'The 100' Season 7 Countdown: Key episodes to watch ahead of final season premiere next week
With just a handful of days to go before the final season of 'The 100' premieres on The CW, now is the best time to revisit some of the best and most essential episodes of the post-apocalyptic show.
When it comes to 'The 100', no episode is bad per se, but some are so excellent that they are definitely more memorable than the others. Here's the list of episodes we're adding to our watchlist and why you should too — unless, of course, you are binge-watching the first six seasons before next Wednesday.
Season 1 Episode 4 'Murphy's Law'
As Sachin Sahel told us, Season 1 Episode 4 is when 'The 100' started to become what it is today. But with 'Murphy's Law', we have to look at the episodes before and after to know exactly why 'Murphy's Law' was so good.
In the third episode, we see Charlotte — the youngest delinquent — having nightmares about Thelonius Jaha (Isaiah Washington) who floated her parents. Both Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) and Bellamy Blake (Bob Morley) help Charlotte to deal with the nightmares. However, Charlotte misinterprets Bellamy's advice and kills Jaha's son, Wells Jaha (Eli Goree).
'Murphy's Law' saw 'The 100' becoming entirely like 'Lord of the Flies' — the delinquents decide to be judge, jury and executioner and nearly hang John Murphy (Richard Harmon) for the crime of killing Wells, which is when Charlotte confesses. She is unable to handle the guilt and jumps off the cliff to her death.
In the episode following 'Murphy's Law', Raven Reyes (Lindsey Morgan) has reached the ground and we also see the AdultKru in full-fledged action. This was the painful episode that saw the culling of 300 citizens on the Ark.
Between these three episodes, we saw many different sides of humanity and the kind of storytelling that defined what 'The 100' truly represents.
Season 2 episodes
This may be a bit of a cheat but it truly is hard to choose one episode from Season 2 — easily one of the top two seasons of the show along with the sixth season. There were too many shocking moments that still stay with the viewers even if it may be years since they watched it.
In Season 2, Clarke and some of the delinquents find themselves to be prisoners of the descendants of those who survived the first Praimfaya in Mount Weather. We learned the horrifying truth later on that these people wanted to use SkaiKru as living bone marrow donors so that the people of Mount Weather could finally go outside.
This season also saw the exploration of the Grounder society — exactly how they were divided and how they had one ruling Commander and the introduction of Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey), one of the fan-favorite characters.
But besides all this, it also showed that the good guys could just as easily become bad. Take Finn Collins (Thomas McDonell) who killed 18 grounders after holding a grounder village hostage to find Clarke. In the midseason finale, Finn was sentenced to death, but instead of letting the Grounders torture him to death, Clarke kills him with one stab to the heart.
Then, of course, there is the season finale, which saw Clarke and Bellamy together pull the lever that would kill the people of Mount Weather. It was either that or let them continue to kill SkaiKru. But this also meant that many innocent people died — the guilt for which Bellamy and Clarke have been carrying ever since.
Season 3 Episode 7 'Thirteen'
How can we explain how much we love this episode for one part of it? This is when we see the first of the flashbacks to the past detailing Becca Franco (Erica Cerra) creating A.L.I.E. — the AI software that caused the first Praimfaya — and A.L.I.E. 2, the flame that is taken by the Commander. In fact, this episode could have set the layout for the prequel episode in the final season as well.
This is also one of the most controversial episodes of the series. Clarke and Lexa finally sleep together, but in a very unnecessary turn of events, Lexa's flamekeeper, Titus (Neil Sandilands), tries to shoot Clarke but ends up shooting Lexa instead.
Thus began The 100's woes with its LGBTQ fanbase. Nothing they did ever made up for Lexa's death, not even Lexa's surprise appearance in the Season 3 finale. It also sparked a widespread conversation about television's treatment of LGBTQ characters and even today, we wish 'The 100' had taken a different route.
Season 4 Episode 11 'The Other Side'
Season 4 of 'The 100' was a race against time as Clarke, Bellamy and the others tried to figure out how to save humanity from the next nuclear apocalypse, which A.L.I.E warned Clarke about. This was the season that saw Octavia Blake (Marie Avgeropoulos) become a leader, something that would not turn out well in later seasons.
This particular episode, 'The Other Side', saw the death of another major OG character. Jasper Jordan (Devon Bostick) finally chose death after suffering from PTSD, potentially since the very first episode. Jasper is the character who showed that not everyone adjusts well and his story, though painful, played out the way it needed to.
Jasper's death scene was not only a testament to who he was as a person but also his friendship with Monty Green (Christopher Larkin). When Monty discovers that Jasper took the hallucinogenic Jobi nuts to die, he tries to make Jasper throw up by putting his fingers in the latter's mouth, to which a dying Jasper says, "This is unsanitary."
When Monty says he will never forgive him, Jasper says he should not have to live with that and tells Monty to say that he loves him. The scene where Jasper dies in Monty's arms never fails to make us cry and will possibly be good preparation for the final season, where we are sure a few fan-favorites could meet an untimely end.
Season 5 Episode 1 'Eden'
The first episode of Season 5 was a tour de force where Clarke survived the second Praimfaya. This is when she also comes across Madi (Lola Flannery), whom she adopts.
At one point, we see Clarke grapple with the idea of suicide, which is when she discovers the Shadow Valley and Madi. To carry an entire episode on one's shoulders is a difficult task, but Eliza Taylor pulled it off brilliantly.
It showed us that Clarke is always a survivor, one whom we will always root for.
Season 6 episodes
As we mentioned before, Season 6 is one of the top two seasons of the show along with Season 2. With the sixth season, 'The 100' also began a new book as the surviving members of the human race from Earth and the Eligius prisoner ship traveled to a new world.
The finale of the fifth season saw that Monty and his partner, Harper McIntyre (Chelsey Reist), chose to live out their full lives while Monty did the calculations to find another planet, which he succeeded. The farmer did save the human race after all. Monty's story played out as an antithesis to Jasper's and he tells Clarke and Bellamy to "do better" in his final video message, a mantra Clarke and Bellamy have been trying to live by since.
The adventure that began in Season 6 will come to a conclusion in the final season and therefore, we think all of Season 6 is essential viewing before the beginning of the end.
Follow MEA WorldWide's countdown to the final season of 'The 100' for more. The final season will premiere on May 20 on The CW at 8/7c.