S06.E04: The Face Behind the Glass

[CooperTV]

Quote

Clarke embraces the traditions of Sanctum and tries to make amends for her past actions.

Original airdate 5/21/2019

[Cigale]

“Clarke let’s herself be brainwashed by a cult...”

[Lady Calypso]

Well, shit. That whole thing happened sooner than expected. Once Clarke inevitably gets out, she's gonna kick some Prime ass. Still, how devastating to Clarke. She gets shit on by everyone and then gets her body hijacked by Josephine. 

Now, it's going to be waiting to see who figures out everything first. I'm willing to bet that it's Jordan, who is already suspicious of things. Seriously, how do none of them ask any questions about Naming Day?

Raven, shut up. Clarke's made mistakes but she's not some Devil and you're no angel. Yes, Raven hasn't gone to the lengths that Clarke has, but that's also why Raven isn't a leader. She hasn't had to. I get that Raven's smart and has gotten them out of several situations, but so has Clarke, so why does that make Raven better? 

Diyoza and Octavia team up, to nobody's surprise. But we're now officially on the way to Octavia's redemption after she, I think, got Rose killed by her own recklessness. 

Echo finally gets a backstory and it's already pretty horrible. Damn, Tasya nailed her last scene with Bellamy. Meanwhile, Bellamy is a bit of a jerk this episode. 

No Murphy, but I think that he wasn't needed, after all. 

Again, poor Clarke. She's not having a good day. I bet, though, that these hosts aren't actually gone but the Primes don't seem to be aware of that. So Delilah may be able to be saved. 

Also, Eliza Taylor rocked the last scene as Josephine. She felt like a new character. It'll be fun watching Josephine for a while, although still super depressing, knowing that Clarke's body is hijacked.

[Sakura12]

I figured Clarke wouldn't choose that on her own. But these people need to tell them what's going on. Killion or whatever his name should've told Clarke what was happening instead of being so cryptic about it. And Delilah should have told Jordan she'd be gone and Priya would take over. I would assume they would know that they are giving up their body. 

I'm thinking that if the thing they use is anything like the Flame, Clarke will be able to take control back. I also wonder how they are going to explain what they did? I highly doubt the hair twirler can act like Clarke enough to fool any of her people.  

Diyoza and Octavia going on a hunting mission should be fun. 

[Paloma]

So basically the Primes are body snatchers? And the Children of Gabriel are the good guys because they are trying to stop that? Other than that, I was very confused about what was going on, especially when the Primes who had Clarke paralyzed were "doing the math" and talking about the number of years before brains were ready and something about mortality. And I really didn't need all the romance-novel sex scenes interfering with the progress of the plot and explanation of this society, though I know those scenes are in there to appeal to CW's intended audience.

[Sakura12]

I think they were doing the math about how many years a nightblood is born and where their daughter was on the list. The girl that died was the next host for whoever was after Delilah. Clarke should've gone to her. 

I'm sure once they find out Madi's a nightblood, Clarke will break through and kill everyone. 

[Lady Calypso]

7 minutes ago, Paloma said:

So basically the Primes are body snatchers? And the Children of Gabriel are the good guys because they are trying to stop that? Other than that, I was very confused about what was going on, especially when the Primes who had Clarke paralyzed were "doing the math" and talking about the number of years before brains were ready and something about mortality. And I really didn't need all the romance-novel sex scenes interfering with the progress of the plot and explanation of this society, though I know those scenes are in there to appeal to CW's intended audience.

From what I gather, the Primes have their consciousness in their own version of the Flame. It seems like there are limited number of Nightbloods and the Primes wait until the host becomes of age of the Prime they're putting into these hosts, until the Ceremony is performed. The hosts basically "die" (or get transferred to their Flame's version of the City of Light). So Clarke is basically gone now and Josephine is in her body. Then, I guess if the body dies, they're able to get the Flame out and restart the process with a new Nightblood host.

It seems like Josephine's planned host was Rose, who is now dead, so they would have had to wait for a new Nightblood to be born (it doesn't sound like there is another). So they would have had to wait at least three decades (not sure where the 58 years, I believe Russell said, comes in) for Josephine to return to them. 

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, Paloma said:

So basically the Primes are body snatchers? And the Children of Gabriel are the good guys because they are trying to stop that? Other than that, I was very confused about what was going on, especially when the Primes who had Clarke paralyzed were "doing the math" and talking about the number of years before brains were ready and something about mortality. And I really didn't need all the romance-novel sex scenes interfering with the progress of the plot and explanation of this society, though I know those scenes are in there to appeal to CW's intended audience.

I think doing the math is that the existing Primes are going to age and die (or be murdered) at a faster clip than people being reborn as suitable hosts to give them new bodies.  It seems like 21 is the earliest the brain can take the chip.  So they are grabbing a new body while they have a chance and that frees up the next body for whoever else is in line.  I'm assuming the Children of Gabriel leaving and actively hunting the Primes has thrown the balance out of whack.

The Clarke sex scene amused me because of how it encapsulated the "don't ship Bellarke" message.  First Echo and Bellamy fight, so Clarke has sex with someone else.  Then Clarke's hookup tries to kidnap her, so Bellamy and Echo work things out.

I'm not gonna lie. shortly after Clarke got body snatched, my brain did this...

Pod Clarke and "I've seen hell" Murphy sound fun.  Maybe they'll team up to create mayhem.

Wait?  Do I ship Clarke and Murphy?  When did that happen?

Oh shit, I wonder if they remember the lesson learned by SGU.  No body swapping hook ups.

This is going to end is a Clexa social media shit storm.  Isn't it?

[KittenPokerCheater]

I don't know that I'm going to be able to take 9 episodes of PodClarke fooling everyone.

Hopefully we'll get more backstory of how the chips/blood made it to Sanctum, because I thought that all that Ali/Chip stuff happened after the sanctum settlers left earth.

So not interested in Octavia/Dioyza.  I know they are on a redemption tour, but I'd rather the characters were written off.

[thuganomics85]

Ah, the good old "Immortality by taking over other peoples' bodies" deal!  Figured the folks in Sanctum were up to no good.  Still not sure if the Children of Gabriel are exactly shining knights, but I can certainly see why they are through with the Prime's shit.  I doubt Clarke will stay "gone" for long, but it might be fun seeing Eliza Taylor play a different character for a bit.

Intentional or not, this episode really seem to have it out for people having sex.  Jordan loses his virginity, only to watch his partner become a new person.  Clarke lets off some steam with the doctor, only for the doctor to actually be a part of the CoG, and try to kidnap her.  Harsh, show!  Is now allowed any lovin?!

Diyoza and Octavia teaming up might be fun.  If nothing else, Diyoza will definitely not put up with Octavia's shit.

Way to almost destroy your relationship with Echo, Bellamy.  At least he apologized, but I have a feeling they are on borrowed time.  Granted, I almost think Echo deserves better.

Lets see how long the Mechanic Prime lasts since he seems to be set up as a love interest for Raven, and those guys do not last long.  Like, at all.

I'm glad to see Girl Scout Cookies made it to Sanctum, because I'm pretty sure I saw some Samoas at the party! 

[Paloma]

7 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Lets see how long the Mechanic Prime lasts since he seems to be set up as a love interest for Raven, and those guys do not last long.  Like, at all.

I'm glad to see Girl Scout Cookies made it to Sanctum, because I'm pretty sure I saw some Samoas at the party! 

So is Mechanic Prime supposed to be the son of the Prime that Delilah is now hosting? She hugged him and said something like "my sweet baby boy." 

LOL re the cookies; when we saw the platter of cookies, my husband said "Glad they managed to find Pepperidge Farm." I wouldn't know, since I don't eat either Girl Scout Cookies or Pepperidge Farm. But I would have been more suspicious about eating and drinking anything these people were offering at the party, at least until I found out more about Primes and the naming ceremony. I get that our crew is tired of living in space and fighting and so they want to believe this is a sanctuary, but there is too much that seems "off" in this society even with what little they already know. 

[Paloma]

9 hours ago, Lady Calypso said:

From what I gather, the Primes have their consciousness in their own version of the Flame. It seems like there are limited number of Nightbloods and the Primes wait until the host becomes of age of the Prime they're putting into these hosts, until the Ceremony is performed. The hosts basically "die" (or get transferred to their Flame's version of the City of Light). So Clarke is basically gone now and Josephine is in her body. Then, I guess if the body dies, they're able to get the Flame out and restart the process with a new Nightblood host.

It seems like Josephine's planned host was Rose, who is now dead, so they would have had to wait for a new Nightblood to be born (it doesn't sound like there is another). So they would have had to wait at least three decades (not sure where the 58 years, I believe Russell said, comes in) for Josephine to return to them. 

Thanks for this explanation. It mostly makes sense except that Delilah appeared to be hosting a much older Prime, if I am right in reading her post-naming reaction to Mechanic Prime as recognizing him as her son ("Oh, my sweet baby boy" or something similar). 

9 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

I think doing the math is that the existing Primes are going to age and die (or be murdered) at a faster clip than people being reborn as suitable hosts to give them new bodies.  It seems like 21 is the earliest the brain can take the chip.  So they are grabbing a new body while they have a chance and that frees up the next body for whoever else is in line.  I'm assuming the Children of Gabriel leaving and actively hunting the Primes has thrown the balance out of whack.

This makes sense, but didn't Russell or his wife make some reference to 236 years and being close to mortality? Do the Primes actually live longer than other people (unless murdered)?

Also, why would night blood be so rare in this society? If the Primes all had it, why wouldn't it be passed down to all their descendants? I guess we are supposed to think it is a recessive gene, or maybe it is not genetic at all and has something to do with Becca's technology? I know that there was some explanation of night blood in previous seasons but don't remember it well, and in any case this is a different population group.

A few more questions for now (maybe not answerable until a later episode): Rose was several years too young to be a host, if 21 is the earliest age. Yet the Children of Gabriel kidnapped both her and Delilah, who was about to become a host. Can we assume that the doctor/spy for CoG knows who all the potential hosts are and lets CoG know whom to kidnap in order to prevent the Sanctum from using them in the future? Also, are the CoG killing everyone they kidnap, including children? If not, whose heads are they taking? There does seem to be a philosophical difference among the CoG regarding whether they should kill people, but if they don't kill them then what do they do with them?

[Paloma]

One more question: Is the Josephine who is now being hosted by Delilah the same one who was murdered by her father when we saw the flashback to the first red sun rising? This was what a commenter on the AV Club review said, and he/she further concluded that the Russell in this episode has the consciousness of the original Prime who murdered his wife and daughter. The current Russell said his daughter died in a fall, but that might have been a lie, or maybe the one who died in a fall in the current generation would have been a host for the murdered daughter when old enough.

Trying to figure this out makes my brain hurt, but at least it is more interesting than the repetitive dynamic of Clarke-blaming and other interactions between the regular characters.

Edited May 22, 2019 by Paloma
Forgot a word

[Lady Calypso]

1 hour ago, Paloma said:

Thanks for this explanation. It mostly makes sense except that Delilah appeared to be hosting a much older Prime, if I am right in reading her post-naming reaction to Mechanic Prime as recognizing him as her son ("Oh, my sweet baby boy" or something similar). 

Yeah, I didn't realize until after I wrote my post that Priya is supposed to be much older, so it looks like they wait until 21, until the brains of the hosts become of age.

1 hour ago, Paloma said:

Also, why would night blood be so rare in this society? If the Primes all had it, why wouldn't it be passed down to all their descendants? I guess we are supposed to think it is a recessive gene, or maybe it is not genetic at all and has something to do with Becca's technology? I know that there was some explanation of night blood in previous seasons but don't remember it well, and in any case this is a different population group.

I think that you're right that it's more of a recessive gene. It seems like it's luck if someone is a Prime or not. I'd need to rewatch the scene where Russell and his wife are discussing how long they'd have to wait for Josephine to be reborn, essentially. I guess that's also why there are so many children in Sanctum; the people in Sanctum conceive in hopes that their offspring have Nightblood coursing through their veins. 

I remember that, back in season 3, Luna was the first Nightblood that they ever met and there weren't many out there, despite the fact that Becca created Nightbloods a hundred years prior. So I do believe it's just luck of the draw. I think, if the Primes could create Nightbloods through tech, they would have (so let's hope Jordan keeps his mouth shut about how Clarke was made into a Nightblood).

20 minutes ago, Paloma said:

One more question: Is the Josephine who is now being hosted by Delilah the same one who was murdered by her father when we saw the flashback to the first red sun rising? This was what a commenter on the AV Club review said, and he/she further concluded that the Russell in this episode has the consciousness of the original Prime who murdered his wife and daughter. The current Russell said his daughter died in a fall, but that might have been a lie, or maybe the one who died in a fall in the current generation would have been a host for the murdered daughter when old enough.

Yes. As is pretty much confirmed now with Josephine's Hair Twirl, JR Bourne's Russell seems to be the Sean Maguire Russell that killed his wife Simone and daughter Josephine (now in Clarke). We obviously have plenty more flashbacks to see how the Primes came to deliver their consciousness and hijack hosts, Get Out style. 

1 hour ago, Paloma said:

Can we assume that the doctor/spy for CoG knows who all the potential hosts are and lets CoG know whom to kidnap in order to prevent the Sanctum from using them in the future?

Well, the doctor was definitely a spy for the Children of Gabriel for who knows how long, so yes, it does seem like his role was discovering the people with Nightblood and bringing them to his people so that the hijacking of the bodies of innocents could stop. Kidnapping Rose seemed to be to protect her, to perhaps try to sway her on their side? I don't know if they necessarily were going to kill Rose outright, but they definitely will kill if it comes down to it. 

[Sakura12]

I think some of them of were trying to save the Nightbloods from becoming hosts by kidnapping them. Others wanted to kill them probably so they could never be used and stop the Primes. The ones that were already Primes were killed and their chips destroyed so they can never be used again. 

They are basically having JR Bourne playing a Tokra from SG-1 again. Lol  

They really know nothing about Clarke except for the stories Jordon told them. Which I guess he didn't mention that she's a synthetic Nightblood. But those stories were probably cliff note versions. They are going to regret giving their daughter to the Commander of Death. 

[Samwise979]

The CoG seem like they started out with good intentions of freeing the nightbloods from this cult but I think they've mostly evolved into "let's kill them all". The lead(?) woman wanted to kill Octavia and Rose and so did pretty much everyone else in the group. The man was the only one that was like, our mission is to save them not kill them. And I also think he left his bag close enough to Octavia on purpose to help her escape. 

[Paloma]

51 minutes ago, Lady Calypso said:

I guess that's also why there are so many children in Sanctum; the people in Sanctum conceive in hopes that their offspring have Nightblood coursing through their veins. 

Thanks for all your answers, which really help clarify things for me (at least as much as anything can be clear on this show). And that's a good point about why there may be so many children.

[Lady Calypso]

2 minutes ago, Paloma said:

Thanks for all your answers, which really help clarify things for me (at least as much as anything can be clear on this show). And that's a good point about why there may be so many children.

Although, I do want to point out that Russell's math about having to wait 56 years for Josephine to be reborn makes it seem like they know exactly when the next Nightblood is born. It sounds like they're born every 14 years (Delilah is 21, Rose is 7) so now I'm confused with how they would know that.

It's all very confusing now that I put some brain power into this plot. 

39 minutes ago, Samwise979 said:

The man was the only one that was like, our mission is to save them not kill them. And I also think he left his bag close enough to Octavia on purpose to help her escape. 

Oh yeah, Lincoln 2.0 definitely helped the two escape to save their lives. Get ready for his inevitable hook-up with Octavia in 2-6 episodes.

[Paloma]

12 minutes ago, Lady Calypso said:

52 minutes ago, Samwise979 said:

The man was the only one that was like, our mission is to save them not kill them. And I also think he left his bag close enough to Octavia on purpose to help her escape. 

Oh yeah, Lincoln 2.0 definitely helped the two escape to save their lives. Get ready for his inevitable hook-up with Octavia in 2-6 episodes.

I agree, and if they do hook up that will be Octavia's second romance that began with her being held captive/tied up by her future lover. Not the message I want young women to be getting.

[Sakura12]

Do they really think their hair twirling daughter can pretend to be Clarke? Most of her people either hate her or love her, they should be able to notice when she acts completely ooc. Especially if she twirls her hair, they know Clarke would never do that. 

Also is Raven's Prime guy the boy Josephine was hooking up with in the flashbacks? That will probably cause some issues if she sees who she thinks is Clarke with him. 

[meira.hand]

2 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

They are basically having JR Bourne playing a Tokra from SG-1 again. Lol  

I was just about to post this. He must have had a strong feeling of deja vous :)

[Sakura12]

20 minutes ago, meira.hand said:

I was just about to post this. He must have had a strong feeling of deja vous 🙂

This is definitely similar to the G'ould from Stargate. The chip takes over the body and pretends to be a God. I guess the children of Gabriel are more like the Tokra though. 

[tennisgurl]

So at some point the Primes saw Get Out and realized that they had an awesome new idea...

It was actually kind of nice seeing everyone kind of just hanging out and being kind of chill for a few minutes before we found out that this is yet another group of creepies and that this is yet another awful situation for our gang to get into, and probably be scared for life even more. At least this is different and a more interesting situation and a new setting. 

It sounds like Grounders 2.0 are rebelling against the Primes and trying to stop the Primes from coming back over and over, but there are some people that want to kill them to stop this, and some people want to save them. They seem to be the kind of good guys here, but maybe not totally? 

Raven makes some not awful points about how Clarke tends to just keep ending up in this crappy murder situations, but she really needs to look at the greater context here. She really does try to do the right thing for the most people, even if things often end badly, and her whining at Clarke really does not do anyone any favors. Everyone on this show has done awful stuff, going on and on about it on this brand new planet is not a good look for anyone. 

I already do feel bad for her though, as she looks like she will get a new love interest, and we all know how long those guys normally last.

I hope Clarke comes back soon, but it will be fun seeing Eliza playing a new character for awhile, she really nailed that last scene, she did look like a totally different person. 

Edited May 22, 2019 by tennisgurl

[Sakura12]

3 out of the 4 people Clarke slept with are dead, so she doesn't have any better luck in the love interest department. 

I agree Eliza did a great job becoming a different character. She really didn't even look like Clarke anymore. 

I don't agree with Raven, because any one of them can step up and make decisions, but when everything is falling apart they all turn to Clarke. She's the one with the weight of the world on her shoulders and none of them want to take it from her. I'm hoping with Clarke "gone" they realize how much she really did for them and how hard the decisions she made were. She's not comparable to Octavia because she feels every decision she makes and has to live with it. She's fine with being the bad guy if that's what they need, but she would die for them anyway if she had too. She almost did. She had no way of knowing if she'd survive that much radiation. 

[quarks]

22 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

I figured Clarke wouldn't choose that on her own. But these people need to tell them what's going on. Killion or whatever his name should've told Clarke what was happening instead of being so cryptic about it. And Delilah should have told Jordan she'd be gone and Priya would take over. I would assume they would know that they are giving up their body. 

No kidding. That doctor sees various brand new people arriving with no idea about what's going on, finds out that at least one has nightblood, and decides to sleep with the girl with nightblood instead of telling her, hey, these people might want to implant you with a chip that will take over your mind, and ok, now that you know that, NOW can we have sex?  Delilah rushes back for one last minute kiss and says something incomprehensible to Jordan instead of "BTW, when we next see each other, I'll probably have a completely different mind, the sex was great, enjoy the cookies!"

And on Russell's side, a quick, "Hey, Clarke, were you born with that black blood?" probably would have been a wise question.

On the other side, these people are creepy enough and say just enough creepy things that our entire gang should really be asking a lot more questions here. Bellamy and Clarke have already gone through the "you seem nice, oh, that's just because you want our bone marrow." And as the episode just reminded us, Echo is a trained spy who should be on the alert for weird things and Madi has the memories/wisdom of various dead people who also should be telling her, "Uh, Madi? We have some questions about these people."

21 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

The Clarke sex scene amused me because of how it encapsulated the "don't ship Bellarke" message. 

Heh. I was more thinking that Clarke has sorta become the Sex Angel of Death - sleep with her, die right afterwards. Unless you're Niylah.

Edited May 23, 2019 by quarks

[Guest]

4 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Raven makes some not awful points about how Clarke tends to just keep ending up in this crappy murder situations, but she really needs to look at the greater context here. She really does try to do the right thing for the most people, even if things often end badly, and her whining at Clarke really does not do anyone any favors. Everyone on this show has done awful stuff, going on and on about it on this brand new planet is not a good look for anyone. 

Even her arguments about how Bellamy is better than her are stupid.  Bellamy who you left to die in the fighting pits sent his sister away for the good of everyone.  Well, tha'ts nice but Bellamy ended up in the fighting pits because he decided to sacrifice Madi to save Octavia from herself.

7 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

Do they really think their hair twirling daughter can pretend to be Clarke? Most of her people either hate her or love her, they should be able to notice when she acts completely ooc. Especially if she twirls her hair, they know Clarke would never do that.

I'm not totally convinced that they will try.  They've got a couple hundred years of believing their continued existence is worthy of people sacrificing their lives and memories to be hosts.  Its not impossible that they decide to get out of front of this and claim that Clarke was rendered brain dead in an attempted kidnapping and they put a chip in her because their was no saving her.  Basically claim that its like an organ transplant except the whole body was used instead of individual organs.  They would have saved Clarke but they didn't have her brain on a chip and so on.

If they don't get ahead of it, its not going to be a secret long.  Jordan already has some suspicions about naming day.  Octavia has been told Clarke is a "host".

They might just give the rest of them the bum rush out of the city at gunpoint and pod Clarke goes along with it under the pretense that they hate her any way.  They might even buy it for a little bit since the show is contrived like that. 

That may be more likely because I'm suspecting that Bellamy and crew finding out Josephine is in Clarke may be the least of Russel's concerns.   If pod Clarke pretends to be Clarke, that will be why.  They didn't just body snatch Clarke, they jumped the line in front of two other Primes.  

Pretty soon (if they haven't already) Russel and Simone are going to start doing the math of....  If Priya is the seventh of her line and there was no time between bodies (which there seems to be) then average life span is 60 years old and even with Clarke, Simone and Russell are going to have to wait 56 and 70 years for bodies.  The three heads likely move them out to 98 and 112 years.  

I also got the feeling that he intentionally took down the barriers before the four other Primes were inside.   I think he's wiping out the other Primes because the hosts available are dwindling.  Kind of like spacing on the arc and eating losers in the Wonkru fighting pits because of limited resources.  I wouldn't be surprised if Russell secretly took over the Children of Gabriel when Gabriel disappeared into the anomaly and the "terrorists" are a bunch of patsies that's he's successfully manipulated to becoming more violent against Primes.

Also extremely convenient that Clarke's kidnapping is stopped after Russell knows she's a night blood and while she is paralyzed.

8 hours ago, Lady Calypso said:

Although, I do want to point out that Russell's math about having to wait 56 years for Josephine to be reborn makes it seem like they know exactly when the next Nightblood is born. It sounds like they're born every 14 years (Delilah is 21, Rose is 7) so now I'm confused with how they would know that.

It's all very confusing now that I put some brain power into this plot. 

I watched it again.  He clearly doesn't know that its exactly fourteen years.  It sounded like the time between host births has been declining and he's extrapolating based on the last time between hosts as the best case scenario.

Simone was talking about now that they've reached the limit of their mortality a ship arrived.  That is basically where they are.  If there are no hosts and the next body is available in 28 years and 60 (21 years before being a host and 39 after) is the maximum average life span based on Priya being the 7th of her line, then by the time the next body is free there will likely be only one Prime in a body.

So that Prime is likely to keep all the hosts for themselves and try to rule everyone.  And they better have one really good sycophant dedicated to resurrecting them.

Or the Children of Gabriel only need to kill the next host born to take out the Primes entirely.

So the Primes are doomed.  There is no chance they'll take it on faith that there are no other night bloods on the ship.  Everyone is going to get strapped down and cut open to see what color they bleed.  Then they'll start torture to see if they can learn how to make a night blood.

With Josephine in Clarke's body, now she and Priya are the only ones that should be young enough to have a shot at the next host if they wait for a natural occurrence.

That was too much math.

[Taryn74]

43 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

I also got the feeling that he intentionally took down the barriers before the four other Primes were inside.   I think he's wiping out the other Primes because the hosts available are dwindling.  Kind of like spacing on the arc and eating losers in the Wonkru fighting pits because of limited resources.  I wouldn't be surprised if Russell secretly took over the Children of Gabriel when Gabriel disappeared into the anomaly and the "terrorists" are a bunch of patsies that's he's successfully manipulated to becoming more violent against Primes.

Oooooh very interesting thoughts!

[roctavia]

I don't think it will matter to the primes that Clarke was made a nightblood, they won't want it to get out to the general population i'd think, but would want to know just to save themselves. I'm sure the original primes were all "made" into nightbloods before they were shipped out, so it's not like they tie it to some god thing the way the grounders had. ( I mean, that talk about it like that and some people probably believe it's divine, but the primes know the truth.)

Edited May 23, 2019 by roctavia

[ottoDbusdriver]

On 5/22/2019 at 7:17 AM, Paloma said:

LOL re the cookies; when we saw the platter of cookies, my husband said "Glad they managed to find Pepperidge Farm." I wouldn't know, since I don't eat either Girl Scout Cookies or Pepperidge Farm. But I would have been more suspicious about eating and drinking anything these people were offering at the party, at least until I found out more about Primes and the naming ceremony. I get that our crew is tired of living in space and fighting and so they want to believe this is a sanctuary, but there is too much that seems "off" in this society even with what little they already know. 

Apparently there is also a Victoria's Secret (based on the quality of Clarke's new bra) and a Men's Warehouse (based on Mechanic Prime's suit) on Sanctum.

On 5/22/2019 at 9:32 AM, Sakura12 said:

They are basically having JR Bourne playing a Tokra from SG-1 again. Lol  

We need the primes to have glowing eyes, just so we (the audience) know.

It's interesting that Sanctum is primarily a pastoral agrarian society -- except for the radiation shield (Dr. Chaotica, where are you ?), the nightclub that reminded me of Tech Noir from the 'Terminator', and the hospital equipment.

And what was with all the creepy skeletons surrounding the hospital bed when Clarke was implanted ?  Seems like an odd way to store former hosts.

200+ year old motorcycles -- uhh, I think not.  Regardless of how many times they rebuilt the engines, unless they discovered rubber trees those tires would have rotted many years ago.
Lat alone, where's the iron mine, and steel refinery to produce refined metals for replacement parts ?  Do they also come from beetles they discovered, like the paralytics ?

The stupidest part of this episode -- Diyoza and the search party camping out exactly at the spot that Octavia and Rose happen to pass by, just in time to gun down the CoG.

Why, oh why, can't one of the Primes be called Optimus ?

Edited May 23, 2019 by ottoDbusdriver

[ketose]

It wouldn't be The 100 without some good old BS pseudo-science. Yet again, the show is carefully avoiding any explanation about how Becca blood works. She was able to give people that blood and apparently did it for some of the grounders. Then there's this genetic component where sometimes maybe some of them get the blood. It's probably recessive because it tends to diminish rather than increase in the population. And, of course, the dumbass Grounders made sure to kill off all but one person every generation, ensuring that Night blood would be gone as soon as possible.

My guess is that the primes don't have children because even if they came up with a kid with royal blood, that would just mean one more special person who needs a host and not one more person to become one. It's okay for the rabble and the barmaids to lose their souls, but not them.

Having watched the other show with a girl named Echo, Dollhouse, Clarke is probably going to be able to reassert herself because she already had interaction with one of those brain interfaces. In fact, maybe Madi can use her Commander chip to restart Clarke's memories.

[KittenPokerCheater]

Was Clarke always a nightblood?  Or did she become one during one of her attempts to save the world?  Because if she's not an OG nightblood, then maybe the chip won't work very well and we will have split personality Clarkaphine.

[AudienceofOne]

Dear Show

I was actually joking about the "Stargate meets the Shannara Chronicles" thing. This was not a genuine recommendation. 

Thanks 

[Paloma]

7 hours ago, KittenPokerCheater said:

Was Clarke always a nightblood?  Or did she become one during one of her attempts to save the world?  Because if she's not an OG nightblood, then maybe the chip won't work very well and we will have split personality Clarkaphine.

I think her mother made her into a nightblood in some pseudo-science way, but someone else will have to tell you when and how--I can't remember the details.

[Sakura12]

Abby and Clarke were trying to find ways to survive the nuclear apocalypse, they made a serum and were going to test it on prisoners. Once Clarke saw that Echo was one of the prisoners, she injected it in herself to test it. 

[domina89]

23 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

Also is Raven's Prime guy the boy Josephine was hooking up with in the flashbacks? That will probably cause some issues if she sees who she thinks is Clarke with him. 

I thought that was Gabriel, the (now old) guy that is fighting against the Primes?  If so, Josephine probably wants him dead and will try to use Clarke's body to get the job done.

[Lady Calypso]

10 hours ago, KittenPokerCheater said:

Was Clarke always a nightblood?  Or did she become one during one of her attempts to save the world?  Because if she's not an OG nightblood, then maybe the chip won't work very well and we will have split personality Clarkaphine.

No, Clarke was made into a nightblood by Abby in season 4, to test to see if they could survive the impending second nuclear apocalypse. But Becca, way back when, also artifically made nightbloods so the original Primes weren't born Nightbloods, I'm pretty sure. 

What might help Clarke is that she had to take both Becca's version 2 chip and had her version 3 Flame in her head at the end of season 3, while also having Ontari's Nightblood being transfused. Clarke's experience with the Flame might help save her and store her consciousness at the back of her mind, making it easier to break through later on.

[quarks]

2 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

Abby and Clarke were trying to find ways to survive the nuclear apocalypse, they made a serum and were going to test it on prisoners. Once Clarke saw that Echo was one of the prisoners, she injected it in herself to test it. 

I thought that was Emori, not Echo, and that Clarke injected herself after Murphy yelled at her?

With the kinda surprising result this season of Emori joining in with the general anti-Clarke snark, and Echo, who has no prior friendship with or reason to be grateful to Clarke, supporting Clarke. 

[Taryn74]

2 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

Abby and Clarke were trying to find ways to survive the nuclear apocalypse, they made a serum and were going to test it on prisoners. Once Clarke saw that Echo was one of the prisoners, she injected it in herself to test it. 

Actually Clarke already had nightblood before that.  After Ontari died, Murphy had to pump Ontari's heart by hand so Ontari's nightblood could be infused into Clarke so she could take the Flame and attempt to become a Commander.  What Abby and Clarke were testing on the prisoner was whether the nightblood (which Clarke already had) was enough to withstand the coming radiation from the nuclear plants melting down.

[CooperTV]

2 minutes ago, Taryn74 said:

Actually Clarke already had nightblood before that.  After Ontari died, Murphy had to pump Ontari's heart by hand so Ontari's nightblood could be infused into Clarke so she could take the Flame and attempt to become a Commander.  What Abby and Clarke were testing on the prisoner was whether the nightblood (which Clarke already had) was enough to withstand the coming radiation from the nuclear plants melting down.

She didn't have a nightblood at the end of season 3. It was a transfusion from Ontari's body, not a permanent fix. Clarke makes the injection of an untested nightblood in season 4, and Pramfiya turns out to be the only test for the nightblood.

[Taryn74]

24 minutes ago, CooperTV said:

She didn't have a nightblood at the end of season 3. It was a transfusion from Ontari's body, not a permanent fix. Clarke makes the injection of an untested nightblood in season 4, and Pramfiya turns out to be the only test for the nightblood.

Ah, I was thinking the S3 transfusion was permanent.  I guess it didn't become permanent until Clarke injected herself in S4.  Thanks for the clarification!

[AudienceofOne]

So let's talk about all the ways in which this society makes no sense.

I don't know how many 'Primes' there are, but we just had 14 years between Nightbloods being born. So how is there a resistance movement against this? When was it formed? What, they hang out in the forest for 21 years waiting for the new one to grow up? 

This is a society of elites and those that are bred to re-enforce that system. A resistance movement under these terms makes sense. But why would one form if there's been a naming day only every decade or so? What, one child becomes a Prime every ten years or so and in the meantime they live a safe and comfortable existence with lots of food, shelter, employment, quality medical care with little violence or social unrest on a planet that actively tries to kill them every now and then?

If the Primes call themselves Gods, who really cares under these circumstances? 

It's clear they needed the Primes to be sympathetic but also so desperate that they'd be willing to consider taking Clarke. But in doing so they've created a situation that really doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. 

This is the most illogical social structure since we found out the Grounders were taking exceedingly rare Nightbloods and making them fight to the death. 

[Guest]

@AudienceofOne  You are right the resistance doesn't make sense with what we know.

If the Children of Gabriel were mostly hosts of family of recent hosts, then it would make sense.  But the birthrate is too low for that.

So the only explanation is that there is something so oppressive about how the Primes treat non-hosts that they are willing to rebel to end the Primes because they can't live under their tyranny for their lifetime even though the Primes would be naturally down to one or two in single generation and gone in two generations.  But that leads to everyone else that seems so happy must be brainwashed.

[SourK]

Okay, the pieces of this season are starting to come together for me, and I like it so far. Lots of people on redemption/atonement arcs from different angles, that weird leader guy on a "dark" atonement arc where he tries to make up for killing everyone during the eclipse by bringing them back to life but only makes everything worse, Madi learning how to suppress the dark Commander like Clarke will probably need to suppress the Prime personality... I'm on board. This is interesting.

(Also, I see that very deliberate parallel where the leader apologized for closing the door while people were trapped on the other side, just like Clarke closed the door in the first of her many "I had to do what I had to do and I'm sorry but I'd do it again" decisions.)

On 5/21/2019 at 10:21 PM, Sakura12 said:

I figured Clarke wouldn't choose that on her own. But these people need to tell them what's going on. Killion or whatever his name should've told Clarke what was happening instead of being so cryptic about it. And Delilah should have told Jordan she'd be gone and Priya would take over. I would assume they would know that they are giving up their body.

Yeah, I'm confused about what their attitude is about this, but I guess we'll find out based on how they handle it in the next episodes. On the one hand, it seems like the non-Prime people should find this all very normal and unremarkable and not see any reason to actively hide it from the outsiders, but the Primes seem to know that what they're doing is messed-up, even if they're willing to go through with it.

So the non-Primes are in kind of a weird territory where it seems like there's no reason they would keep it secret, but they're being super cagey about it for unknown reasons.

On 5/22/2019 at 7:17 AM, Paloma said:

But I would have been more suspicious about eating and drinking anything these people were offering at the party, at least until I found out more about Primes and the naming ceremony. I get that our crew is tired of living in space and fighting and so they want to believe this is a sanctuary, but there is too much that seems "off" in this society even with what little they already know. 

I had a similar moment where I laughed at Clarke for being such a joiner when she did the balloon thing. I was like, "You don't even know these people and you don't understand their rituals, but you'll just jump right on board." But then I remembered that Skycru culture has always involved a community ritual element -- Marcus and his mom had some weird tree, IIRC, and they had special days where they would stand around and ritualistically say stuff. So it kind of makes sense to me that, if they want to belong, they would be like, "Oh, you're having a festival day to bond the community together. I know about that. Let me play."

On 5/22/2019 at 10:54 AM, Sakura12 said:

Do they really think their hair twirling daughter can pretend to be Clarke?

This is also a good question. As above, I'm not sure we know, because it seems like she shouldn't have to impersonate Clarke. It seems like impersonating the person you took as host is not part of this exchange under normal circumstances, and it's not clear why they would be motivated to hide this from Skycru if they've already gotten what they wanted.

The only scenario where I could see them trying to hide it is if they still want to get on board the ship. So, I guess we'll see.

On 5/22/2019 at 2:37 PM, Sakura12 said:

I don't agree with Raven, because any one of them can step up and make decisions, but when everything is falling apart they all turn to Clarke. She's the one with the weight of the world on her shoulders and none of them want to take it from her.

The part that I do agree with is that an apology doesn't mean anything if your behavior doesn't change. Continuing to hurt someone over and over and saying "sorry" each time is meaningless.

However, I don't think anyone has articulated a clear request for what they would like Clarke to do instead of what she's been doing (like, "How about you talk to us first and we vote" or "We want you to prioritize X over Y" or something). They just come in after the fact and say, "We don't like what you did!" instead of saying what they wish she had done differently. So I'm not sure how they're expecting her to change. (Also, my perspective is skewed because I straight-up don't remember most of what happened last season.)

[AudienceofOne]

47 minutes ago, SourK said:

However, I don't think anyone has articulated a clear request for what they would like Clarke to do instead of what she's been doing 

Clarke in season 2 to Octavia: I'm doing the best I can. What do you want me to do?

Octavia: BETTER! 

Geez, thanks Octavia. Super helpful. 

I like Raven a lot as a character but her black and white armchair quarterbacking is f'ing annoying sometimes. 

50 minutes ago, SourK said:

(Also, my perspective is skewed because I straight-up don't remember most of what happened last season.)

Mine is skewed by the fact that, to me, she was wildly out of character last season. So every now and then I remember that she did screw everyone over to keep Madi safe. But she did it in such an uncharacteristically non-Clarke way that I can't reconcile it with her characterisation. At the time I simply didn't believe she didn't have a long-term strategy to back Diyoza over McCreary to save everyone and it all smacked of poor writing to me. 

But, in-show, all that did happen and I have to remind myself that the characters are dealing with their feelings about it - even if the whole season was badly written. You could see the author's fingerprints all over it frankly. They clearly wanted to explore what happens when your notion of who is in your "tribe" or "family" changes but Clarke's moral and ethical choices have always been more nuanced than that. She's always tried to save the most people with the smallest losses, even if those losses are not numerically small. And I find it hard to believe that she'd put saving Madi's life above creating a society she'd want Madi to actually live in. And Season 5 asked me to accept that. I didn't. 

But I have to approach season 6 by reminding myself that for the characters this is something they have to grapple with and it's going to affect how they respond to Clarke's actions. I just wish they were given more time to explore that rather than doing it in shorthand like they always do. This show never lets a moment breathe anymore.

[UNOSEZ]

This was a good episode.. I liked a lot of what i saw and I'm excited for the next episode... But I won't lie.. Seeing Raven be all flirty with the mechanic guy got under my skin... because no matter the reasoning.. And I hear its because the actor for shaw had other "opportunities" ( something I've heard before when a black guy gets written off of a show he's been under-utilized in)  they went and replaced him with  handsome white guy... And no shade to the new actor.. Get work where you can and I hope the character is written well... But man have I seen this story before...