'The 100' Season 7: Why Clarke's City of Light adventure provides clues on her being 'the key to the last war'
Spoiler Alert for 'The 100' Season 7 Episode 7 'The Queen's Gambit'
In the trailer for the final season of 'The 100', a particular clip piqued our interest — an unknown man saying that Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) is the key to the last war mankind will ever wage. We've been learning more about what this means over the past few episodes but this week's episode got us closer to the answer.
A long thought about fan theory, that the Shepherd is indeed Bill Cadogan (John Pyper-Ferguson) was finally confirmed in this week's episode when the Disciples' leader, Anders (Neal McDonough) woke up the Second Dawn cult leader at the end of the episode. Once Anders informed "Bill" that they have the key, both of them smile menacingly.
To recall, we were introduced to the Second Dawn cult in the fourth season — theirs is the bunker WonKru sheltered in during the years after the second Praimfaya (nuclear apocalypse). At the time, we thought that the Second Dawn people never made it to the bunker. Now, there seems to be increasing evidence that Cadogan and the others probably came across an anomaly stone on Earth. The case is made stronger considering Madi Griffin (Lola Flannery) drew the anomaly stone — something she had never seen herself, therefore suggesting that her memory is from the Flame of the Commanders itself.
This is the first clue as to why Clarke might be considered the key. Remember, Clarke is the only person so far who had both the Flame and the City of Light "pill" in her. We also know from a previous episode that Cadogan potentially had Becca Franco (Erica Cerra) burned at the stake. Becca was the creator of both the ALIE artificial intelligence chip which led to the first nuclear apocalypse after the AI acted out on its own and the Flame, which was technically ALIE 2.
We are not sure what the Disciples' endgame is, but we know that they seek "transcendence" through the anomaly stone during the last war. It might be too early to make any guesses as to what they mean by transcendence. Do they mean some sort of temporal transcendence — go back to the past before the first nuclear apocalypse — or some sort of physical transcendence — where they upload themselves into a virtual environment as ALIE wanted in Season 3?
Remarkably, Clarke is also the only one who has had a mind drive from the explorers in her (Josephine's). So is this why Clarke is considered the key? When Octavia's (Marie Avgeropoulos) memories are extracted by the M-Cap machine, Levitt (Jason Diaz) seemed particularly interested to know whether Clarke survived the City of Light. It could be Octavia's memories of the events of the first three seasons that clued in on Anders and the others of Clarke's significance. To recall, when Clarke defeats ALIE, she has both the City of Light pill and Flame in her at the same time — perhaps this gives her some sort of special quality that Cadogan and the others seek.
We know that whatever it was is important for Cadogan to have spent all that time in a cryo-chamber. It could be that the Disciples want to put Clarke on the M-Cap machine — whatever memories she may have retained from the City of Light pill and the Flame might be the clue to exploiting the anomaly stone the way Cadogan and Anders want.
Even so, we suspect that Madi and Sheidheda might end up playing a larger role in the Bardo storyline even though they've been on Sanctum this whole time. Madi's retention of memories and Sheidheda's memories could be what the Disciples really seek. All we know is that as we reach the halfway point, we are left with more questions. We cannot wait for what the prequel episode will reveal when it airs next week. We also hope to learn more about the anomaly stone and its presence on earth. Fingers crossed, Becca might make a reappearance.
'The 100' airs on The CW on Wednesday nights at 8/7c.