After a two-week break, The 100 is back to continue its final journey with “A Little Sacrifice.”
Honestly, a two-week hiatus is exactly what I needed. For anyone who’s read my reviews of this season so far, I’ve been a bit displeased with how it’s turned out. However, the two-week break has allowed me to recollect my thoughts and appreciate the fact that we even get to finish this story at all.
So many television shows are cursed with not being able to finish on their own terms. It would be tragic if The 100 became one of the many. That being said, we only have a few episodes left and it’s hard for me to imagine how all of the drama this season will be resolved by then.
This episode only added more fuel to the fire. Especially after a beloved character died while an evil character rose to power.
Let’s dive into this week’s episode.
Kneel for Me
The episode picks up right after Sheidheda brutally murdered a room full of Sanctum citizens. But murdering all those people was only part of his plan to rise to power.
With his ultimate goal of becoming the Commander again, Sheidheda is preparing to take on Indra. As the leading Commander of Wonkru, she is the one person that has the most potential in stopping his plans. His way of defeating Indra is through Madi, because if anyone can get people to follow him, it’s a former Commander.
I swear Sheidheda gets more terrifying every time we see him. Perhaps this time was particularly frightening because he was drenched in blood. Regardless, it’s no wonder Madi succumbs and kneels before him. He scared the living hell out of her. The fact that she doesn’t remain curled up in a ball for the rest of her life just proves how brave and strong she really is.
The scary thing is, Sheidheda knows he’s winning. He knows he has everyone right where he wants them. It’s crazy just how cunning he is and I truly think they saved their best villain for last.
I do have to admit that Indra opting to take down Sheidheda by challenging him to a single combat fight wasn’t exactly the best play. As much as I love Indra and fully think she is capable of kicking ass, Sheidheda seems like the one person she wouldn’t be able to defeat. And, heartbreakingly, she couldn’t.
Even though Madi swooped in at the last minute to try to save Indra (in sort of a Game of Thrones way), her best efforts could not stop Sheidheda from becoming the Commander.
And now that he’s the Commander, things are about to get a hell of a lot worse for not only Madi and Indra, but anyone else who doesn’t kneel before him.
The Key
Throughout this season, there has been a lot of a talk on how important Clarke is to the people of Bardo. She’s the “key” they’ve been searching for to win this war for mankind.
Apparently, Clarke isn’t the key they’ve been looking for. But The Shepherd doesn’t know it yet.
We finally discover that the reason they believe Clarke to be so important is that they think she has the flame. Spoiler alert: she doesn’t and hasn’t for some time. Funnily enough, despite all their best efforts to poke around Octavia’s mind, they couldn’t figure out this one bit of useful information. But it also seems like they’ve been doing everything wrong.
Jordan Green is literally on Bardo for a minute before he is able to crack the code they misinterpreted. According to Jordan, this war they keep talking about may not be a war at all. In fact, it could be just a test.
My money is on they failing the test.
Life and Death
So now that everyone is reunited on Bardo, it’s time for their escape plan to start.
I didn’t believe for a second that Echo, Diyoza, and Octavia were true believers of The Shepherd. As Clarke said, the three most dangerous women in the world wouldn’t blindly follow someone they not only just met, but who tortured them into getting what he wanted.
The moment Echo saved Hope from her daunting sentence on Penance, I knew things were about to kick into high gear. However, I didn’t expect that part of Echo’s escape plan involved dispersing a WMD into Bardo’s water supply.
This decision made me realize why I’ve been especially frustrated with The 100 lately. They continue to spend time with people such as Hope and Echo who have no regard for human life. Hope and Echo were a second away from murdering hundreds of innocent people and we’re just supposed to think that’s okay?
Granted, The 100 has explored this idea before. One of the turning points of the series was when Clarke and Bellamy decided to pull the lever at Mount Weather and kill everyone there in order to save their people. I’m not going to necessarily defend their actions either, but Echo herself pointed out the difference between the two. Clarke and Bellamy made their decision as a desperate attempt to save their people whereas Echo and Hope made their decisions solely out of vengeance.
We saw the pain in Bellamy and Clarke’s eyes when they pulled that lever. It was the last decision they wanted to make because they didn’t want more people to get hurt.
Hope and Echo made their decisions with the intent of hurting people. That’s the difference.
What bothers me is that no one else seems to be fazed by the fact that they were about to commit genocide. Raven calls Echo her sister and embraces her. There are no ramifications for any of the actions these characters make and, because of this, it’ll only be a matter of time until they make the same decision again.
Diyoza died saving the hundreds of people Hope was okay with killing. I can only hope that Diyoza’s death will remind Hope and Echo that vengeance is not the answer.
It’s About Damn Time
Surprising absolutely no one – Bellamy is alive!
Even though it was revealed in the promo of next week’s episode, I still feel like this was the best part of the night.
Bellamy’s death was always suspicious. It was quick, there was no body, and really no reason for us to believe that Bellamy Blake would actually remain dead in the final season. They may have done a good job at convincing Octavia, Echo, and Clarke that he was dead, but there was no way they were ever going to convince me.
As I predicted, it appears as though Bellamy has ended up on another planet. Maybe it’s the one Clarke and Raven ended up on when they first went through the anomaly stone as it looks like he’s in the arctic tundra. Maybe it’s a whole other hell hole — who knows.
Either way, I am so excited to see what exactly Bellamy has been up to. If he did end up on another planet, how did he survive? Is time distorted the same way it is on Bardo?
So many questions that I want answered otherwise, I’ll riot.
The 100 airs on The CW on Wednesdays at 8/7c.
READ ALL OF OUR REVIEWS OF THE FINAL SEASON
‘The 100’ 7×01 Review: “From The Ashes”
‘The 100’ 7×02 Review: “The Garden”
‘The 100’ 7×04 Review: “Hesperides”
‘The 100’ 7×05 Review – “Welcome to Bardo”
“The 100” 7×06 Review: ‘Nakara’
‘The 100’ 7×07 Review – “The Queen’s Gambit”
‘The 100’ 7×08 Review – “Anaconda”
‘The 100’ 7×09 Review: “The Flock”
‘The 100’ 7×10 Review: “A Little Sacrifice”
‘The 100’ 7×11 Review: “Etherea”
‘The 100’ 7×12 Review: “The Stranger”
‘The 100’ 7×13 Review – “Blood Giant”
‘The 100’ 7×14 Review – “A Sort of Homecoming”
‘The 100’ 7×15 Review: “The Dying of the Light”
‘The 100’ 7×16 Series Finale Review: “The Last War”