'The 100' Season 7 Episode 11 Review: Bob Morley's Bellamy Blake returns, but something's different about him
Spoilers for 'The 100' Season 7 Episode 11 'Etherea'
The lack of Bob Morley's presence in the trailer for the seventh and final season of The CW's 'The 100' had many fans worried. Those worries proved true when Morley's character, Bellamy Blake was dragged off by invisible Disciple soldiers within the first few minutes of the season. After the first episode ended, we learned that Bellamy would be absent for a few episodes as Morley wanted to take a break.
All of that was well and good, but since we were never told when Bellamy would be returning, for viewers it was a waiting game -- a waiting game that finally ended when we saw the promo for this week's episode, featuring Bellamy completely. But after what they see in this week's episode, some fans might be wishing to go back to before.
While we were waiting for Bellamy, the second season of Netflix's 'The Umbrella Academy' released. We bring this up because one of the main characters, Diego Hargreeves (David Castañeda), had grown out his hair and looked a lot like Bellamy, prompting many 'The 100' fans to joke that, "that's where he went." Turns out, the joke was on us because when the promo for 'Etherea' was released a week later, we were given a Bellamy Blake with longer hair and looking a lot like Diego himself.
Jokes and everything else aside, let's take a look at the events of this week's episode which centered completely on Bellamy. Some might say it featured his emancipation, but the rest of us might say indoctrination. We had theorized earlier that Bellamy was alive, in part because the character he was standing next to was played by Jonathan Scarfe, who has got enviable sci-fi credits like 'Van Helsing' and 'The Magicians' to his name. There was no way that Scarfe was in a one-off appearance. We just did not know how important Scarfe's character was going to be. Fun fact: Scarfe is one of the leads for 'Van Helsing', in the latest season of which features Richard Harmon -- who plays John Murphy in 'The 100' -- as a villain.
We begin this week's episode with a banged up and angrier Levitt (Jason Diaz) using the M-Cap machine on one of the Disciples to learn more about the blast they earlier thought took Bellamy's life. On closer inspection, he sees that Bellamy, in fact, went into the anomaly.
An uneasy alliance
The episode then picks up with Bellamy landing on Etherea, which looks to be like a wild planet. Scarfe's Conductor Doucette is on the planet with him and though they get into a skirmish at first, Bellamy subdues him and later tells him that he would rather have the both of them survive so they can get back to wherever they want to.
It looks like an unlikely pairing at first: Doucette is a firm believer in the Shepherd -- whom we know to be Bill Cadogan (John Pyper-Ferguson) -- and Bellamy gets quite tired on hearing about him. Bellamy also reads Doucette's book to pass the time -- a sort of Bible for the Disciple followers. He tells Doucette that things don't add up -- how can the path to peace aka transcendence go through a war first? Bellamy's disbelief does not matter to Doucette -- in fact, the latter's belief is so unshakeable that he is able to a better job than dear old Anders (Neal McDonough), but more on that later.
It is quite a tricky situation at first as Bellamy and Doucette trek through the rocky and snowy terrain to get closer to the peak where the anomaly stone is. At one point, Bellamy chooses to keep going against Doucette's wishes as the latter believes it is snowing too much for them to make through the path safely. Sure as Doucette predicted, Bellamy freezes and collapses, though Doucette finds him and takes him to a cave. This is where the trouble starts.
Doucette and Bellamy spend months in the cave -- long enough for their hair and beards to grow out. When they first got to the cave, they went deeper inside, which showed three sources of light in the shape of people. According to the Disciple's Bible, this is the Cave of Ascent and the three sources of light were people who "ascended." In the beginning, Bellamy was still skeptical. However, months into their time in the cave, he humors Doucette and joins in on the prayer.
Bellamy 'ascends'
When he prays, he ends up hallucinating himself in the same cave -- sans the noise, the long hair and the facial growth -- and sees Cadogan (John Pyper-Ferguson). Cadogan leads him inside, where we see Bellamy's mother, Aurora Blake (Monique Ganderton) who leads him to the light. When he wakes up, he and Dustat are looking outside. It turns out, the first time that Bellamy prayed coincided with the abatement of the storm, as Doucette's -- and Bellamy's -- belief in the Shepherd grows. This belief also comes into play when Doucette nearly loses his life as they were climbing the steep side of the mountain. Together, Bellamy and Doucette recite the Shepherd's prayer as Bellamy pulls him up to safety. A Bellamy from earlier seasons may not have -- Doucette had copied the symbols needed to get to Bardo on the book and slipped it into Bellamy's coat.
When the two get to the anomaly and take a literal "leap of faith," they end up back in Bardo, to be welcomed by Cadogan himself. The first thing Bellamy does when he sees him is kneeling to him. If you were still holding out hope, what comes next takes it right out from under you.
Cadogan leads Bellamy to his quarters where Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor), Octavia Blake (Marie Avgeropoulos), Echo (Tasya Teles), and Gabriel Santiago (Chuku Modu) are being held. Clarke hugs Bellamy and whispers to him that the key is the Flame and that she has a plan. However, Bellamy calls out for "my Shepherd" and tells him that the Flame was destroyed, destroying any leverage that they had as the Clarke, Octavia, Echo and Gabriel look on in horror.
Final thoughts
Given that Cadogan was in the stone room to welcome Bellamy and Doucette, it might be safe to say that after the events of last week's episode -- when Echo brutally beat up Levitt and Octavia refused to untie him, that Levitt is probably not a big fan of Octavia's anymore. This means that any allies that they might have still had are now completely gone. It is also worrisome that Raven Reyes (Lindsey Morgan), Hope Diyoza (Shelby Flannery), Nathan Miller (Jarod Joseph), Niylah (Jessica Harmon), and Jordan Green (Shannon Kook) were not in the same room as Clarke and the others.
Bellamy's turn is, of course, more worrisome. The last time Bellamy blindly followed someone was when Charles Pike (Michael Beach) came to the Ground and that ended quite badly after Bellamy's actions led to the death of Octavia's boyfriend, Lincoln (Ricky Whittle) at the hands of Pike, thus ruining their sibling relationship for years to come. Those of us hoping for a wholesome Octavia-Bellamy reunion may either have to wait longer. We may also never get one given that Bellamy's odds of survival just reduced massively after this episode.
If we were analyzing the expressions of the other characters, we would also see that Clarke (and Octavia, obviously), looked much more hurt than Echo, who mainly just looked shocked. After everything she did in his name, this must come as a double betrayal for Echo. Now we know for sure that Bellamy is likely to end things with Echo should he hear that Echo considered genocide against the people he now considers his own. After all, the synopsis for the next episode states, "Clarke, Octavia, Raven, and Echo struggle with a new foe," and the title of the episode is 'The Stranger' -- both "foe" and "stranger" are clearly referring to Bellamy.
Now, we did see Bellamy come out from under Pike's influence, but in this case, his indoctrination looks to be quite strong. We really are low on hope when it comes to wondering whether Bellamy would return to his old self and if he does so, would that mean a death soon enough? This is also what we meant when we said that Doucette did a better job than Anders -- Echo, Octavia, and the others never believed in the Shepherd's might at all, but Bellamy most definitely does.
Right now, we have many questions and there are just five episodes left to this season. Back on Sanctum, things are quite bad as well given that Indra (Adina Porter) was forced to kneel to Sheidheda (JR Bourne), and Murphy has been forced into hiding with Emori (Luisa d'Oliveira), Madi (Lola Flannery), and the Faithful. With so few episodes left and certainly quite a few casualties to go, do we hope for a satisfying end to the season and the series? For fans' sake, let's hope so.
'The 100' airs on The CW on Wednesday nights at 8/7c.