'The 100' Season 7 Episode 13 Review: A haphazard and intense episode sees potential death of an OG character
Spoilers for 'The 100' Season 7 Episode 13 'Blood Giant'
Well, we are back after a long break of three weeks for the final leg of Season 7 of 'The 100'. The final season of the post-apocalyptic The CW show has us on the edge but it is still missing that spark that previous seasons have had. Now that nearly everyone has come together on Sanctum, let's see if that will change.
The last we saw of Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) and the others, Bill Cadogan (John Pyper-Ferguson) had sent most of her friends to an unknown planet, holding them hostage until Clarke gave him the Flame aka the Key. On reaching Sanctum, however, they realize that the situation is not as they left it. Russell Lightbourne (JR Bourne) is now sitting at a throne and John Murphy (Richard Harmon) is kneeling at his feet. Clearly, both groups have a lot of catching up to do. Let's take a look at the events of the episode what it means for the rest of the season.
Hello again, red sun
We know that Russell is now actually Sheidheda after the latter killed the former in the headspace and Sheidheda is a bit cocky now given that he has been able to take over Sanctum relatively easily. Unfortunately for him, he did not take into account the power of invisibility and Sheidheda's soldiers are soon killed. When he tries to run at Cadogan, Sheideda is stabbed by another invisible soldier. That's one threat quickly dealt with by Cadogan.
Cadogan then sets out with Clarke, Raven Reyes (Lindsey Morgan), Murphy, Bellamy Blake (Bob Morley), and Conductor Doucette (Jonathan Scarfe) to get the Flame. On the way, he changes his mind and decides that Clarke should go retrieve the Flame on her own. While they are alone, Cadogan tries to talk Bellamy into believing they are the same and that Bellamy is "special." During this time, we also get some quality content between Raven and Murphy who brief each other on what happened. Murphy quips that the craziest thing of the ordeal is seeing that Bellamy is now a "sheep."
Meanwhile, at the reactor people are going hungry. The Eligius prisoner Nikki (Alaina Huffman) is still tied up though she manages to free herself and hold a man hostage to negotiate her way outside. This is when the red sun warning plays, offering Emori (Luisa D'Oliveira) with enough time to distract Nikki and turn off the power, therefore removing the radioactive shield. The warning also makes Cadogan think Clarke is playing another trick but Bellamy knows better.
This is when everything jumps to the next gear on the episode. This feels quite fast-paced especially since we have come back after a break. Most of them are starting to feel the effects of the red sun, especially Gabriel Santiago (Chuku Modu) who begins to see Josephine Lightbourne (Sara Thompson). His hallucination of Josephine is trying to convince him to fix the Flame and take it for himself to save humanity.
Meanwhile, just as Bellamy, Cadogan, Murphy, Raven, and Doucette make it to the reactor room, so does Clarke. She has the Flame but will only give it to Cadogan when he opens the door to the reactor. When this is done and Clarke and Madi are reunited, Madi immediately has a look of fear and confusion when she sees Cadogan. Later, she tells Clarke that she remembers him but Clarke tells her to never repeat that to anyone else.
Raven, now inside the reactor, goes back in the core room to fix it, still plagued by the deaths of the four Eligius prisoners that she is technically responsible for. Once she fixes it, Nikku comes walking in and when it looked like she was going to die, she begs Nikki to do it, giving the latter the better idea of letting Raven live with the guilt.
On another part of Sanctum, Sheidheda and Indra (Adina Porter) have been tied together by Cadogan's soldiers. They begin to scheme in Trigedaslang and work together. However, the toxin's effects are showing on Indra as she begins hallucinating a woman who we later learn to be her mother who kneeled to Sheidheda to save her family. Indra manages to free herself and take down most of the Disciple soldiers. However, one wears a helmet and goes invisible. Sheidheda sees the soldier's footsteps after the latter steps in blood and warns Indra, allowing her to turn around and behead the soldier. When she gets to Sheidheda, she tells him he is already dying, forbidding both Gabriel and Eric Jackson (Sachin Sahel) from treating him, though neither were planning on it anyway.
Now that everyone has access to the antitoxin -- well, except everyone. Gabriel is still choosing not to use it and sees Josephine. He tells Cadogan he can fix the Flame and while it is in the process, it looks like Gabriel will also volunteer to put the Flame in his head, but he knows better and instead shoots the Flame, destroying it forever. However, his actions give Clarke the time to take control of the situation and she tells Cadogan to lead them to the offline planet where their friends are being held hostage.
At that moment, Sheidheda tells Bellamy he can help him and directs him to Madi's drawing book where she has drawn memories from the Flame. Knowing this will help Cadogan (for Bellamy) and that it will endanger Madi's life (for Clarke), both of them get into an emotional conversation to convince each other. Unfortunately, neither of them can be and before Clarke goes into the anomaly, she shoots Bellamy to keep Madi safe.
Final thoughts
Well, at this point like most fans we are left without words. We never did think it was possible that one of the two main leads (Bellamy and Clarke) would be killed off and as someone who has watched and loved this show for seven years, Bellamy's apparent fate has left us in the denial stage of the five stages of loss, though anger might be quite close by. We know this for sure: if Bellamy is really dead, he deserved much better from the show and so did fans.
We do have a nagging feeling that this might be a red herring, though it is probably because the loss of Bellamy is so hard to accept. We knew that the character needed redemption and a comeback story, one that was worthy of seven seasons, especially since he was missing for most of the final season. Bellamy's apparent death also means big things for the remaining three episodes. We need to see how Clarke will handle the guilt of killing her best friend -- surely there was another way? How will his sister, Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos), and his girlfriend Echo (Tasya Teles) react to the news? Will they turn on Clarke or will they understand that they lost the Bellamy they knew long ago?
The return episode felt quite haphazard. There was way too much happening and the ending especially left a really bad taste in our mouth. 'The 100' is phenomenal and while the final season has seen some great episodes, we are unsure of how the remaining three episodes will fare. Is it even worth it? We hope it is and that there is some meaning to all that has gone down so far.
'The 100' airs on The CW on Wednesday nights at 8/7c.