope, and the show faced massive backlash for the mistake. And Lincoln’s end was met with criticism because of the triggering imagery of a peaceful Black man executed by a shot in the head. * * * Along with that, this show has had a multitude of inconsistencies and writing mistakes, but the main characters were always what kept me hoping for a satisfying conclusion for our heroes. This hope became for naught in Episode 13 this season: Bellamy, now a member of a cult that believes in “transcendence,” finds a sketchbook with drawings from Madi, Clarke’s surrogate daughter, which is somehow the key to winning the last war. Bellamy refuses to hand over the sketchbook, and Clarke shoots and kills him. * * * Clarke feels like a poor imitation of herself for most of Season 7. As the lead, she is usually at the forefront of conflict and moves the story forward — typically with Bellamy and Octavia. However, this season has made her into caricature, only obsessed with “saving her friends” while being pulled into storylines in which she played only an ancillary role. At least, up until this point. Having Clarke be the one to end Bellamy’s life feels vindictively pointed to the fanbase that has always seen their development as the best part of the show. Rothenberg has said in the past that, “[The show] has always been the story of — on some level — Clarke and her relationship to Bellamy.” * * * Whether you believed their feelings had a romantic element to it or not is irrelevant (even though they did). They were the head and the heart. They were two halves of a whole and without one, the other can’t survive. * * * Remaining characters now act as mouthpieces put in place to spew disjointed and unearned insults for a man that had been their leader, their father figure, and the heart of what held the group together. * * * It’s not enough that he will never the get the chance to “redeem” himself now; the show is set on convincing the audience that Bellamy deserved this end and that Clarke should be absolved of murdering her closest friend because “he gave her no other choice.” * * * If someone like Bellamy — someone who painstakingly worked to better himself for his past mistakes — wasn’t worth the effort to try and save, then who is? We are forced to come to the conclusion that “The 100” is only a shell of what it used to be. The ends justifying the means can only be an excuse for so long. If that’s the overall message, then humanity isn’t worth saving. How sad and unexpected to decide that our heroes can no longer be considered the true heroes at all. Edited October 4, 2020 by tv echo 1 Link to comment
CooperTV October 4, 2020 Share October 4, 2020 Quote So, this is the end. The 100 has spent seven seasons turning over every stone of the human race looking for solutions to an unsolvable problem. Over the course of The 100’s seven seasons, the human race has been whittled down piece by piece, until only a few hundred people survive. And in the end, humanity dies out, slowly and then all at once. Humanity, the show concludes, will keep its eating own tail until it has consumed itself entirely, stuck in a loop of passionate violence for all of eternity, until – if we’re lucky — the universe absorbs us and we ‘evolve’ beyond our inferior mortal forms to some version of a hive-mind collective. The recipients of this evolutionary gift? Convicted criminals from our time. Cultists bred in test tubes. Believers of false gods. A handful of children. All melded into one nameless, faceless crowd of One, and then swallowed up by a superior entity that folds them into the cosmic conscious. They feel no pain, we are told. This is preferable. Because by season 7, numbness is bliss. We are certainly a far cry away from the mishmash of desperately, painfully, joyfully alive mass of life that Clarke Griffin championed when she rejected the City of Light at the end of season 3. A bleak but accurate reflection of how the world has changed between 2016 and now, perhaps. Or a symptom of growing up and growing older and realizing that hope is an invention of the mind to stave off the ever-looming dread of a finite existence. I understand why Clarke Griffin no longer mustered the strength to try to be better. I even understand why the narrative ultimately gave up its once-fierce belief that humanity can and will endure, and that the brief moments of joy and togetherness have to be enough to outweigh the pain and the darkness. But that doesn’t mean we have to embrace the same nihilism, and it doesn’t mean we have to lie down and wait for the cosmos to claim us. ‘The 100’ series finale review: Who wants to live forever? Link to comment
tv echo October 12, 2020 Share October 12, 2020 (edited) Bob Morley, Tasya Teles and Chelsey Reist participated in NYCC's Metaverse virtual event... The 100 Cast Review Fan Ships New York Comic Con Premiered Oct 6, 2020 The 100 Cast Play Who's Most Likely New York Comic Con Premiered Oct 7, 2020 The 100 Cast on Times the World Didn't End New York Comic Con Premiered Oct 7, 2020 Edited October 12, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
CooperTV October 12, 2020 Share October 12, 2020 "I feel bad for both camps, the Cl*xas and the Bellarkes. Both were teased for so many years about it for so many years and neither of them coming to fruition" 1 Link to comment
tv echo October 12, 2020 Share October 12, 2020 (edited) Bob confirming romantic Bellarke and wanting to work with Eliza again. promise jimin Oct 12, 2020 Bob on working with Eliza again and what he thinks about season 7. promise jimin Oct 12, 2020 some moments from bob’s meet & greet promise jimin Oct 11, 2020 Edited October 12, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
tv echo October 13, 2020 Share October 13, 2020 (edited) Bob Morley - "Contrary to Jason’s beliefs, he told us to make Bellarke romantic" - The 100 The 100 Fans Oct 13, 2020 Edited October 13, 2020 by tv echo 1 Link to comment
CooperTV October 13, 2020 Share October 13, 2020 2 hours ago, tv echo said: Bob Morley - "Contrary to Jason’s beliefs, he told us to make Bellarke romantic" - The 100 The 100 Fans Oct 13, 2020 1 Link to comment
tv echo October 16, 2020 Share October 16, 2020 (edited) 21 Plot Twists So Ridiculously Unbelievable They Ruined People's Favorite Shows by Kristen Harris October 15, 2020https://www.buzzfeed.com/kristenharris1/plot-twists-ruined-tv-shows Quote 3. When Clarke killed Bellamy on The 100. "What made me stop watching The 100 was when Clarke killed Bellamy four episodes before the end. Totally out of character. I feel like I wasted seven years of my life." —lidyamoulai "It was unreasonable and ruined the show for me right before it ended. Clarke being the one to kill him was just a petty choice of the writers to hurt the viewers who wanted them to end up together." —hannalynnec Edited October 16, 2020 by tv echo 1 Link to comment
CooperTV October 17, 2020 Share October 17, 2020 Quote Jumping off of that, you posted a photo of you, Bob, and Eliza with a caption that included #BellarkeForever, which was lovely. In the caption, you mentioned going on this journey with them. Cadogan did sort of play this role of an obstacle between the two leads in the final season leading up to their very end, really. What was like going on this journey where he was just kind of this thing that's in between the two leads that they can't get past? I think it's a little deeper to where your personal feelings get involved because I'm working with Bob and Eliza so intimately, and they're lovely people and married in real life. It seemed almost inevitable given the storyline that they would be together at the end. I remember getting the rewrites on that scene when Bellamy gets shot, and my jaw drops. Like I was like, “Noooooo. That’s not right". I guess that's probably also why I put Bellarke. How do you not cheer for two people who love each other to be together? And saying it at this moment, when I put it like that, I think it's something probably that Cadogan would cheer for as well. Actually, he does encourage them to get together because, at the end of one of the scenes, he allows them to reunite. He believes in love. He believes in that. Looking Back On The 100: John Pyper-Ferguson on Cadogan's Impact on The Show, The Final Test, And More! Link to comment
tv echo October 21, 2020 Share October 21, 2020 (edited) In this video, showrunner Jason Rothenberg says that Jasper was supposed to die in the pilot, but the actor who played Jasper was "so awesome" that they couldn't kill him. However, the show was supposed to be a show where main characters could die, so that led them to do the "Wells story." He also said that they started out making a "bright, shiny, beautiful people show" since it was The CW (home to Gossip Girl), but he was then "influenced" by CW President Mark Pedowitz "continuously telling" him that the show can "be darker" and to "go darker." Rothenberg specifically praises Richard Harmon as one of the talented actors in the cast who "just popped." He also says that Octavia, Clarke and Bellamy all "changed so much." He also says that he's "so satisfied" with the ending, because "we're all in this together" and until we realize that, we're "doomed"... The 100 | Series Recap | The CW The CW Network Oct 20, 2020 Edited October 21, 2020 by tv echo Link to comment
CooperTV October 23, 2020 Share October 23, 2020 On 10/21/2020 at 5:13 PM, tv echo said: Rothenberg specifically praises Richard Harmon as one of the talented actors in the cast who "just popped." He also says that Octavia, Clarke and Bellamy all "changed so much." He also says that he's "so satisfied" with the ending, because "we're all in this together" and until we realize that, we're "doomed"... Link to comment
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